May Chicago Trip

The girls and I tagged along on a trip to Chicago for one of Kris’ accounting conferences. We spent time swimming at the hotel pool, playing at the Chicago Children’s Museum, exploring the Adler Planetarium and viewing exhibits at the Field Museum of Natural History. It was a pretty inexpensive trip considering we got into the two museums and the planetarium free with or Impression 5 membership. We also took a cooler of food and enjoyed daily picnics and took walks through Millennium Park to get to Museum Campus. Here are some pictures to mark our trip and our adventures.

Only the beginning of our two hour walk on Friday morning!

North end of Millennium Park

Walking in Millennium Park with Kris

What a skyline!

The Field Museum of Natural History

Looking out from the Field Museum-What a view!

If you ever go to the Field Museum with children, be sure to go to the basement to the Crown Family Playlab. There are fantastic things for little ones to do like make crafts from recycled materials, try on costumes, play instruments and many other things.

Here are our woodland creatures!

Kris Mulches Our Yard

ris took on a huge outdoor chore...mulching our yard. He began Friday, worked all day with the help of some good friends then finished the job today. Kourtney enjoyed helping our neighbor, Mr. V., mulch his yard too. The outcome-a fantastic looking yard, and hopefully no more dirt sluffage under our deck. Thanks Kris for all of your hard hands on labor and thank you all our friends who helped out.

After Friday's session of mulching, we had a hot dog roast with some good friends and our neighbors. It was fun getting some use out of our fire pit and even better that we were in good company.

Trip to Campus

Kourtney, Ellary and I took a bus ride to campus this morning and went the MSU Butterfly House. Then we had lunch with Kris and rode the bus back home. Here are some pictures from our little excursion today.

Alyson's Week

A piece of Alyson's school artwork was chosen to be displayed in the Michigan Education Leadership Group office for one year. We were excited to attend an opening reception and recognition ceremony tonight because we had never seen this particular piece before tonight, a pastel sunflower. She did a fantastic job! We also had the chance to meet her art teacher, Ms. Roltsch. She seemed very excited about Alyson's creative talents and hopes Alyson continues to enjoy painting and drawing, as do we!

Alyson also celebrated her 6th birthday this past week. We held a family party and ate Cherry Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake (one of mom's specialties that I occasionally recreate and what Kris calls 5 C's cake), let Alyson open her presents from us, Nana and Papa and Oma, and then the girls and I watched the new Barbie Thumbelina. movie The following night we saw the theatrical version of "James and the Giant Peach" performed by a local children's theater group. It held Alyson and Kourtney's attention and they seemed to enjoy it. Kris and I both agreed that theater may be right up Kourtney's alley.

Alyson also performed a science experiment for the school science fair. She took bean plants and fed one set of plants with water and the other set of plants with apple juice. The bean seeds fed with apple juice obviously didn't grow. And of course the seeds fed with water "grew like a bean". It was fun getting the whole family involved in Alyson's science project.

So, that was our week, and more specifically Alyson's week in a nutshell!

Alyson's Birthday Party

Alyson had a friend's birthday party this Saturday. She had a great time celebrating with her friends, and we are grateful for all who came. Thanks!

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It began to rain almost as instantly as her party began, so we moved everyone inside and played games as best as we could. Rylie, a friend from church, made Alyson's cake (very cute), and we let the kids bust open the ladybug pinata. The rain moved on soon after eating cake and opening presents so the children went outside and played water balloon toss and bubbles.

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Again, thank you all who came to Alyson's party. We appreciated you being there!

Michigan Turns

I've been wondering if I should post this or not, and I have decided to due so for several reasons. First, I need to get it off my chest. And secondly, I want to warn anyone who may be visiting Michigan so you can drive safely.

I noticed pretty much right away, as soon as we moved to Michigan, that most drivers DO NOT know how to turn into the correct lane! I learned, and remember very clearly being on the Colorado driving exam, that you turn into the lane closest to you. Many motorists in Michigan are unaware of this law, or Michigan must have different driving standards. For what ever reasons, it makes for some scary driving!

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So many streets that I drive on any given day are four lanes streets. So, if I take a right hand turn, I pull into the lane on the far right side. Well, many motorists just don't do that. They pull into the left lane and try to zoom around me. I am not so slow that anyone has ever called me a granny driver, so I don't think it is my problem.

Then take for instance that I am taking a left hand turn onto a street with four lanes, two of which are flowing the direction I plan to be going, I should pull into the lane closest to me, the one next to the yellow dividing line. Well, many motorists pull into the far right hand lane. It prevents you from merging over into the right hand lane if you have to make a right hand turn a block later or so later. You have to take the turn fast and then almost gun it or take it slowly so you can get into the far right lane soon after making the left turn. Don't you dare try to take a right hand turn when the on coming traffic has a green light to turn left. You may just find yourselves in a head on collision!

It also makes it scary when there are two lanes turning left and you are in one of them. You never know if the person next to you is going to turn into the correct lane! So, there is your warning. I know it has been a frustrating experience for me, and maybe this tid-bit of information will aid you in driving safely when you are here!

Ellary is 1 year old today!

Ellary turned 1 year old today. Wow-what a big girl she is becoming! She's brought so much happiness to our family, and we are especially grateful for her on this day. Unfortunately our digital camera was on the fritz (we didn't know it had problems until after viewing the pictures), so here is one of the only ones that really turned out. Luckily Kris got out the video camera and was able to document Ellary's birthday more fully.

We had a small gathering of friends who helped us celebrate this special occasion. When it was time for cake and ice cream, Ellary didn't know what to think about her cake. However, after getting a taste of it from a spoon, she tore into the thing. She ate a little more than half the piece that was given to her first by carving it away with the handle end of the spoon and then hand feeding it to herself.

Thank you to all who thought of Ellary on her special day! It means a lot to us!