Summer is here! A-camping we go!

June is here!!!  That means it's officially summer and I couldn't be happier!  Hello warm weather, dinner on the grill, and time on the deck!

June 2nd, 2012
To officially welcome in the start of summer, we invited the Dunn's over for dinner for grilled chicken, veggies and potatoes on the grill.  While Jaime was cooking, I ran to the grocery store to pick up a few needed items and got a phone call from Amanda, my college roomate and a dear friend.  Turns out, Amanda (and her 6 month old son, Calvin) were stranded at Detroit Metro airport en route to Baltimore.  While the weather here in Michigan was absolutely beautiful, there was bad weather in Baltimore that had grounded all flights and she likely wouldn't be able to make it back until the morning.  Luckily, we live only about 15 minutes from the airport and were home, so she didn't have to spend the night in a nasty airport hotel.

It worked out great....she got to enjoy dinner with us, Calvin got to play with Hugo, and Amanda and I got to stay up late drinking a bottle of wine and catching up.  It was so, so nice to see her and a wonderful, unexpected surprise!

June 3rd, 2012
More sprinkler time for Hugo!  I have a feeling our water bill is going to be quite large this summer.

June 4-5th, 2012
I know I've said this before, but I absoultey love waking up in the morning before Hugo and getting a chance to admire how adorable he is when he sleeps.  I especially love when Vernie is cuddled up with him . . . during the day when Hugo is awake, he and Vern are definite frenemies.  Hugo loves him but gets so mad at him ("no, no, Nernie!") and vice versa.  But when they are both sleepy, they love to cuddle.

Hugo and Daddy being cute...matching big smiles.

 

June 8th, 2012

Hugo has always loved suckers --- while I don't condone giving kids tons of candy, it is nice that a sucker can quickly placate him and walk him down from a major tantrum.  However, usually the effect is short-lived and he loses interest in the sucker pretty quickly.  Tonight, however, I gave him a sucker while getting fussy in the backseat and he actually ate it (I mean, actually bit and chewed the entire thing!).  It was blue raspberry flavored, which meant that Hugo had some amazing bright blue lips for the evening.  (Do these lips remind you of anything?  Think Cash...blue gumball?)

June 9th, 2012
Again, more sprinkler time.  Today I gave him a cup to fill up in the sprinkler and he used it to drink out of! 

Are those the most beautiful lips or what?

We spent the afternoon up in Salem, Michigan because they were having their Summer Liberty Fest and Tim's band, the Blues Dog Inquisition, was playing.  It was a great afternoon for a summer fest --- the weather was beautiful, our friends were there (the Dunns plus new friends Shelley, Joe and son Evan), and there was a plethora of summer junk food (popsicles, ice cream, nachos, cotton candy).  Hugo and Connor were totally occupied by ginormous bomb pops and playing on the baseball field.  I mean, really, what is cooler than getting all dirty with a bunch of baseball diamond dust?

June 10th, 2012
The Aukers came over for dinner and Hugo showed Liam how much fun it is to play in the sprinkler!

June 15-17th, 2012
Camping is something that I grew up doing as a kid, and once Jaime and I got married, it was something that we like to do in the summers.  However, we always tent and after our tent camping fiasco with Shannon, Tim and Connor when Connor was only 6 months old, I'm really not inclined to take a baby tent camping.  So, when we found out that Chris & Kim (friends of Nic & Craig) were selling their pop-up camper for a great price, we jumped on it!  To celebrate Father's Day weekend, we decided to take it out for its inagural trip.  We reserved a camp site at the Pickney State Recreation area, headed out after work, and got everything set up (relatively easily).  Hugo loved it right away - he had a blast tumbling around on the end beds!

Hugo did great camping --- he fell asleep no problem, he had a blast being able to play outside constantly, and he was pretty good about staying put on our campsite and staying out of the road.

While there was a lake at the campground, it was really more of a boating lake and didn't have a good beach area (espeically for little kids).  Thankfully, there were several beach areas within a short drive, so on Saturday we headed out for a beach day. 

On the way home from the beach, we stopped to get ice cream at the Unadilla General Store --- I love little general stores near campgrounds.  They have EVERYTHING - and always manage to have the best ice cream.  Hugo sure liked it --- look at all of that cotton candy ice cream all over his face!

When we got back to the campground, Hugo and I went to the park area to play while Jaime got dinner ready.  He really liked playing in the sandbox. 

It was really a great, great weekend with my awesome little family.  No fights, just a really nice family weekend away from it all.  Good quality time with Hugo that wasn't interrupted by the usual distractions, no TV, and quality time with Jaime (we even managed to squeeze in some hands of cards after Hugo went to bed)!

June 17th, 2012
When I was in Spain, I bought Hugo a football (soceer) jersey as a souvenir.  It was so cute, and I know how much Jaime loves dressing like Hugo so I had to buy him as well.  Here are my boys in their matching Spanish soccer jerseys!

June 20th, 2012
Ann Arbor Summer Fest --- and Ann Arbor summer tradition with the Dunns!  Every year, Ann Arbor hosts an amazing Summer Fest, filled with weeks of live music and movies on the Rackham lawn.  We usually try to make it out once or twice each year.  We met the Dunns down on campus and set up camp.  The big boys went off to get dinner for all of us while Shannon and I stayed back with the kiddos.  Hugo and Connor had a blast running around --- they had two balls that they kept chasing.  Hugo was getting very brave chasing his ball - at one point, he got about 50 yards away from me and I could no longer see him well through the crowds of people so I had to get up and bring him back to base.  He's getting very independent!

After hanging out in the park and letting the kids run wild, Jaime and Tim brought the kiddos home so Shannon and I could stay and watch the movie "The Help". 

June 22nd-24th, 2012
Another awesome weekend of camping!  This weekend we headed to St. Ignace to meet my mom, Tonya and the boys for a fun weekend!  Our campsite was right in front of the "park" at the St. Ignance State Park.  While it wasn't much of a park, it did have a slide, swings, and sand box area so it was enough to keep the boys occupied.  Hugo especially liked the swings.  Look at my big boy sitting up on a big boy swing all by himself!  He must have sat like that for 15+ minutes!

Cousins playing so nice together in the sand.

Gatlin is still on his Marine Corps kick and is working out a lot to get into bootcamp shape.  Check out his awesome muscles!  God, I love that kid!

Beach day!!!  It was a perfect UP-summer day so we headed along US-2 to spend time on the beach, which is the north shore of Lake Michigan.  The boys had an absolute blast.  There was another little boy there about Gatlin's age, so they spent the entire day playing together and Cash played really nice with Hugo.  Hugo is such a beach baby...he loved running back and forth between the beach and the water and was totally content the entire time we were there.

 

 Another picture of Gatlin's muscles....and Gatlin checking out Jaime's "guns".

A Kool-Aid JAMMERS for Hugo (seems appropriate given we sometimes call Jaime JAMMERS).

This is how Jaime spent a good portion of his beach time...he's not much of a beach guy.

As we were packing up to leave, you could tell that Gatlin was a little tired from playing so hard.  He casually went to go sit down (on the styrofoam cooler!) and it was almost like slow motion.  The styrofoam broke, he fell right on his butt and into a pool of ice cold water that had melted in the cooler!  It was so funny!  The kind of thing that couldn't be planned.

Cuddle time for the Grandma and the boys back at the campground.

I absolutely love to see Hugo with Gatlin and Cash (or vice versa) - I absolutely love to see Gatlin and Cash with Hugo.  Seeing them together emits the kind of joy that you could only hope for for your children....they are all so happy and totally enamored with each other.  Then, after cute snuggle time, they got a little crazy in the camper before bed time.

 What a great trip!  Hopefully this will turn into a yearly tradition!

June 25th, 2012
Back to reality at home....a night at the park and ice cream time!  That's what summer is about, right?  The park and ice cream?

Check out this smile on the swings!

My boys cuddling together.