Halloween down on the farm

Thankfully last week's snow turned out to be just a teaser, and today a bit of true fall visited the area:  bright blue sky, wispy clouds, temperatures nearing 60, and a light, crisp autumn breeze.  We were on our way to the grocery store to stock our pantry and deck our front porch with pumpkins when we decided to completely reschedule our day in order to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.  What were we thinking, trying to buy pumpkins from the grocery store when there is a famous pumpkin patch literally two minutes down the street from us???  So instead of cleaning and lazing about after unloading groceries (sans pumpkins) we headed off to Wiard's Orchard for Calvin's first taste of this fun fall activity.  What an amazing way to spend a fall day!  There were animals (which Calvin is too young to pet), basic carnival games and activities (which Calvin is too young to take part in), and, of course, fresh cider and donuts (which Calvin is too young to ingest).  What Calvin could do was play with pumpkins, and this he found fascinating - until he found it exhausting, after which he merely conked out and slept through the rest of our visit.  But whether he enjoyed it or not, we did, and we even came home with a small family of pumpkins (not from the national chain store, but from our local centennial+ farm) that we chose directly from the patch (the Halloween equivalent of cutting down your own Christmas tree, just warmer).  And fall really lends itself to beautiful pictures the way that no other season does, so we also came home with a plethora of photographs, a favored handful of which we have posted in Calvin's nineteenth week album to share (yes, those are just a handful).  We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Beautiful weekend for celebrations

On Saturday we received two "prank" phone messages, one on Cortney's cell phone and one on our answering machine.  We're not talking heavy breathing here.  Worse, they were, quite simply, the Michigan State Fight Song.  We overcame the horror of said messages quickly, or at least by 5:00pm.  We won't dwell too long on the victory, just long enough to rub it in for the State fans that LOST on Saturday.  Now, if the State players had even a touch of the athletic talent that Calvin displays here, it might have been a different story...

Sunday was an all together different kind of celebration.  For months our church has been planning an "all church supper" to celebrate the beginning of a new season and a new stewardship kickoff.  We have to admit that when we heard they were planning said supper to be held in the great out of doors in the middle of a Michigan October we were skeptical.  We were, however, pleasantly surprised by the Indian Summer weather, with sun and 70 degree weather.  This was a celebration not only for the church as a whole, but for Cortney and her committee, which was in charge of planning and putting on the event, and her fellow deacons, who were challenged to bring in and host at least 300 of the church's almost 2,000 members.  Well, the event, complete with meals served at the tables and a live band, went off without a hitch, and over 500 members attended!  Cortney hosted 14 people at her table alone, and Jon found himself acting as part of the entertainment - not with a piano, with Calvin.  Most people cannot resist cooing at a cuddly baby!  As our pastor noted to us over supper, many people have begun to refer to Calvin as the church's baby.

And what is celebration without cake?  Since Jon's birthday is October 10th we also took advantage of the beautiful weekend to sneak in double birthday celebrations.  On Saturday night we celebrated with Jon's parents, and enjoyed a wonderful post-game tailgate style dinner (mmm...) and a fantastic homemade carrot cake (Jon's favorite).  On Sunday night we celebrated with Cortney's family, where Jon shared the candles on a yummy chocolate ice cream cake with Curtis, who shares the same birthday.  So we have a wonderful football team (shh...don't burst our bubble just yet), a wonderful church, and wonderful families - that was a lot to celebrate.

Yep, we're townies

With the Art Fair looming around the corner, many of the actual locals, or "townies" in A2-speak, are packing up and heading out, if they haven't already. Then there are those who choose to stay and fight for their rights to the town - hence the second annual "townie" party. Well, even though we're now in the outlying township, we still feel like we've never moved away, and being a "townie" is just a state of mind, anyway. So, it was off to the "Ingalls Mall" (who knew that space in front of Rackham had a name?) to celebrate with the rest of the bunch. It turns out that townies are a weird crowd, from the barefoot hippies to the standard local character Shakey Jake to the absolutely unusual at-least-80-year-old man wearing a white top hat but no shirt. But we guess that we fit in alright - we had a dancing baby on the tabletop, after all. Curtis joined us for dinner as well. We all felt badly for the Dutch carillon player up in Burton Tower whose concert of classical bell tolling had to compete for sonic attention with the RFD Boys. Ah, well - we'll have to make it back to another concert in that series later in the summer. We topped off the night by passing the near-empty not-so-local Ben & Jerry's to wait in a local line at local Stucchi's for a local root beer float. In the words of Curtis, holler at your local!

A growing boy needs his own car

Calvin is a growing boy.  He's gotten so big that we thought we'd better get him used to sleeping in the crib because we don't know how much longer he can stay in the bassinet in our room.  We made that decision even before our suspicions about his growth had been confirmed as they were during an impromptu visit to the doctor this afternoon.  Though he wasn't supposed to see the doctor again until mid August we were a little concerned about a rash on his neck and wanted it checked out.  The positive sides to the visit were the weigh in and measuring - 10lbs 4oz, 22.75inches - and the affirmation that the rash was nothing.  The negative side to the visit was having to see a different doctor who decided that we should be concerned about Calvin's level of jaundice, even though our usual pediatrician had already decided it was just a normal case of breastfeeding juandice and nothing to worry about.  The ensuing heel prick and blood letting for the bilirubin test was more upsetting to Cortney than to Calvin, but was stressful all around. 

Which is why we decided to treat ourselves to a nice evening out.  Since a rainstorm swept through just as Calvin was finishing at the doctor the air cooled down sufficiently for all of us to enjoy a stroll through the Ann Arbor Rolling Sculptures Car Show downtown.  We figured that this was an especially good choice for the evening since Calvin will soon be needing his own car.  Unfortunately they didn't have any Power Wheels for us to look at, but Jon was considering either the Chrysler Imperial or the Corvette.  Calvin thought both sounded good and was full of smiles when we got home - we were even able to catch one on camera!

An outpouring of love.

Our friends and family have been nothing but loving and supportive since we announced Raspberry's existence back in December.  We have received multitudes of hugs, cards, gifts, and tidbits of advice from everyone and it is clearer now than ever to us that we are well loved and that Raspberry will enjoy the same.  Last night was no different.  Cortney is a deacon at our church and last night we were overwhelmed by the outpouring of love for Raspberry, and the two of us, in a surprise shower event organized by Cortney's Quad leader and friend, Michelle, at the deacons' monthly meeting.  Before the meeting several of the deacons surprised Cortney with gift bags, including two wonderful lullaby CDs from the family of Jon's confirmand, and a wonderful hand stitched bib and amazingly beautiful, hand carved rattle from Sandy and her husband.  As if that wasn't surprising enough, at the end of the standard meeting a very unsuspecting, and somewhat embarrassed, Cortney was called to the front of the room and presented with a gift certificate and two very personal gifts:  the first was a quilt pieced together from squares signed by the other deacons in Cortney's quad and hand sewn by Michelle;  the second was a beautiful scrapbook, every page containing the advice, stories, prayers, etc., hand written by each of the 54 other deacons and put together by Michelle.  The amount of work put into making those two gifts is incredibly touching, as is their personal nature.  We will cherish them always, and they will forever remind us of how loved we really are.  We cannot wait for Raspberry to meet all the wonderful people who already care so much about him before he has even entered the world.