oh, deer

so, um... looks like i hit a deer.  i was on may way to work in the morning and i saw a deer running across the road.  i slowed down but figured it was ok because it had gone all the way across.  but then, as you do, it crossed back across straight into the side of my saturn.  dang.  well, fortunately it wasn't going too fast, so it kind of bounced right off.  i stopped and checked out the damage.  the deer trotted away without a scratch- more than i can say for the car!  we did get lucky in that it was only damage to the body of the car, nothing important was bent or broken.  i guess its no great loss, its not like the saturn was in perfect shape to begin with... its not really worth repairing, so i think we will start our search for a replacement car.

school fun night

now that school is in full swing, they invited everyone to come for a special fun night filled with activities and games.  well, there's no way we were going to miss out on that business, that's for sure!
ledger is still excited about school, so he was thrilled to get to go back and see everyone in the evening.  he has started to make some friends in his class and was looking forward to introducing them to us.
we wandered around the school, stopping in different classrooms to participate in the fun crafts and games they had set up for us.  ledger's favorite was the professional face painter they had- as you can see he requested a fish!
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leaky rental roof

there is only one good thing about owning a rental property, but there are millions of bad things.  chief among them is having to do repairs.  well, i got the call i had been dreading for the last couple years: the roof was leaking. 
granted, it is about time, the roof had been replaced just a year or two before i got the place, so that means it had been almost 17 years since it was last shingled.  they say a roof should last between 15 and 20 years, so this was almost exactly between those two figures. 
i headed down to check it out, fearing the worst.  thankfully it wasn't quite as bad as i was expecting.  there was a wet spot on the ceiling that was dripping, but a little repair work inside and a gigantic tarp on the outside, and we were all set!  granted, this isn't really fixing the problem, but i'll let future me worry about that...

trick or treatin' ghosty!

it's ledger's favorite day of the year- he's been waiting 264 days for this: its halloween!  and now that school is out, it's time to go out trick-r-treatin!  he picked out his costume about 263 days ago, so he is certainly ready and eager to get out there and do his thing.  diana and i spend the afternoon (or at least the last 5 minutes of it) putting together our costumes and now we are ready to go out and get some candy! 
we wandered around town, up and down some of the busier streets, finding some great places get get some sugary goodness and fill ledger's basket with treats.  we stopped by the fire department and made crafts for a bit too.  by the end of the night our little ghosty was sugared up, worn out, and about as content as a boy can be!  when we got back to the house he poured out his loot and picked out one or two of his favorites to enjoy, but it was soon time for bed.  for once it was a welcome rest for an exhausted ghosty.  he had a blast- and can't wait for the next halloween!
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halloween parade

ledge decided he wanted to dress up as a ghosty for halloween this year, and since they had a special halloween day at school, that meant wearing his costume to school as well.  at the beginning of the year the teacher had a sign up sheet for parents to volunteer to come in and help out with one of the special days through out the year, so diana and i, knowing how much halloween means to ledger, volunteered to come in that day and bring treats.  well, that day is today, so we got some yummy treats and got to spend a little extra time with our little ghosty!  the kids were all dressed up and had a blast doing a costume parade through the different classrooms to show off their fun costumes.
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carvin' pumpkins

now that we've got the pumpkins, the next step is to carve them, right?  we dug right in as soon as we got home and made the best chock-o-lanterns that we could!  ledge wasn't so keen on the messy part of cleaning them out, but he was eager to draw out the faces he had in mind for them!  since he's only five, i took the knife cutting duties and made the faces to his exact specifications.  he was very pleased with the results and was excited to put lights inside them to see how they would look at night.  we lugged them into the bathroom (the darkest room in the house), and tried them with a light to see how they would look.  ledge was quite pleased with the results and both of them got the thumbs up.  now we are ready for halloween!

pickin' pumpkins

one of the guys at work grew up in the allegan area, so i like to ask him from time to time about local things.  as halloween is almost upon us, i asked him where the best place would be to get pumpkins from.  he told us about gene the pumpkin man!  apparently he's a local icon around these parts and if you want good pumpkins, then there's no one better than ol' gene.  not wanting to miss out on such a wonderful opportunity, we headed down there at our first opportunity!  it was a little bit rainy when we headed over, but figuring it was fall, that was about the weather one would expect.
as we pulled up to the pumpkin farm, the first thing ledger noticed was how everything was orange- and he was delighted! 
we picked out a couple nice pumpkins, including a few little gourds just for fun, and even got a chance to talk with gene himself.  the farm was fun to visit and the pumpkins were top-notch, so we will definitely make this a regular visit from here on out!
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diana is so hot!

every once in a while i just realize how lucky i am to have such a hot wife.  sure, she's so much more than that, of course, but she is super hot too!

future tigershark

ledger did pretty well over the summer with swimming at sandy pines, but we figured it might be a good idea to have him practice his swimming skills over the year to get him ready for next summer.  well, it just so happens that allegan has a swimming pool at the high school and offers swimming classes all year long to make sure kids are fully trained.  what luck!  well, now that leger is in swim class, he is all about the swim team life- he is pretty sure he's on the allegan swim team and has been calling himself a tigershark and thinks he's pretty much on the swim team himself.  granted, he may one day be on the swim team (he does have the sleek body for it), but i'm pretty sure level one of swim class for children does not qualify you.  at least not yet...

jon's baby

well, look who is a daddy again.  jon and allison were in the hospital celebrating the birth of their second girl, so i gave aaron a call and the two of us headed over to congratulate them and see the new bundle of joy!  jo-jo was as cute as can be and jon was beaming about the whole thing.  as we were talking to jon he shared with us that his car had some issues down in the parking garage, so aaron was all about that!  its always helpful to have someone who knows how to fix a car- even at the birth of your second child!  aaron got the car running again, which was a welcome relief for jon, who had a little bit bigger issues on his mind...

sailor pride

my nephew jackson has always been athletic, and now that he's in on the south christian freshman football team!  well, this certainly warranted us to come and support our favorite sailor!  ledger and i braved the summer heat (and boy, was it hot that day!) and went to a game against the wayland team. 
jack did a fantastic job, even scoring a goal!  ledger wasn't so interested in the game, but he was all about that concession stand!
after the game, jackson was sweet enough to pour attention on ledger after the game.  it was a special day for jackson- is first goal! and yet he made sure ledger felt special.  now that's a great cousin!
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lets zoo this

this year we had a membership to the grand rapids museum.  one of the perks of being a member is that it includes a free visit to some of the surrounding museums in west michigan.  september there is a free pass for the sky zoo in kalamazoo.  ledger and i had gone there for a field strip last year, but ledger has been eager to go back, and diana was interested in checking it out as well. 
he had a great time checking out all the exhibits, but most of all ledger just wanted to go on the rides!  we joined him, of course, and had a great time there.  we will definitely be back!
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oil you could ever want

one of diana's new interests is essential oils.  yeah, i know, her and everyone else in the country!  well, one of her new friends is someone who sells oils, so diana ordered a starter kit from her and it arrived today!  its like christmas morn for diana, she is so thrilled to open it up and check out what she got.  apparently the starter kits sometimes have different scents, so she was really eager to see what she got.  there were a few she wanted that weren't in there, but she was very excited about the unexpected surprises in their as well. 
looks like our house is going to be smelling pretty good for the next few months!

first day of kindergarten

here it is- today is the day.  it's ledger's first day of kindergarten!  we've been preparing him all summer for the changes coming, and now today they have come!  he has been very nervous about the change- this is a different school than preschool, with all different kids, and a totally different schedule.  he has been playing it cool for the past couple weeks, but he definitely has some anxiety about starting. 
diana and i both got up extra early so we could savoir the morning with him, answer any questions, talk about the possibilities of the day.
we made him a big breakfast: waffles with peanut butter and bananas.  don't want the little guy getting hungry on his first day!  we talked through with him what he was going to be doing, how the drop off was going to go, how we were going to see him at the end of the day and pick him up; just kind of go over everything so he wasn't too worried. 
he picked out his clothes for the first day and when he got them on he was feeling pretty good, it helped melt away some of the worry he had for the day.  he got his minion backpack, some new duds on- this boy is ready for the first day of kindergarten!
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second hand print

with another school year upon us, it was time to pull out our hand print board.  last year before ledger started preschool i decided we needed to do something a little pinteresty: we got a wood board and are planning to have ledger make a hand print on it just before the first day of school every year until he graduates from 12th grade!  that means there will be 14 hand prints on it, charting his growth from preschool to senior in high school.  kinda sappy crafting, but we think it will be pretty cool.  with kindergarten less than a week away, we stopped by the craft store and got a new paint color.  this year he picked yellow, which i'm pretty sure was heavily influenced by his obsession with minions!  we made the hand print on the board and then proceeded to make a good ol' mess with the paint- which ledger loved!
this will be a really neat one to see when he's all done.  (here's the link to last year's post about when we started it)

sandy with friends

we invited miranda, levi, and lissa to come by for one last hurrah before the end of the summer.  they came by for a visit out to sandy pines.  my parents were kind enough to host them, making a delicious meal and everything!  sandy had a fun fireworks display, so we stayed out nice and late, which ledger really loved!
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kindergarten open house

as the summer winds to a close, the reality that our boy is going to be going to kindergarten is starting to set in.  his school had an open house so we went.  ledger was really excited to see his new classroom and meet his new teacher, diana and i were a excited as well and eager to see what his new school was going to be like.  we got to meet his teacher and she is wonderful- it will be a good fit for our lil' active kid!  ledge is really excited for the school year to start- i know that won't always be the case, so we are going to enjoy it while we can...

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.