Happy Four years to us!

We are a bit behind in getting to this, but that's just how much fun we've been having this summer.  Thursday of last week, July 26th, we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary.  It seems strange that it has only been four years when we stop to think about all the fun things we have done in that time.  So many jobs, so many vacations, so many new things to try.  Oh, and Calvin, too, of course.  We celebrated the milestone a couple of times:  We were treated to a really grand lunch at Zingerman's Roadhouse by Jon's parents (good American pulled pork and potatoes, followed by Root Beer floats!), and then to a fancy Australian dinner on the Huron River Front by Cortney's parents.  Where else besides Ann Arbor could you enjoy a multi course meal complete with linen, china, glass, and "silver"ware atop the standard wooden park picnic tables?  No where, we tell you.  This was a picnic dinner, The Aussie/New Zealand Cook-off put on by the Ann Arbor Tasters Guild that focused on tasting several different Australian dishes, such as green lipped mussels and Kobe beef sausages, not to mention the lamb, and several different Australian wines, of course.  All under the picnic overhang alongside the Huron River in Island Park.  The style of the meal, several small tasting courses each with a different wine, was just like that of the special meal we shared on our honeymoon at Emeril's in New Orleans, which brought back great memories.  How appropriate.  And what a gorgeous dinner on a gorgeous night.  It's hard to say who was more amazed by Calvin's stellar behavior, us or the other partakers, as he sat in his stroller and tried each new food throughout the whole 2 hour meal!  That was our anniversary gift from our son, and a good one at that.  What a wonderful day, with two fantastic meals!

And, as always, an overload of pictures can be found in the July 20-27 photo album. 

 

Duck love

We have a lot of ducks that hang out in the ponds (read: drainage ditches) in our neighborhood and Calvin's day just isn't the same if he doesn't get to go say hi to them.  It's really a good time, because some people, ourselves not included, clearly feed these guys and they are more than happy to waddle within touching range as we stroller on up.  For some reason, however, they aren't so happy to stay that close when Calvin is no longer restrained in the stroller, a fact that confuses and frustrates the poor child to no end.  The dogs and cats let him pet them, why not the ducks?  Come on!

 

A maelstrom of runaway days

If time usually flies, then the vortex of runaway days that has us caught chasing our tails to try and catch up is the reason we haven't posted an update in nine full days.  Between the 11th and now we have had visitors at the house and visited houses, parties at church both to welcome and to send off, trips to parks, festivals, and stores, and just a general business that has kept us on our toes.  And if you are looking for an eddy of your own to get swept up in we suggest summertime in Ann Arbor.  That, at least, is what has done it for us.  We spent at least one night a week at the Summer Festival on campus, then soon after close of that event the Rolling Sculptures Show drove into town on July 13, once again drawing us out into the sunshine and crowds.  Calvin loves the crowds.  He was not as in love with the old Model Ts, Mercedes, or R.E.O. Speedwagons as we were, but he loved the tiny fairy car that ran on Vernors.  And close on the heals of the Rolling Sculptures show was the arrival of the Ann Arbor Art Fairs - more sun and more crowds, and again Calvin was more interested in the crowds, and in the manhole cover, than he was in the art, but each person enjoys art in their own way and at least he had fun.  With all of the goings ons lately we haven't even been able to get back to our zoos and visit our animals.  Yes, the one thing that keeps us somewhat grounded and sane is the twice daily occurrence of nap time - some days for all of us - but even this is about to give way to the "more mature" once daily nap occurrence, at which time we are somewhat like to combust, so be prepared. 

All the car show pictures are in the July 7-13 album

All the Art Fairs pictures are in the July 14-20 album

Small triumphs

It absolutely amazes us the way that wildlife seems to survive even in the face of our greatest efforts to obliterate it.  Perhaps we've all seen the picture that has been traversing the web for years now, showing a fawn carefully hidden by his mother on someone's deck that was littered with white blossoms?  Or the weeds that take hold the minute an ounce of soil shows through a crack in a sidewalk.  And no matter how hard we try, through pulling or even poisoning, those weeds keep coming back!  It's a sad plight that we have created for nature's wonders, and yet she continues to bless us with stolen moments.  We live in a tightly packed house farm, and the water we enjoy walking by is really a carefully laid out system of drainage ditches, yet we are treated nightly to sightings of rabbits, ducks, and a muskrat.  Sometimes we even get to see the Great Blue Heron, or a hawk, or the rare snake.  Tonight we were within a few yards of a Green Heron.  We have no idea how rare he is, but he was new to us and we spent a good 20 minutes watching him eat bugs.  Even Calvin watched him for a while, before returning to his terraforming project (read: moving grass).  It is likely to be both our most important and most difficult endeavor to teach him to love and respect this world that our kind has so mistreated.

 

Best seats in the house.

There are a number of things that we love about our house.  We love the high ceilings, the ground floor laundry, the fenced yard, the deck, and the seating we get for varoud fourth of July events.  The first year that we moved in we thought the wonderful fireworks displays that we enjoyed from our deck were a fluke, but lucky for us the excitment has been annual event.  We're still not sure how many of the multiple points of fiery splendor are professional (and legal) shows versus the many backyard pyrotechnics that light up our skies, but we enjoy them all, and there is no show we would rather take in (who can beat fireworks without the traffic and bugs???).  And as if the yearly display on the fourth wasn't good enough, this year we got an extra treat - great seats (minus the traffic) to the Blue Angels air show.  The show was the first in this area in many years and was held at Willow Run Airport, and we got to see all the major tricks, and even got some very close (and very loud) views, right from our own driveway.  Several times they made their turn right over our house before heading back to the show.  Thankfully Calvin is a really good napper so he got enough sleep (regardless of the noise) that we were still able to head back to Ann Arbor for the last evening of Top of the Park, and an iced coffee from Border's.