greg's retirement

adam's dad is finally retiring.  he's been a professor at calvin college for over 40 years and he's finally throwing in the towel and going to try the retired life!  adam and his sister have been planning a special retirement party for him and adam invited aaron and i to stop in as well.  we've known adam's dad since we were young kids in grade school and would come over to the house and make silly home movies with their camcorder- so we go way back!  he has since insisted that we actually call him greg, so we oblige, though it still feels weird to not call him 'adams dad'...
well, one of the things that adam wanted to do was to make the event an extra special one.  the best way to do that, of course, is to order a singing telegram!  back when we were little there were always these terrible local commercials for singing telegrams.  adam was always obsessed with them, so when he found out that they were still in business all these years later, he knew he had to order one for his dad!
it turned out to be hilarious!  a guy showed up in a monkey outfit and sang a special song just for greg- he seemed to make it up as he went along, pulling from what he saw around the room and peppered in some info that adam had given him ahead of time.  overall, it was hilarious and well worth it- i would totally recommend it!
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a jerry afternoon

one of the guys at who i work with, jerry, has been telling us about how he's been making a treehouse for his son.  he's been busy at it all summer, so we had been joking with him about inviting everyone over to check it out when he's done.  well, he got done and did just that!  all the work friends were invited to his place for a cookout.  jerry has a little boy who's about the same age as ledger, so i took him with and mikey took his son too.
it was really fun to see jerry's handy work- which is really quite impressive!  and have some time for ledger to play with a few other kids outside for the afternoon.  the food was great and there was a pool and waterslide for the kids- a good time all around!
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first grade open house

as summer winds down, its time to start thinking about school again.  this is a big year for ledger, he will be going in to first grade!  we got an invitation in the mail to north ward's open house for the new year.  we found out what class ledger is going to be in and got the chance to go in and meet his new teacher.  he was really excited, but kind of scared.  fortunately his new teacher is not a scary monster like he feared, so all was well!  school will be starting soon, and now that he's seen his new room, its not going to be nearly as scary!
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the birth of klanky

our son is a lover of robots and a lover of crafts, it seems inevitable that the two interests would eventually collide.  well, that collision is what resulted in us having a new robot friend in the house.  ledger took a bunch of craft supplies and a box we had laying around the house, and build himself a new robot friend which he promptly named Klanky.  that little boy was so proud of his latest invention!  he went on to play with it for the next week straight!  for a while there it felt like klanky had become the fourth member of our house...
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siblings

i was talking to my mom recently and she said that there was going to be a surprise 50th birthday party for my cousin's husband and that i was invited.  we didn't have anything planned, so ledge and i made our way over to join in on the festivities. 
it was a really fun time seeing all of my dad's family and surprising steve!  there were even a bunch of other kids for ledge to run around and play in the backyard with.  the thing that stuck with me about the evening though, was seeing papa with his two sisters.  it's not very often that we have a chance to get together with both of them, so i wanted to make sure and get a picture of the family together!

another fair

helping out at the hearing aid place comes with the responsibility of manning the booth at fairs too.  there are a ton of fairs in the area, so with summer in full swing, i found myself covering another fair in the south bend area!  well, after a long shift at the booth, i was relieved by david who also brought ledger with him.
ledge and i spend the afternoon checking out the fair and enjoying the rides and snacks!  it had been a long long time since i last wandered around a fair, and ledger is always up for it, so we had a really nice time of it!
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diana's new tattoo

diana spent a long weekend with the girls.  she, miranda, and lissa had been planning this trip for a while.  though their original plans for the trip didn't quite work out, they still got the opportunity to spend the time together! 
after talking about it for a couple years now, they finally went through with it over this trip- they got tattoos together!
each of the three girls got an image of three waves.  what is kind of cool is that each of them got it in a different style or color!  diana just got a simple line of waves on her ankle, which looks really cool!

losing his first tooth

now this was a big deal.  while he was at grandma's he actually lost his first tooth!  it had been wiggly for a week or two, but we never suspected that it would fall out while he was at grandmas.  we were woefully unprepared!  diana didn't have any money to put under his pillow, so she wrote him a note saying that the tooth fairy got a bit confused and actually brought him a gift and put it under his pillow- at home!  so that gave me a little bit of time to figure out the gift situation.  by the time he and diana made it back home there was a nice toy under his pillow!  sure, it was a bit much considering it was supposed to be from the tooth fairy, but since it was his first one and he had to wait several days, i didn't feel so bad.
when he finally came home he was super excited and pleased with the gift that awaited him, but was more excited about his new smile!