Some more pics from our trip…we’re back now, had a wonderful time and are sad vacation is over. Thanks so much Nana and Papa for a wonderful long weekend. The boys are tucked into bed, the laundry is put away and we got pampered with a perfect salmon dinner by Maymay.
Now it’s time to plan the 4th of July party….

After getting off to a rocky start, Levi catching the dreaded stomach flu and throwing up all night before we were supposed to leave, we loaded up the troops and headed down to Westport for the Pirate Festival.
If you aren’t familiar with Westport, it’s just a tiny fishing village down by Ocean Shores but for this weekend they transform the street by the marina into vendor booths and the pirates come out of the woorwork in full garb. It’s pretty amazing and very family friendly. There are pirates who let the kids come and sword fight, ones making balloon swords, lots of food and cool pirate gear being sold and all are more than willing to talk to the kids about their antique guns, swords, etc. I have to say that there isn’t much cooler for 4, 5 and 6 year old boys than pirates and they are EVERYWHERE. Of all the boys, Trey is in 7th heaven and can’t get enough. He loves this one guy dressed up as a skeleton pirate and wants to keep going back to see him, Carlos is all about the sword fighting (he took a big pirate down!) and Levi is doing some serious people watching (he’s still recovering but being a total trooper).
The neat part about this festival is that most things are FREE…the vendors, obviously, charge for their goods but many give away eye patches and stickers and all in all we’re not getting nickel and dimed all day. There are black powder cannons and muskets going off and pirates “acting out” fights in the street, usually where one crew is coming to break their captain out of jail and has to fight off another crew in order to do it. I think the pirates have more fun than the rest of us! It’s been great spending time with Nana and Papa as well, and Linda, Scott and the girls came down for awhile yesterday so the boys always love seeing the cousins.
Back to vacation here..some swimming in the pool, walking on the beach and more pirates on the agenda for the day!

When I was young, my friend Brenda and I (like so many others) were completely obsessed with Michael Jackson. I had a photo album with magazine clippings, stickers and anything else Michael that I could find. His pictures were posted up around my room right next to my Ricky Shroeder, Kirk Cameron and Michael J. Fox photos from Teen Beat magazine and 16. I think I was pretty typical. My first 45 was something my cool teenage babysitter played for me and I went out and bought, “Rock with You” Still one of my favorites.
No matter what you thought of him, he will always be the King of Pop, and was a creative, artistic and talented man. My friend Holly said it best “25 year ago me is really bawling right now”

About a year ago I splurged and bought myself a nice camera (Nikon D40) to take pictures of the kids. It’s one of my favorite things to do, always has been. Took it out to the park yesterday and got a few nice shots. I’m thinking of doing $100 photo shoots for people…want to sign up? I won’t deal with the printing, but you’d get the cd of photos to take wherever you want to get them developed. I think it’s a money making idea for sure. You have to take into consideration that I have the cutest kids on the planet so your pics may not come out as nice, but I think you’d be happy with the end results.
Anyhow, here are my 3 favorites of the boys!

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You are SO loved! We are looking forward to celebrating Father’s Day AND your birthday with you today. Also can’t wait for a fun filled weekend at the Pirate Festival.

s
So here’s a little shout out to my dad, who got completely hosed on Father’s Day this year. We had good intentions for a nice brunch to celebrate, that was the plan…but you know what they say about the best laid plans.
Anyhow, Dee and I had spent the majority of Saturday at my parent’s house visiting with my aunt, uncle and cousin who were in visiting from Detroit. So much fun! Carlos had a high fever (103+) most the day and slept ALOT but we did make it downtown to do a little shopping and have ice cream at Mora.
After dinner, Carlos was feeling worse, and we ended up at home with Dee feeling really bad (remember Trey had the stomach flu a couple days back?) not too long afterward. I went to bed early with Carlos, Dee camped out on the couch and we were ready for a good night’s sleep. I wish. An hour later I was sick (remember Trey’s stomach flu?) . So, all in all, Dee and I were up off and on all night sick and felt like we got run over by a Mac truck by morning. I did get to say Happy Father’s Day via phone, and had my wonderful dad (and mom!) drop off meds for Carlos, ginger ale, popsicles and saltines but I feel so badly that we didn’t get to celebrate on his special day. Dad…you are the best, I love you and we WILL celebrate!

When we went to get the kitten this afternoon, Trey said from the back of the van “Mamas, I’m sorry for my chicken” and we had NO idea what he was talking about. I asked him to repeat what he said and again he said, “I’m sorry for my chicken.” I looked back at him and he had thrown up his lunch (chicken) all over himself. Poor little guy. We stopped, got him cleaned up and headed onward to get the cat. I made the mistake of giving him a graham cracker and some juice and about 10 minutes longer into the trip he lost it all over the back of the van. I’m sure the kitten people thought we were a nightmare pulling up, stripping down our kid and evacuating the van in a hurry. It was BAD. We got Trey changed again…loaded up the van and headed back home. Trey’s thrown up a few more times and is now resting on the couch. It’s tough because we aren’t “barfers” and our guys don’t know what to do when they get sick like that…and we really aren’t prepared for it. Wish us luck, we’ve got lots of hand sanitizer and fingers crossed that we’ve kept this nasty bug quarantined.

The last couple days we’ve been looking for our cat, Jack (Diane’s brother). He hasn’t come to eat and hasn’t come when we’re down in the basement doing laundry. We broke the news to the kids this morning that Jack probably wasn’t coming back. I thought Levi (our animal lover) would have the toughest time but he said “oh he probably just got eaten by a coyote, we’ll just get another cat and call him Jack”. So much for my sensitive animal guy! Surprisingly, Carlos (who never even pet Jack) was the one who burst into tears. He is heartbroken over the whole thing and “just wants Jack to come back home”
Anyhow, we did a lot of distracting today, ran a few errands and came home to see a post on Freecycle that someone had a 9 week old kitten they had to get rid of. Timing of that one was amazing to me. I called and now we have a sweet little kitten who needs a name. The boys are wanting to call her “Captain Jack Sparrow”….help!

We’re on vacation….summer vacation, that is and making the most of it so far by catching up on our sleep!