baff!

after going to the mall, it was time to clean up for the night.  that means its time for ledger's favorite thing in the world: 'a baff! a baff!'  we filled up the tub and he dumped in his favorite bath time toys.  with liam in town, there were a few extra bath toys around, including a doggy that ledge immediately latched on to.  as he was playing i was chilling out in there watching him.  he loves baths so much that he usually spends about a half hour in there!  well, he had been playing with the doggy for a while now when he decided to put it up on the little shelf where his shampoo goes.  he sat back, looked at it, and said 'come on doggy, inna baff! come on!'  beckoning for it with his hand.  'come on doggy! baff time!'  he seemed to wait for a few seconds, i think he was actually expecting the little plastic guy to jump!  after a few more seconds, he says 'oh well.' and proceeds to turn around and play with the rest of his bath time toys!
i tell ya what- this kid is hilarious!

lets go to the mall!

saturday afternoon we decided that maybe a change of scenery would be good, so we headed out for lunch and then to the mall.  the mall in mishawaka had a fun little play area for kids.  its filled with things to climb on, slide down, and run around!  ledger had only been there once before with diana, so it was really fun to see him there for myself.  he was a natural, climbing, jumping, sliding- and even showing liam where the fun stuff was!  the two of them were ripping around the whole area for almost an hour.  finally, covered in sweat, we were able to tear the two of them away from the fun equipment and head back home.  the best part, i think, was that liam and ledger were holding hands with each other as mom and i had their other hands.  so cute!
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cousins play

jared and katie, david's daughter and son-in-law, had made plans to away for the weekend and asked if david and mom would be able to babysit their son while they were gone.  figured why not, this would give ledger and liam a little time to get to know each other and have fun playing together!  liam is only a couple weeks older than ledger, so it would be a fun time for the both of them.  well, as it turned out, this was a weekend that david had to work friday and saturday out of town, and diana had plans in place to be gone that weekend too!  i guess it falls to mom and i to take care of the two boys all weekend... yikes.
the two of them hit it off pretty well- ledger was so thrilled to have a play buddy!  the two of them got along great, they were able to share their toys for the most part, though ledger does love to pester!  liam was pretty good for a while, but it didnt take long, maybe an hour, for him to realize his parents were gone- and then the crying started.  and i'm pretty sure that it didnt stop until he was picked back up on sunday!  even still, it was really fun for ledger to have his cousin around to play with!
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south bound, son

stinky, hungry, and exhausted, i return to my parents house.  we had such a great time at the cabin, but its nice to be among the civilized again.  and its nice to see my dear boy again!   diana was visiting friends for a wedding shower that weekend, so mom and papa were gracious enough to watch ledge while i was up at the cabin.  but now, its time to get the boy and head on home- eager to see the wife and get some sleep before heading back to work!
thanks again, mom and papa for spending the weekend with him- he loved it! (i kind of get the feeling that you did too...)

cabin done

in the morning we actually got up at a reasonable time, which was probably due to the fact that we didn't stay up too late.  that allowed us to actually enjoy the morning together, have some coffee, eat some breakfast, and just relax together before the inevitable pack up.
when it finally arrived, we were ready for it, not trying to delay our departure because 'we just want a little more time together!'  since there were only four of us, we were actually able to fit in one vehicle, so that certainly made leaving even easier.  all four of us had a blast, and it was so nice to give jon a second chance to spend some time up at the good ol' cabin!
(more pics)

bitelys

since we decided that we werent going to do the usual things, we figured that included going to sporties.  so, we had to find a different place to have dinner while we were up there.  we wandered up and down the main road for a while when aaron brought up a suggestion.  quite a few years ago we all came up and aaron convinced us to go to a restaurant a few miles away called bitely's and we had a strange and fun time.  aaron suggested that we could go back there.  not finding anything else, we took him up on that idea and stopped in to bitely's for a bite.  it was strange to be back there.  i have a very particular memory of the one time we had been there, and when we walked it, it was nothing like i remembered!  they hadn't renovated or redecorated at all, it was just that my memory was so wrong about what the place was like.  and it seemed that i wasnt the only one- aaron and jeffry lee were both flabbergasted by the difference between their memories of the place and the reality when we walked it.  the whole thing was a lot smaller than any of us remembered.  we recognized everything in the place and knew this was definitely the place we had been to before, but it was shocking how much my memory had morphed it into this other place.  weird!  we still had a great time there.  while we were there aaron said one of the funniest things i had heard in years.  i know retelling it wont do it any justice, so i wont.  but to give you some idea, i was laughing at aaron so hard that i was crying (and getting a little dizzy..), and my laughing so hard made aaron laugh so hard that he accidentally spit out his food... directly on jon!  which of course, resulted in all of us laughing even harder!
again jon, sorry for ruining your chicken tenders... but it was worth it!

cabin afternoon

we arrived to find the cabin just as we had left it: cold and covered in snow!  fortunately the neighbors were kind enough to have our drive plowed for us, so we didnt have to shovel out a path just to get to the door!  jeffry lee quickly got to work start on the fire and warming the place up nice and toasty for us.  we unpacked and picked our beds.  its kind of weird to be up at the cabin with so few people- we could each have our own beds to sleep in!  everyone actually opted to just go to their usual accommodations, so it didnt seem as strange after all...  we had a great time playing around, chatting, and finding as much trouble as we could to get ourselves in to.

cabin 2.0?

during our usual cabin trip that we always go on between christmas and new years, we were one person short.  unfortunately jon was not able to join us.  he had some family health issues to deal with and soon after our trip he lost his father.  we were so sorry for his loss, of course, and wanted to support him in any way we could.  he said that he could really use some time away to just hang with friends.  well, i had just the thing: how about we do that trip he missed earlier, and go to the cabin again!  what?!?  thats crazy talk- going to the cabin twice in one year?!?  jon was up for it- maybe this plan is crazy enough it just might work!
as we were making our plans, i called most of the guys to see if they would be up for a return trip, and a couple of them took the bait- jeffry lee and aaron were in!  saturday morning we gathered up at aaron's place and headed up to the snowy white tundra for the second time.  on the way we decided that, with this being a second trip, we should not do all of the cabin traditions we always do when its the whole gang.  so, instead of the usual bk stop in big rapids, we hit up the ruby tuesdays!  an oh, what a delicious treat it was!  after some good talking and laughing, we hopped back in jon's truck for the final leg of the journey up.