all terrain fun

one of my buddies at work has a boy who's just a little younger than ledger and the two of them get along very well, so he and i went over to spend the afternoon at their place with them.  while we were there, mike offered to pull out his four wheeler.  um, yes please!  i don't know if i've ever been on one before, so i knew ledger hadn't!  after mike and his boy rode around for a few minutes he asked if i wanted to give it a try.  i snapped up that opportunity and cruised down the drive a time or two!  when i got back to the house i asked ledge if he wanted to ride.  without hesitation he hopped right on and the two of us tooled around on it and ledger loved it!  mike hopped back on and took ledge for a ride too, this time getting a bit more adventurous and even doing a wheelie or two while he was on it!  he totally loved it!  as we where heading home from a fun afternoon ledger asked when we would be coming back cause he totally wants to go on that atv again!
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goodbye bluety

it was a tough day in the brink household.  granted, he may have only been a part of this family for a couple months, but ledger's fish bluety was a big part of our son's life and he took his fish's passing very hard.  bluety had been acting out of sorts for about a week.  we did everything we could, consulting the internet, going to the pet store for medicine/water treatment, but unfortunately there was nothing we could do.  our pet fish's time on this world came to an end.  we warned him that night that bluety might not make it to morning, but it was still tough for him to wake up to the reality of a dead pet.  i left early that morning for work so i took bluety and buried him out by the garage before work.  the last thing we wanted ledger to see was his dead body floating in the water.  when i got home i took ledge down to see where he was buried and to pay our last respects.  ledge wanted to make a gravestone for bluety, so he drew a stone on paper and we taped it to a popsicle stick and we put it at the top of his grave.  when we went down to see his final resting place we picked a couple wildflowers to put on his grave.  ledger wanted to say a few words, pray, and say his goodbyes.  he was a good pet and will be missed.  ledge is already looking forward to seeing him again with grandma great in heaven.

eclipse

there was a whole lot of hubbub over the past couple weeks about the impending solar eclipse.  these things don't happen too often, so it was kind of interesting.  we happened to be driving back from south bend while it was happening, so we pulled off the road for a bit and checked it out.  it was hard to explain to ledger what was going on, but once he made sense of it, he thought it was super cool!  we made sure not to actually look directly at it, but i did take a direct photo of it so we could see it really well.

girls trip

while i was home moving furniture around for our new carpet and working, diana was off galavanting around with her lady friends at the beach!  i would say i was jelous, but i would rather do that then have to spend the week at the beach...  every year for the past few years we have gone on a friends vacation.  for a couple years we went to the upper peninsula, which was a blast both times; and last year we mixed it up a bit and spent the week in the nash.  well, this year we had made plans to go to miranda's grandparent's place over on the east side of the state, but for one reason or another people kept backing out.  the only people left were diana and i, miranda, and lissa.  i gracefully bowed out and allowed the three ladies to have a special vacation just the three of them.  diana's mom took ledger for the week and i stayed home and put in some overtime at work.  everyone involved had a fantastic time!  (it wasn't all that fun for me doing all that overtime, but on the other hand i got to watch a bunch of movies too!)

roll out the carpet

since we resigned our lease on our place, the company offered to replace our carpets.  i didn't have to think about that for very long- of course we want new carpet!  the only bother with getting new carpet is that i have to move all our furniture off the old carpet so they can replace it.  we scheduled it for a time when diana and ledger would be out of town, so it was up to me to get most of the stuff ready for the workers.  i had initially set up a time when jon could come and help me with the heavy stuff, but that ended up not working out, so it was just lil old me moving all our heavy furniture!  it's kinda surprising how much we have when it comes time to actually move it.  well, i hunkered down and did the heavy lifting to clear the place out.  we did it in two stages, the first day they replaced the main floor, the second day they did the bedrooms and loft.  its a good thing too, because if they tried to do it in one go there would have been nowhere to put all our stuff!  to prepare for the first day i had to put everything in our bedroom or up in the loft, the second day i had to pile everything in the living room and empty out the bedrooms and loft.  it was a pain, but the results are fantastic!
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switch!

i finally did it- i found one!  as soon as nintendo announced their new system i told my wife that i was going to buy one no matter what.  she understood and said 'go for it!'  here's the problem though: now that it's released, i can't find one anywhere!  its been out for about 3-4 months now and i had yet to find one in a store, which i would check all of them every time we went into a place that might have them.  well, we happen to be picking up a few things from the target in kalamazoo and i figured i'd go take a look and see- and wouldn't you know it?  they had one!  i immediately called over an employee and had them open up the case and bought it right there- i couldn't even wait to make it to the registers at the front of the store!
as soon as we got home i set it up and had a blast playing it!  i am certainly going to make my wife regret letting me get this thing...

sharing animaniacs

the cartoon animaniacs recently showed up on netflix, and boy was i excited!  growing up that was by far one of my favorite shows to watch!  i distinctly remember many conversations among friends about that show, laughing and quoting it for hours!  i even remember recording parts of it so that i could memorize bits to share with friends later!  lets just say i was obsessed...
imagine my joy when i got to show my son the show and let him see what daddy loved so much- and much to my delight, he really liked it!  in fact, he has actually memorized the opening song and sings and dances along with it when its on!  don't worry, i definitely got a video of him doing just that... 
one thing that's true of my son is that if he likes something he has to draw it.  i was very impressed with how well he did recreating the warner brothers and their sister dot!  he is truly turning into a fantastic artist!

birthday gift

with my birthday right around the corner, i decided to spoil myself a little...
so there's this podcast that i've loved listening to for a few years (though now defunct) called 'midnight movie club'.  its hosted by an australian named lee sargent and a brit named dan hughes.  other than funny podcasts, lee also is an artist.  i've checked out his work online before and really love his cartoony style.  he has a shop on etsy where he makes these amazing ink and watercolor drawings of different pop culture based subjects.  well, it just so happened that he put up an offer on his site that you could commission him to make pieces for you.  he often works in a small size, usually about baseball card size.  after talking with diana about it, i took the plunge and commissioned him to make me a bunch of stargate sg-1 drawings!  he had listed on his store that he would make sets of three cards.  i decided that three wasn't going to be enough, instead i opted for 9!  i worked with him on what i wanted: a set of eight drawings of characters to be set around a central image of the stargate itself.  it's kind of a brady bunch style layout. he immediately understood what i was looking for and made the most amazing stylized images of the characters!  when we got them i had them framed and they have since been hanging in our place as a testament to just how nerdy i am!  amazingly, diana thinks they are pretty awesome as well!  i may be a nerd, but at least my nerdiness is expressed through original commissioned art, right?
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vbs fun

one of the things that comes with summer is all the local churches have their vbs programs!  not wanting to miss out on the opportunity for crafts, ledger was all about it!  so, we took advantage and joined up with the vbs programs of different churches, even though they weren't our home church!  anything for a craft, right?...
the theme at one of the churches was farms, so ledger loved the chance to pretend to be a cowboy and wear the hat!  they even went for a field trip one of the days and got to go to a petting farm!  he had a blast and came home with some fun questions about jesus and faith!
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auntie visits

barbara and james were doing one of their patented 'random road trips' up through michigan, so they decided on a whim to stop by and spend a couple days with us.  we figured we'd show them a good time, so we used our annual pass and took them to the grand rapids museum and let ledger show them around!
afterward we took them to a wonderful tapas restaurant downtown called san chez.  the last time diana and i had been there was for our anniversary a few years ago. it was, as it had been last time, amazing!  even ledger found a few things he enjoyed.  the rest of the visit was a wonderful time as well.  you know ledger, he always loves auntie barbara visiting and spending time with her!
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fireworks show

ledger loves fireworks almost as much as diana...  with the 4th of july upon us, we headed out to sandy pines to get the most of it!  i spend the day working, but headed out to meet them after work.  diana and ledger had gotten there earlier in the day and spent the afternoon enjoying all the fun of sandy pines with mema and papa.  when grandpa and grandma declined, the three of us headed out to the beach to get a good view of the firework show.  ledger, as always, had a blast and was so excited about being able to stay up way past his bed time!  the fireworks, as always, were great.  we headed back and said our goodbyes.  we thought for sure ledge would fall asleep on the way home, but he was busy chatting our ears off the whole way home!  needless to say though, he passed out about 2 seconds after his head hit the pillow that night...
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kids museum

tavish and alanna came to visit the family and so we, of course, had to stop by for a few days and let the boys have a bunch of fun together!
one of the days we were able to go to st. joe and visit the children's museum.  we had never been there before so it was quite a treat to check it all out and watch the boys discover all the fun that the place had to offer!  they have a ton of exhibits that the boys absolutely loved! 
after we had checked it all out we headed down to the lakeshore across the street and let the boys go on the carousal, which of course they loved!  the two of them had an absolute blast of a day- we will totally have to go back soon!
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to the beach

one of diana's friends from griffith comes to visit us from time to time.  she always comes on the weekend, which means i'm working, but the two of them take ledger and have some grand adventures!  with the weather being so nice, they recently went to the holland beach and had a lot of fun playing and swimming!
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jack graduates!

that nephew of mine keeps getting bigger and bigger!  this year he graduated from junior high.  the family threw a party for him and celebrated this big achievement- next year he's going to south christian as a freshman!  considering he's been home schooled since 2nd grade, that's going to be a pretty big transition!
we're proud of you, jack!
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new bed new room

ledger as been sleeping in a little bed for a couple years now, ever since he moved out of the crib.  he's starting to get a bit big for it, so we were looking for a big boy bed for him to move into.  well, it just so happened that my mom and papa were in the process of redoing some rooms in their house and were ready to get rid of their old twin bed.  what luck!  we stopped over and got it and set it up in ledger's room, which he loved! 
since he got a new bed, that means he also needed new sheets.  what design did he pick?  well, minions of course!  with all the changes in his room, we also decided to do a little redecorating to match the new bed.
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