good to fair

at work we have a 'member appreciation day', which means we have a special grill out meal and free entry into the holland state fair.  we took advantage of the free fun and headed out!
i tell you what, i haven't been to a fair in years- and ledger never has!  we went in the special picnic area and chowed down.  got our free passes and free ride bracelets and headed over the check it all out.
there were tons of fun rides, games, and even a petting zoo!  ledger had a blast, and so did we.
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snakes for the gift!

my birthday has never been much of a big deal to me, at least as an adult.  so when it came around i wasn't too worried about doing anything special or different.
we were visiting in south bend at the time, so diana's mom and david treated us to a lovely lunch.  that was just right to me, a little something special but that was enough.
what did make my birthday extra special though was the amazing birthday card from my boy! (i think he wrote it himself, but diana may have helped a little...)  and also the special gift he gave me: a play-doh snake!  probably the best birthday gift ever!

hottie

seriously.  i'm the luckiest guy in the world- just look at her!

anyway, back to your regularly scheduled blog posts...

light up the night

as summer sets in ledger has been staying up later.  the sun is out so long that we cant reasonably expect ledge to go to bed at 7pm and have it still be as light as noon!  he's been a-ok with us delaying his bedtime!  some times we have even had special events or plans that have kept him up extra late.  recently he was up late enough to see his new favorite animal in the whole world: lightning bugs!  he was so thrilled with seeing them for real- he had thought they were just imaginary like the other characters on tv!  he ran around in the backyard trying to chase after them.  whenever they would light up his eyes would light up even brighter!  we certainly have a nature lover on our hands with this guy!

new car!

ever since our black car died we have been a one car family.  its been a bit of a struggle, but staying with my parents for a little while has allowed diana to use their cars if needed so we have been able to manage.  during that time we have been saving and saving in order to get a new car, and now we have enough stored away that we are able to actually pay cash for a second vehicle!  we really want to be debt free, so we made the decision to wait until we could pay for it without more debt.  diana had been looking online for a new vehicle for a couple months now, and she finally came across this beauty- a chrysler pacifica.  we went to go check it out, were impressed, and drove home with it!  oh, don't worry, we brought it to a car place to give it the ol' once over before we signed the dotted line, but it passed and we were all set- we got ourselves a new car!

a cold treat

with the summer weather getting so hot, we thought we would let ledge try a summer treat: his first popsicle! he was very confused by it at first, trying to just take a bite out of it, but realizing how cold it was he knew right away that was a bad idea...  once he got the hand of the licking thing he was thrilled about the whole thing!  after he was done we just about needed to wash him down with a hose because he was so sticky, but it was totally worth it to see the thrill in his eyes!

a night of knights

what has now become an annual event, i got together with a few old classmates from the old junior high days!  my friend adam went to a different high school than most of my junior high class but he always wanted to stay in touch with everyone, so a couple years ago he spearheaded a class reunion of sorts with our 8th grade class!  it was a lot of fun and we have gathered together every summer ever since.  the gathering isn't always very large, but its always a great time.  its funny to see everyone and where life has taken us since we were 14!  we had a couple people stop by this year that hadn't attended in years past, so it was nice to catch up with them as well.

fun at the library

since i'm working 2nd shift, that means i get to spend a lot of mornings with my boy.  what better way to spend the day than at the library?  the kent county library is really cool, the built a new one a few years ago, so we were able to take full advantage of the beautiful facilities and full schedule they have for kids.  this summer the theme was superheroes, and they even had a fun cut-out that the kids could get their picture taken in.  ledge loved having his face with the big 'strong guy' body!  through out the month we came to check out the fun things they had planned- a magician, a petting zoo, and even tractors and a fire truck!  he was always super excited when i told him we were going to the library.  we would come for the events as well as the weekly story time for kids.  we always left with a few books too!
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back home to ledger

it was a long trip and lots of fun, but we were so thrilled to be back to our little boy!  we got home and he was so excited he could hardly handle himself!  he was thrilled to have us back- and of course we came bearing gifts.  his favorite though, was mama's big bucket of rocks she had collected.  we went to visit grandpa allen and he took the whole time inspecting each rock and having fun looking at them dry and then see how the color changed when they got wet.  he was certainly in his glory- back with mama and daddy.  all was well, once again, in ledger's life- and all was well once again in ours!

up walk

it was our last night in grand marais, so we figured we go out for one last walk.  sure, it was 11 at night, but that didn't stop us!  it was a really cool walk- apparently the house we stayed at had a cemetary not far behind it...  so we went for a nice creepy late night walk through the graveyard and ended up at the edge of lake superior!  don't worry, aaron had brought his rc car along and it had lights, so that lightened the mood- and lightened the path!
the next morning we were sorry to go, but so thankful we had such a good time resting and relaxing up there with friends!
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up falls

while we were up there it was miranda and levi's anniversary, so to celebrate we wanted to go to a nice place for dinner.  knowing there is a cool brewery restaurant over by tequamenon falls, we headed over to check it out.  the place was lovely and the food was great.  i was especially excited because they had a penny cruncher machine!
after dinner we discussed if we should go check out the falls.  after all, we had driven all the way over, we should probably take a look, right?  the humidity was so thick, and the cloud of mosquitoes thicker, but some of us chanced it anyway!  this view is as far as we got- we were being eaten alive!  we ran back to the air conditioned safety of the vehicles and headed back to the house.
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