Weekend Rewind in the 419.

When you live in our area and the Mud Hens season opener occurs, it is pretty much a city-wide holiday. People leave work early, the streets get closed down and you revel in the festivities. Every year, we plan our schedules so that we can dive into the fun. Here is the one photo from the day!

After getting Ella from school on Friday, we put on our play clothes and got outdoors as quickly as possible. It was the best day of 2015 - warm breeze, full sun. Before the night was over, we were spinning vinyl on the old Magnavox, eating pizza and letting the kids run wild with some of our neighbors. You could hear the collective exhales from all of us. Summer in the neighborhood is so special. 

Look at that moxie.

Piper's Dougie and Ella's Panda were down for the count at 8:30pm

Ella made a book this past week while she was with my mom. "Ella Author; Ella Illustrator; Ella's Story" You are all those things, sweet girl. We love that you want to do it all.

Saturday gave us another full day with Roz as Katie and Patrick broke their backs with more moving duties. In addition to playing, running, bossing and biking hard, they ended up in the tub for over an hour getting clean. They weren't the only two getting clean...

...these two got a bath too. It was LONG overdue for P-Man.

Ella had "Cody Duty" this weekend. Cody is the class mascot. She had to write in a journal as to what Cody was up to while with our family.

In a fit of desperation, I provided a big bowl of popcorn to these two and uploaded Annie (the movie) for them to watch. Since then, Ella has been singing the entire soundtrack non-stop.

Shoes. Did I mention shoes and tying shoes? It has been a subject matter of great distress in our house. But hot *^%(!* if she didn't master it this weekend. Her bonus? Rarity the Pony. 

4.19 is a big deal here in our parts. This is how Thomas chose to celebrate 419 in the 419(our area code). He has a hard life.

Larry pulled a volunteer gig for the Arts Commission on Sunday so Ella and I headed to the Art Museum for a little relaxing before my photo shoot with Addy Grace.

There was no sun. The wind was BRUTAL. It didn't stop our little Addy. Thanks to Daddy John for capturing the tackle. I love everything about this shot. We have such a unique, wonderful thing going on with our families. There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not thankful for them all.

Happy Tuesday, Ella-land! ~H

Stay-cation Spring Break.

It rocked.

We had rain almost every day.

We didn't care.

Larry and I have spent the first three days back to the normal work-school routine missing our girl, for sure.

We had a huge Easter Egg Hunt with all of our Old Orchard families the day before Easter - about 90 people there, in all!

We had a little breakfast with Old State Line to re-fuel before heading off to celebrate Addy's fourth birthday!

Look at all that cuteness!

Aunt Kay sent a special delivery in the mail, and Ella read it cover to cover.

We did a special Easter manicure.

Ella rocked out her Grandma-made Easter dress. Christ rose from the dead and she apparently was feeling a little sassy about that.

We went to my brother Greg's house after Ah-men where he did not disappoint with his masterful Easter Egg Hunt.

It felt soooooo good to do this. We spent extra time cuddling and 'resting' (translation: I rested, she did not) with our relaxed schedule. 

Ella got to hook up with her neighbor buds on Tuesday morning.

She fell asleep HARD every night.

Our awesome zoo just unveiled the new and improved aquarium. Woah! We ventured out on a cold, rainy day with Piper, Oliver and their grown ups. No crowds!

We had to hit the Parakeet Retreat before leaving, so yeah, this was me.

And then lunch at an incredibly greasy spoon downtown where the mural was as good as the food.

More rain on Thursday but it didn't stop us from traveling to the Detroit Institute of Art for the awesome Kahlo/Rivera exhibit.

The rain stopped that evening, sun came out briefly then the tornado sirens screeched. Spring is here!

On Saturday, we had Roz over for the day so that her grown ups could get stuff done as they prep for their move (CLOSER TO US!!!). We spent the entire day outside working in the yard and playing.

In an effort to squeeze in a last bit of stay-cation fun, Ella and I hit the Art-o-matic event downtown Saturday evening where Larry was playing with the band.

And last but not least, was our book signing bash for our church friend, Olga. It was a packed house complete with Cuban music (compliments of Larry and Spencer).

My camera was smoking hot by the time Sunday came to a close. I left the book signing to photograph our friends' daughter for her senior pictures. It was a lovely day to be at our awesome art museum, even though my body was fifty kinds of tired.

Our girl...trooper...best third-wheel ever. It may not have been the beach in sunny Florida but dang if we didn't try to make it a good time. She was happy to go back to school and see her cool classmates and teacher. She also knows we are on the homestretch now - counting the weeks for summer break!

~H