the spree

we decided to take a family outing, which included jason and sonya of course, to the livonia spree on thursday nite. i have only been one other time which was 2 years ago. we went on a saturday afternoon and it was SO hot it wasn't that enjoyable. thursday nite was the perfect weather and made for a much nicer time. we went even after bribing hayden to be good at grandma's that day or else we wouldn't be going. he, in fact, was NOT good that day. but i caved and took him anyway. so much for consistency. here is what we did:

hayden running through the "park" as he called it:
coming down the slide at the "park" ride:
sonya and jason enjoying a deep fried twinkie:
this is what talan did:
the boys. don't they look tough:
hayden was talking to the kid and mom behind him. i'm sure it had something to do with the "coupling" of the train:
the roller coaster hayden went on all by himself (he's in the red shirt):
he's a great driver. i think i even heard him screaming at the kid in front of him to get out of his way. wonder where he gets that:
actually looking and smiling at the camera:
a good time was had by all. hayden behaved pretty well until the end. and that was at like 10pm. and it really only had to do with him not stopping when we told him to. same old stuff. next year we'll get him a wristband so he can go on all the rides he wants. we're off to the theater now for some thomas live. so that post will be up on hayden's page tomorrow i would think.

father's day

happy father's day to all father's reading this post. hope you had a wonderful day. we had a nice, relaxing one. much smaller with jessica gone and jenn, don and rainah up in grand rapids, but it was still really nice. mom and dad came over and we grilled and ate outside. it was delicious. after awhile i hooked up hayden's new beach ball sprinkler and let him run through it. at one point dave pointed to a hole in the neighbors "bell free" (i have no idea, he told me that's what it was and i just believed him) at the top of his garage and said "i wonder what's living in there." minutes later, i look up and see a tail sticking out from the top of the garage door. a raccoon decided to chill there and stick his head out every once in awhile to see what we were up to. hayden was there though so he didn't dare come out. here was our day in photo form:

hayden, dave and talan on father's day eve. i was so focused on getting hayden to look at the camera that when he actually did i'd take the picture look at it and realize dave was making a stupid face. this was the best we had:
dad, talan and hayden dumping water down his slide:
hayden playing in the beach ball sprinkler:
hayden trying to fill up a bucket. he never did get much:
taking a drink:
"crabby joe" as dad named him 4 years ago:
dad decided to try the look out:
"nobody" hayden had a major meltdown at the end of the day and when we asked him what we should name the raccoon his just kept saying "nobody." so here is nobody, our new next door neighbor: