sunny day real estate

so for a minute we forgot that we have 2 kids and we headed out on friday to our second show in just three nites. our friends jennie and eric shanburn headed over to our house and we all went over to niki's for dinner before the show. while we were there our friends michelle and derek swanson walked in which was a great surprise since we haven't seen them in a LONG time. we finished up with dinner and headed over to st. andrew's to see the show. we got there when the opening band was playing their 2nd to last song...so pretty much perfect timing on our parts. while we were standing in our normal spot...by the sound stage near the back...we ran into our friend carrie bartus and then finally met up with our friends bill and sarah burns. we felt like quite the little socialites, let me tell you. the show started and i waited to see if other people were taking pictures since there was a sign at the door saying no cameras. i saw a few flashes and figured i'd give it a try. i got a few pictures before some dude that worked for live nation came and took my camera away. the show was great and i was so happy that they actually had a shirt for kids which we got for hayden. it was wonderful seeing so many of our friends, most of whom we never get to see. i picked up my camera at the end of the show and was happy to see they hadn't erased the pictures. so now i will share my bootlegged photos with you. once again, concert lighting doesn't go together with point and shoot cameras. these are the best i could get before the man took me down.

....and you will know us by the trail of dead

we headed to the magic stick in detroit last nite to see trail of dead. they are one of my most favorite bands and maybe my absolute favorite band to see live. they play with 2 drummers which could be disastrous but always ends up being incredible. both of the boys have always LOVED trail of dead and i had thought about possibly bringing talan with us to this show. i know the venue and i also knew that the last time we saw them (several months back) the crowd was pretty small. the show was also an all ages show. i just wasn't sure if we actually needed to buy a ticket for him or if we could just bring him in. the show was going to start pretty late so i didn't really know if we would bring him or not, but thought i'd call to get some info so we could at least have the option. when i called the venue a couple of days before the show i spoke to a lady that was less than helpful. she answered the phone from the bowling alley that was downstairs so i let her know i had a question about a show at the magic stick. "yeah, ok. what is it?" off to a great start. so i tell her, we are going to a show there in a few nites and i know it's an all ages show, however, we have a young kid and we wondered if he could get in with us and if we'd have to buy him a ticket. "well how young is young?" 2. "TWO?! uh, yeah, i don't know about that. i mean, i would think all ages would mean like maybe 16 and over. something like that, not a 2 year old." ok....so are you telling me he can't come? "the venue has a BAR in it." yeah. "people will be DRINKING." yup. "and there aren't any SEATS in this venue. it's like a BAR." uh huh. "i'd just be worried that he would get hurt." ok. "what band are you going to see?" trail of dead. "TRAIL OF THE DEAD?!" (she obviously had never heard of them before and probably thought they were some devil worshiping thrash metal band) "yeah, i don't think so." ok...so you're telling me he can't come? "yeah, i'm going to have to say no." even though she wasn't really even in charge of the whole situation. i honestly thought she was going to track down where i lived and send child protective services to our house to take our children away. how dare we even THINK of bringing our children to a show with a band called and you will know us by the trail of dead?! gasp. so...we didn't bring talan. but i did tape a couple of songs for both of the boys which they were SO excited to see first thing this morning. oh, and the crowd? yeah, there wasn't much of one at all. most of the floor was totally empty and we were able to stand up on a little platform area (that actually had chairs!!!! huh, seating, what do you know?!) the whole time without a single person getting in our way. we aren't a fan of opening bands and usually try to miss them, although we end up catching them most of the time anyway. we have learned that when trail of dead plays we shouldn't try to miss the opening bands because they are almost always great. we have been introduced to a lot of great bands through them, one of which is the sword and is one of talan's favorite bands. at this show they had the secret machines open. we apparently saw them a couple of years ago at lollapalooza (so says dave, i wouldn't remember) but they were so great last nite. dave told me he thought they probably had the best tone he had ever heard before. he ended up getting a chance to talk to one of them and complimented him on that. he seemed really appreciative of the compliment and a few minutes later he came back with a beer for dave. trail of dead came out after the secret machines and once again blew us away. after the last time we saw them i had told dave that i would never again miss a show of theirs in our area. the 2 drummers make me want to cry, they are that good. unfortunately, venue lighting sucks and i can never get good pictures. this show seemed to be darker than normal and the lighting on stage does crazy stuff to cameras. one day i will invent a camera with a "concert" setting and i will make millions. to sum it all up, the secret machines were great. trail of dead was great. if you ever have a chance to see them, do it. if you don't have their albums, buy them. maybe next year when talan turns 3 the magic stick will think it's ok to bring him...

a very flowers wedding

on 9/9/09 our good friends, mallory artman and bobby flowers, got married. on 9/18/09 they had a big bash to celebrate the occasion.
congratulations you guys!! we wish you all the best!
i did a horrible job capturing the evening on film, managing to not even get a picture with bobby and mallory together. but here is what i did get.



dave and justin. aren't they cute?!:

sistas:
bobby and bella:
justin, jessica, me, mallory, dave and bryanna.
us, minus mallory and bryanna with bobby:
bobby insisted on switching it up:
and again (with some dude getting in on the fun):
and again:
and still one more time:

an evening, and a wrestling match, with friends

the hader's were in town for labor day weekend, as was mike and elliott lawrie, so amy and tim story graciously opened up their beautiful new home for a get together.
the kids had a great time playing together and it was nice seeing everyone, as we hadn't seen many of them since our trip to lake michigan over memorial weekend.
at one point the kids all had a wrestling match, in which i believe jack and elliott were the easy winners, so i grabbed the camera to take a few pictures. those kids move fast so there weren't many great ones.
hayden spent a lot of his evening playing with jasper.....those two got along swimmingly...which doesn't surprise us nor the hunts.
thanks for having us over, amy and tim! we had a great time!

a wrestling match broke out so, being responsible parents, we went and grabbed our cameras:
i'm willing to guess nobody ever took jack down:

jack tossing hayden around:
it looks like hayden is grabbing ella's butt, sorry about that andrew and heather:
elliott and jasper tackling hayden:

amy hader, amy story, sara, bruce and jeff hunt:
justin, this one's for you:

a last minute trip to turtle cove

i had heard about turtle cove water park at the beginning of the summer and decided we would take the boys there at some point. i had all but forgotten about it when heather wood had told me that their family was going on friday and invited us to go with them. i didn't think i'd be able to, as i didn't think i could handle watching both of the boys at a water park (especially since i wasn't sure how it was set up.) so i decided to pass and see if dave could maybe get a day off of work so we could take a family trip there before school started. dave didn't think he would be able to take a day off and the more i looked into it, it seemed like the water park was going to close after labor day. so at the last minute, i called jessica to see if she might want to go with us and then called the woods to let them know we were in. after spending yesterday at the sprinkler park, hayden was still more than ready to spend another full day in the water! he was a bit bummed to find out that he was a bit too short to ride on the 2 big water slides that were there, but i let him know there were plenty of other things to keep him occupied. turtle cove is in belleville inside of a metro park. it has a really big sprinkler park type area with slides and things to climb up and a huge bucket that dumps a TON of water down onto the kids every few minutes. it also has a big pool area which isn't deeper than 3 1/2 feet and was perfect to let the little kids just splash in as we sat in it and watched. it also had the 2 big water slides as well as a lazy river. hayden loved the sprinkler park and jumped right in with the older kids by laying down under the giant bucket in order to have all of the water come crashing down on him. while he was playing around in there, talan kept busy by running around the edge of the sprinkler park in the little fountains. we eventually were able to get him to go down the slides which he loved as long as he didn't need to walk up the steps through the water raining down on him. we went in the lazy river several times which proved to be much harder than it looked. talan was in a life jacket and sat with him, but he refused to sit. so he stood on the tube with me holding him and him asking to get off the entire time. i remember when the lazy river was relaxing...this was the farthest thing from relaxing and was probably the most work i had to do during the day. at first talan was a bit scared of the pool but eventually he came to love it. he would jump off of the edge into our arms and have us spin him around. at one point i set him down (it was plenty shallow so he was able to stand up), turned to look at something and when i turned back around he was under water trying to get up. i grabbed him and pulled him up. he didn't really cry or even cough so i don't think he was under for more then a couple of seconds. but it was one of the scariest things i've ever had happen. it didn't seem to bother him and he went right back to playing in the water. i realized that when i put him down, he didn't stand, he just folded his legs up. so every time after that i always had to tell him and make sure he would just put his legs down and simply stand up. hayden had a great time at the end of the day throwing ella's goggles into the pool and having him and henry race to get them. we all had a GREAT time and the boys finally got a nice tan. we spent the whole day there but of course, hayden still whined when we said it was time to go. the boys, of course, fell asleep pretty much the second that we pulled out of the parking lot. we had such a great time and hope that next year we can go with jenn and rainah and also make a family trip and have dave take a day off of work to join us (i can't imagine what that place would be like on saturday!!!). we loved it and were so happy we got to hang with the wood family for the day as we milked summer just a little longer!

hayden wasted no time just jumping right in:
that is a lot of water:


hayden and ella going down one of the slides that hayden was actually big enough to ride:


talan jumping over the fountains:


cordelia:


the pool and water slide area:





hayden waiting for the water to be dumped on him:


the sprinkler park area:

the beginning of the lazy river:


talan kept splashing jessica wanting her to splash him back:
talan going down the slide...finally!:

talan practicing his drumming on the fountains:


can you believe baby gap didn't pick him as their newest model?!:
hayden having a hard time keeping his eyes open and talan striking a pose:

while having his picture taken by the turtle, hayden heard the bell which indicates the bucket is about to dump all of the water out. so he took off running saying, "sorry, mom...i gotta go.":