Kadence is FIVE!!!!

Happy Birthday cutie!! We are so excited to see you this weekend!! I can't believe we get to play with the REAL Kadence Nelson!! We are the luckiest people around!! Love you sweetie! Have the best birthday ever!!!

New Trees

We went to Horrocks the other day because their fruit trees are 50% off now (which pretty much brings the price down to everyone else). We ended up getting a plum, cherry, and nectarine. I'm pretty excited about the nectarine. Nectarines are meticulously shaved peaches.
Here they are once we dug holes and stuck them inside. Danielle, by the way, is holding a chicken.

Love You, Dads!

Monkey Passports

We went to the post office today and submitted all the paperwork applications for the kids' passports. They took the pictures right there, too. It was hilarious. I wish I'd gotten video of the pictures being taken but I just have this one in-betweenzie video. Juneau got a very serious and self-conscious face and seemed to feel really important and formal in his shoot. Willow, as usual, loved her photoshoot, and Bear was our good sweet Bear.

Burt and little Burt

Reasons why I think Bear is a very
similar personality to his Grandpa Burt:

• They both love to read
• They are very God loving
• They are huge pranksters
  

A day in Videos

Crap I Like

I like judging books by their cover. Check out these awesome looking books we got at Barnes and Noble Booksellers. I don't know about you, but just looking at the sweet binding and gold leafing of the book called "the Iliad and the Odyssey," by some dude named Homer, I can tell that it is probably going to be pretty good. And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knows how to write a compilation book that looks awesome. -This means that it is likely to be good. If anyone has heard of Charles Dickens, you probably know that he writes good looking books. I wonder what they are about? Stained glass windows or some crap like that? Maybe, but it sure looks like it will be an attractive and decorative book to read.

Memorial Day up in Mackinaw

In the course of a four hour drive, these guys get into plenty of trouble. Here, at the very beginning of the trip, was the last second of non-turmoil.

We are usually zonked by the time we get there. Willow here fell asleep in the last few minutes of the trip and was totally unconscious until exactly 7 the next morning.

Willow, Juneau, and I (John) went for a canoe ride into the Straights. Willow helped paddle and Juneau provided valuable ballast.

Lots of fun.

Somehow, sparklers poped out at some point in the bonfire evening. Willow had never played with sparklers before and was full-on fascinated with them. I've always been a firebug, too.

We played with Adler, Kevin's baby raccoon. His eyes are open now and he wants to chew on solid food. He also likes to climb to the top of his cage and hang there. The kids go ape crap for Adler. He also purrs like a cat -it's great.

On the way home, we stopped by Chillermania near Indian River, the direct outlet of Bear's current favorite author, Jonathan Rand. They had loads of books inside and several piles of fake puke on the ground. Some dude in there with a small dog saw it and got upset and embarrassed because he thought his dog did it. The clerk had to tell him that it was fake barf and he was a mix relieved but still embarrassed -which I would be, too, I suppose. Pretty funny, though.

Super Y!

For the past 2/3rds of her life, Willow has been a fan of the PBS Kids show, Super Y. Super Y solves problems with his powers of spelling, and is never short of adventures that require the slow sounding-out of letters in order to get out of a pinch. When little Willow was just toddling, she would dance to the intro theme, which I think I will always remember.

So when we heard that Super Y was going to make a live appearance at the East Lansing Art Festival, we knew we had to be there.

When Willow finally met Super Y, after a week of buildup at home, she was a split second away from giving him five then lost her mettle and burst into tears. Really, a 7 ft. tall cartoon in the flesh approaching anyone for a hand slap is a pretty absurd situation and not one that I can expect Willow to handle entirely without the instincts of self preservation.
Anyways, she totally lost it. Juneau, meanwhile, surveyed Super Y with a suspicious and cautious eye.

Little Willow took a bit to regain her composure. This was helped by increasing the distance between she and Super Y.


Meanwhile, Juneau never took his eye off of that stuffed bastard, and kept a careful and skeptical watch.


Bear, who is capable of cultivating a formidable lip garden, took it all in stride.

Pile Up

The other night Willow helped Danielle get cozy on the couch. I was only listening to the operation and didn't realize the extent to which Willow was helping. When I turned around I saw that Willow had collected nearly every blanket and pillow in the house.