Blueberry Picking

When we first moved here, a neighbor told us about a local blueberry farm where you can go pick berries. We finally made it there a few days ago with Kim and Elise. It was actually a lot of fun, and the weather held out just perfectly.

Wandering through the bushes got a little tight, with Kate in the carrier on my chest and Kim being pregnant, but Annie and Elise managed to wiggle right in and find all the good berries. Most of Elise's picks ended up in her mouth, but Annie was enjoying carrying around the bucket. :) We ended up up with less than a pound of blueberries, but we can go back any time. And, it made for a cheap afternoon of fun--just $1.25!

"What are we doing here? And why are you actually putting them in that bucket?"

The Snows

On our way to Piedmont, we first stopped in Columbus to visit some friends from Toledo. That sounds weird, but after med school everyone moved all over. Our lovely old neighbors, the Snows, moved to Columbus just recently for Jake to start his peds residency, and they graciously had us over for dinner and a visit.
Since we've moved, they've added another perfect little girl to their family. Baby Emerie was born in April, and this was our first chance to meet her! She was adorable and sweet, just like her big sister Madison. We miss our old neighbors and wish them the best in Columbus :)

Here are our attempts to get a picture of all four girls:

Poor Emerie was sleeping when this whole process started and did not appreciate our efforts at including her in this picture. Kate wasn't too keen on it, either. But ah well, thanks anyway Snow Family :)

Family Reunion

We went to Matt's (mom's side's) family reunion this past weekend at Aunt Judy's cottage in Piedmont. Despite record low temperatures for July, we had a great time. There was quite a big turnout, and Annie had so much fun running around with her cousins. She spent a lot of her time looking for Mal and yelling "Mallory!" which sounded more like "Mawwowy!"

Shortly after we all arrived, the babies were corralled into the living room where they were supposed to take naps. Here are the three latest additions, Kate, Madelyn, and Adam, looking really excited for their first family reunion.

Once the great aunts and great grandmas were settled on baby duty, the "big kids" all headed down to the lake in the back of Joe's truck. Here's Annie and Uncle Ed enjoying the ride.

The "big kids" on the boat. Brady, Ella, Annie and Mallory.

Annie and Mal.

Annie driving the boat. (She was the worst of the kid drivers; she took us in a rather severe circle).

Annie and Matt on the boat

We were just boating along, having great fun...until the engine died. And we were stuck on the lake. We floated around for awhile, but finally decided there was no hope of it starting again. As Ella said, "Boat broke. All done." So Matt and Ed starting rowing. What guys.

Our heroes.

We eventually got near another boat, and the men were nice enough to tow us back to the dock. It was actually a pretty quick and painless experience, and is now just a fun story for the kids (and this blog). :)

After all the excitement, back on dry land.

Mallory and Annie trying out one of the cousin's (I think?) motorcycle. They've been informed that this was their first and last motorcycle experience.

Annie and Matt fishing. This lasted about 10 minutes and resulted in 0 fish. But she had a good time doing it!

Ella decided to take an impromptu dip in the water, soaking her clothes. Thus, she had to wear the only available, dry clothing we had down at the lake at the time--Kate's UofM sweatshirt. Somewhere in the Carolinas, while he was golfing, Matt Parke's head exploded. :)

Annie's first camping experience. She slept in the tent with Matt all night without incident!

Annie was filthy after her weekend of outdoor fun. This picture doesn't really do her justice, but check out the nice black ring around her band-aid. Gross.

Thanks for a great weekend Kascak family!

Art Fair

The Ann Arbor Street Art Fair was this week/weekend. It's sort of a big deal around here, as it is has one art fair awards (who knew there were such things?!) and it's a HUGE draw to the town. This year is also it's 50th anniversary. Now that you've had a history lesson, moving on...

It seems Matt is always unavailable during the art fair. Last year, he was on call all weekend (we didn't know it started during the week then), so I just took Annie myself. This year, we are going to be out of town for the remaining days, so the girls and I went while Matt was working. We still had a great time. There were some beautiful pieces of art, and I wanted to take a lot of them home with me. Due to budget constrictions, however, I settled for this year's anniversary poster--a bargain at just $20.

The kids' tent we hit was not as good as the one from last year, but Annie still enjoyed herself.

Mostly she played with kids' scissors. She ended up ripping this paper into many pieces because she didn't quite get the concept of opening the scissors.

Kate made this face the entire time we were there, until the end when she was tired and started to cry. It was a pretty hot day, so I think it wore her out.

Of all the things that we saw and did at the art fair, Annie was most pleased by this. It is apparently a jellyfish, which we "won" by spinning a wheel at the CW television network's tent. Annie dropped it and I ran it over with the stroller, so it was incredibly dirty. Note to all--don't let your kids wear white to a fair.

I'm hoping next year Matt can join us. Or anyone else--we have free parking just seconds away from the fair! (Which is a big deal, people were paying $20 to park farther away).

Port Clinton

The girls and I took part in the annual Port Clinton vacation this year. We could only stay for half the week, but I'm pretty sure that was ok with my parents. The girls decided to stage a sleep strike when we got there. Neither of them slept very much at all; our last night there Kate was up at 1:30 a.m. and then again at 5:45 a.m...for the day. So, it made for a very tired mom and a very tired Gigi. However, we still managed to have a great time.

Annie loved the pool, and she loved chasing after her buddy Owen. She also loved stealing his toys and bossing him around, which was funny because Owen returned the favor with Kate. It was a baby chain of command. :)

And, as always, Annie can't resist a captive audience, so she sang and danced her way through our visit.

Playing with the poolside fountains


Grandpa Jeff and Kate

Kate pulled herself up on every available surface and somehow still managed to leave unharmed!

"Sharing" Owen's bubble wand

Gigi, Grandpa Jeff and Annie

Being cute. She's holding her lovey and her kitty, her two most precious possessions.

She's a diva.

Swim Lessons Are Fun!

Annie hates swim lessons. She loves to swim, and she loves to show off her little water skills for anyone who will watch--as long as they are not her swim instructor. She hates to do anything at swim lessons. Here she is hiding under the pool chair refusing to get in the pool. Typically, she gets in the water and then as soon as the instructor asks her to do something, she freaks out. She holds onto the side of the pool, crying and yelling "I want a towel!" or "I want to go home!" while everyone stares. We still go every week and try, but at this point, I'm just considering it a $55 donation to the city of Ann Arbor and not expecting much in return.

Matt took her on this particular day, and she actually did better than usual. Which you'll think is sort of sad once you see this video.

Pool Fun

The girls and I were in Cleveland this past weekend for all sorts of fun activities. At my parents' house, Annie had a blast playing in a blow up pool on the grass. As we still do not have grass at our house, this was a real treat for her. She also loved having Sydney around to splash and play with around the yard. When she saw Sydney, she yelled "My Sydney!" and gave her a big hug. She misses not having Sydney running around the house!

We also went to the Ralls' house to swim in their pool with Brady, Ella and Madelyn. Annie once again proved that outside swim lessons, she is quite the little fish. Despite freezing water, even Kate and Maddee joined in on the water fun! :)

Annie all wrapped up after swimming

Annie and Brady

Grandma and Grandpa Ralls, Kate and Madelyn. Kate is making a great face. :)

Uncle Matt

All the way from Arkansas, Uncle Matt came to visit a few days ago! Annie was excited before he came. She was running around yelling "Soooooey! Uncle Matt!" As soon as he arrived, he gave Annie some presents and she was pretty much all about Matt for the rest of his visit. He was laughing at the number of times she said "Hey Uncle Matt." I thought it was great--much better than her saying "Mommy" 1,000 times. :)

Matt (the dad) was post-call, so he was able to hang out and we all headed to a local petting farm. It was really cute, and Annie loved looking at all the animals. She was not very interested in petting any of them, however.

Checking out the goats.

There were millions of cows having their lunch just on the other side of the fence.

Matt even pitched in and helped feed Kate! He said he drew the line at changing diapers, though.

Thanks for making the drive to visit us, Matt! We all had a great time!

Eight Months

Kate is now eight months old! I can't believe how quickly she is growing and changing. Shortly after she started crawling she figured out how to climb the stops. And just a few days after that she figured out how to pull up on everything. So, she is everywhere, and we are constantly chasing her. As much as she is learning, she has not figured out how to get down from a standing position herself (unless she falls). She'll stand in her crib and cry until one of us goes in to lay her down. Silly girl.


Kate's starting to make more noises and the silliest faces. She loves Annie. When she's being fussy and I'm in the middle of something, I call Annie over to entertain her. It works every time. It's one of the main advantages of having two kids!
She still won't sleep through the night regularly, but she is a great napper when we're at home. Otherwise, she is way too nosy and must watch everything going on around her, no matter how tired she may be.



And, some photos of our Kate:

Enjoying delicious carrots.


She makes this face constantly these days. We have no idea why or where she picked it up.

Passed out after an exhausting afternoon swimming and staring at people at the pool.

Happy Fourth of July!