My blog made a Google top 10!

K, so I'm assuming most of you are regular readers and I know you personally. A while ago, however, I put Google Analytics on the blog to see how many readers I had and where they were coming from. Here are a few fun things I learned:
- I have readers all over the world! United Arab Emirates, UK and India to name a few
-Second only to my main page, the most popular hit directing people to my blog was the search "adoption recommendation letter" in google. If you want to read it you'll have to search for yourselves :) It comes in at #7.
-The top places where people read my blog are: Mi, Pa, Ut and Ca. Thanks friends and family! Thanks for keeping up with us.

I have a lot of pictures to post, but I was in a wedding over the weekend and am waiting for some good pics to come in. Tyler has been busy with a couple new office install jobs in Kalamazoo (3 hrs away), which has been a huge blessing for us. He also is looking forward to doing an MTrek (outdoor bonding with classmates) in New Mexico in August. It looks like we're going to be moving to Ann Arbor the weekend of August 7th, the day after I get back from going canoeing with the 4th years at our church's Girls Camp. This summer is going to flllyyy by.

Ways to Capitalize on Jackos Death

Because the world we live in is driven by money, and unfortunately the price paid for gaining money is too often death, divorce or bankruptcy, Tyler and I were discussing ways in which people would capitalize on Michael Jackson's death. Jacko also unfortunately suffered from all three fates. Unfortunately all the people on the news going to his house or leaving flowers at memorials I think are driven by that same desire for celebrity. Moral of the story: try to Not be famous. Live simply. This is especially hard because as you well know I love pop culture. Am I too cynical?

Ways to capitalize:
1. T-shirts
2. Re-release of albums
3. "Hidden/Unreleased/Secret" songs
4. Books
5. Movies
7. Other celebrities getting paid to comment on his death
8. Memorial concerts
9. Making a Graceland of Neverland Ranch
10. Memoribilia auctions
11. Charity Events
12. National Network TV publicizing his funeral
13. Clothing line/style resurrection
14. Local museums like our Motown museum in Detroit will do doubt have special exhibits and events dedicated to him

So stupid. Join me in the boycott.

Oh, did you know Michael Jackson died?

Violet is Two!

The day started off with a bang as Violet dumped out several tablespoons of sugar on the counter. I let her lick up the sugar because well, it's her birthday.



A family picture.. Ava insisted on wearing her princess dress because you always wear your princess dress on special occasions, right?

Tyler grilling. Funny. I have almost the same picture from about five years ago.

Presents!


My kids only eat the frosting.. No cake here! Violet only at the blue balloon.

Hope your day was just as fun. Maybe I'll get sappy about her being two tomorrow. But these pictures seemed too cute to get sappy over.

A Mystery Dinner!

One of our recent church activities was a mystery dinner. We all dressed our parts.. it was really fun!

Tyler was a pro golfer, I was Alberta Newton, a smart but ditzy professor, his dad was a chef, and mom an heiress.

In case you wondered what our stuff looks like

In a garage.

This is about 98% of what we own, in a garage. It's weird when your life is reduced to a few hundred boxes. Simpler in a way.
And of course the girls when they saw me taking pictures wanted their pictures taken too.

Top things to do with kids at Cedar Point

Cedar Point is known for its crazy rollercoasters, so I really had no idea what we were going to do with the kids all day. But there are actually three play areas for little kids with rides and everything! There is a Snoopy play area when you first walk into the park, a Kiddie Kingdom a little further down, and all the way at the back of the park is Camp Snoopy. The kids all had a great time. Our kids are 3 - 18 mos. Of all three places I liked the Kiddie Kingdom the best because the kids could actually ride by themselves and an adult didn't have to cram themselves into the ride with the kid. All the wives pretty much stayed together while the dads went and screamed themselves hoarse. I don't like rollercoasters and neither does Jewel. Jenny is obviously PG and Neesha was watching her little girl. We also got fantastically burned by the sun.

The highlight of the day was Eli not wearing pants.

Ava driving. She was SO happy anytime she could drive a car by herself.

We just kept the kids on this ride for like 30 minutes telling the girl to just keep going and going. It was great.
Ava, Eli and Bella

Malayna and Violet.


Ava and Violet riding on the helicopters by themselves, going up and down, around and around.


Running through the fountains. This is how Eli lost his pants.


Violet of course conked out for about a half hour.

Ava insisted she drive these cars. She would not stop whining about driving the cars.
The Ridgeways. (Chad is one of Tyler's mission buddies that just moved into our old ward)



Here are a couple more Kalahari pics. I seriously recommend this place - Animae Conventions, lost dogs, and all. It was $150 including tax for our room and it included a pizza dinner that night. Sign up at travelzoo.com for this awesome deal.
Bella - out eating all our kids combined :)

Happy Birthday Tyler!

Tyler's birthday was last Wednesday and it was marked by many festivities. He got a ficus tree for his desk and some money to get a new desk when he gets to school. His birthday was also celebrated by finding out his sister in UT has swine flu!! I can't believe we actually know someone who has it. How funny. She's a high school teacher and was out for a few days, but unfortunately for the students sake, she didn't close the school down.

On Thursday we went to Kalahari, an indoor water park in Sandusky Ohio. It was really really fun. The rooms were nice - we got upgraded to a suite for free! I surprised him with a little party at night with our friends who went.

Wolcott Mill Farm Center

It's been raining a lot, and I was dying to get out, so today we went to the Wolcott Mill Farm Center. It's a metropark, but we didn't have to pay to get in, which was awesome! It was also very clean and well organized. Everyone there was also friendly.

Here is Ava on a tractor.

The baby chickens.

We heard roosters crowing. The girls thought this was funny.

This was the craziest thing. The cows get their hooves "trimmed" once a year. So they put them in this contraption to hold them still and then they shave down their hooves. Ava wanted to look at this forever.

After we saw a lot of cute baby goats, pigs and miniature horses, we walked down to a little pond. A little girl must have left her net, so we borrowed it and left it there for the next person. I scooped up some muck from the side of the pond and first try there were two tadpoles! They were pretty big and well-developed. You can see my stick is touching one of them. I also saw a huge turtle and some fish, but the girls didn't see them. Someday they will! This is the kind of science I really like. As long as I don't have to touch anything slimey I'm ok.

We went to a funeral today

On a more somber note today, we went to a funeral. Maybe I'm just too emotional, but when you see a dad with five kids and a wife pass away to another life, it's still hard. Even if he was really really suffering for the last year to 6 months of his life. He was one of Tyler, Jared and KC's leaders as a youth. There was beautiful music. One of his sisters read a letter he wrote to everyone. Another letter from a youth he taught was read about the positive impact he had.

Sitting in the pew it reminded me of the last funeral we went to at our church building. A young couple our age had a little boy very prematurely (23 or 26 weeks). He was born in Feb., and survived until April or May. We were due around the same time so at the funeral I was very pregnant with Violet and it made me really sad. His name was Jacob.

I am thankful for the knowledge we have that families can be together forever. Days like today make you want to be a better person.