The zoo, fair and swimming lessons

Last weekend, we ventured the hour and a half drive to the Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek. It was very cool! Much much larger than John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids. We decided to do the Wild Africa part last as you had to take a tram ride there. Jack had so much fun seeing all the animals and being outdoors. Lastly we headed out on the tram to "Africa." When the tram pulled up to Wild Africa, I really imagined that's about what it would be like on an African safari! There were huts and great rolling hills with all sorts of animals roaming. We were not able to complete the Wild Africa part as it was getting so hot/humid and dangerously close to nap time but still were able to spend a couple hours there. We know now we'll definitely head back there to complete the Wild Africa portion...maybe when the weather cools off just a bit more :)

Riding the ant.

"Puh-kuck!"

"Goh." (Pygmy goats, which he was actually afraid of!)

He was ok with this one...it was behind a gate.

Whatchu lookin' at?Moo.

Yep, he's still cute...even on a cow.

The walk to the Wild Africa tram ride.

The tram. Jack was very intrigued with the voice over the loud speaker.

And I didn't take any pictures actually IN Wild Africa...I guess I was too busy admiring the animals.

Later that day, we headed to the Hudsonville Fair. Oh my goodness...Jack was in heaven with all the tractors! He LOVED (and that's an understatement) riding on all of them. And I do mean ALL. Forget about the actual fair with elephant ears and rides and carnival games...all he wanted to do was walk through the tractors and try them all out. I think I'll just start calling him John Deere now.

We could barely keep up with him. As soon as we set him down from one tractor it was on to the next...

...and the next...

...and the next......and the next...

His "vroom, vroom" face.

...and the next...

This one! I didn't get to try this one out!

...oooh....exciting.

Super giant tires...quite intimidating, really.
Yikes.
The best (ok, very poor!) attempt at a family photo of the day, but obviously Jack's too intrigued with the tractor (which matched my purse as you can see the strap on my shoulder.)

In other news, Jack and I previewed a gymnastics class early this week. I was contemplating signing him up for their program this fall as he enjoys tumbling at home. I am glad we did the preview though because I think he's still a little too young to comprehend all of the instructions without being overwhelmed. It's an absolutely fantastic program but I think we'll postpone it a few more months until he's closer to 2. Instead I just signed him up for swimming lessons which start in a few weeks and run through the middle of fall. (He loves the pool!) It should be lots of fun for a few months :)

(Edit: I added the photos finally and waited over an hour for the video to load...no such luck! I'll try uploading it to YouTube or another site this week and then will post the link.)

Words are fun :)

And now a lesson (er, rather interpretation) in Jack's vocabulary. At least the ones I can think of for now besides "mommy," "daddy" and "hi" that is.

"wing"= swing
"paco"= pinecone
"pone"= phone
"nigh nagh"= night, night
"pi-eee"= pretty
"uh-pane"= airplane
"et"=jet
"buh-eee"= birdie
"beet"= beach
"wuh-how!"= wow
"ow"=ow
"baby"=baby
"cook"=cookie
"per, per"= cooper the cat
"dull dun"= all done
"call con"= all gone

I think my favorite of all of them is "paco." It just sounds so cute to hear him running around saying "paco, paco, paco!" Well we're off to run errands and then I have a wedding to do this afternoon. Have a great weekend everyone!

The shoes are here!

We're now the proud owners of a Hoover SteamVac (although I can't figure out why it's called that b/c no steam is involved?) It's a carpet shampooer, basically. Our carpet actually looks new again and it's pretty excellent :) With 2 cats and Jack I wish we would have invested in something like this a long time ago! (Another example of "you know you're old when...you get excited about household appliances.")


Jack's new shoes arrived today. (They're even more adorable in person and on his feet!) First of all, just seeing the UPS driver was exciting enough and Jack was babbling up a storm to the driver and waving (we were playing outside at the time). Then he was even more excited about what was IN the box. (I let him help open it.) When he saw his shoes he immediately whipped off the shoes he had on and held his foot up for me to put them on. He was so tickled and excited he ran all the way down to the end of the street and back to give them a little test run. I think he likes them :)

What he doesn't know is that there's another pair that should be arriving tomorrow too. He's going to be in for even more excitement :) These are tomorrow's shoes (but I bought them in a size up for later this fall/winter). Little boys really are so much fun to dress!

In other news, after much thought we've changed our February trip to the Bahamas slightly around. Instead of going on a Disney cruise, we are going to rent a condo in Orlando for 5 days and have time to relax, a day at the ocean, and a day at Disneyworld. We'll also spend a day at Universal Studios with my family after they return from the cruise. We're excited about it!

Well, Jack's sleeping and I have a million things I'd like to accomplish. Hope everyone has a fantastic day!

Play time and new shoes :)

We decided to meet up with some friends today at one of the mall play areas. What fun! Jack had to "check in" with me every couple minutes...maybe he thought I was going to leave him! He also wasn't too sure about the slide. But loved going around to all the little babies and giving them little "thigh squishes" (he learned that one from me as I love to squish his little chunky thighs!) A few quick snapshots from the morning:





And yesterday's shopping trip for fall clothes inspired me to find shoes for Jack (his sandals are the only ones that fit him right now). Say hello to his new shoes (I just ordered them today on a super fabulous sale...even better!):
And lastly, reading with Grandma a few days ago. I love this one :)

Long time, no blog...

Oh my goodness it's been almost a month since I've blogged. Sorry.

I just booked a little 3 day trip for us in September. We're going to head up to Mackinac Island for a couple nights. I haven't been there in probably 5 or 6 years and I'm so excited about it! Rob had some vacation time to use up yet this year (or he just loses it) and we didn't want to do anything too expensive or far away since we're going to the Bahamas in February. I think this will be just right :) We can bike around the island in perfect sweatshirt weather (ah, I love fresh fall air with a lake breeze!) Definitely looking forward to exploring everything on the island with Jack :)

Last Friday night I had a GNO (Girls Night Out) with a great group of my girlfriends! We headed out to Reds on the River in Rockford. It was great fun mingling for several hours and laughing. (The food was delicious too!) It's not often I head out with my girlfriends for an evening and I so much appreciated it! Here's a group shot of the evening... (and I wore the great yellow heels Rob bought me a few weeks ago on his business trip that he picked out himself!)


We headed to the beach in Holland on Sunday evening just to putz around. Jack and I both got our pants and shoes drenched when we didn't quite run back quick enough from the water. (It was COLD!) Jack learned to say "Beets! Beets!" for beach :) It's darling. We had a great time! (Forgot the camera, of course.)

Tuesday night we headed to Saugatuck. We decided to take the sand dune ride, which we'd never done before (well, at least in Saugatuck.) Let me say, it was probably the best sand dune ride we've been on. It was beautiful and the driver was beyond entertaining! Jack had an absolute riot yelling and screaming "Whooooooa!" every time we rounding a corner quickly or headed down the steep hills. It was hilarious! (This time I remembered the camera just as we were pulling out of our neighborhood and Rob wouldn't let me turn around to go get it. Boo!)

Jack and I had a few errands to run today. We also stopped at the mall and ended up buying him almost all of his fall clothes because there were super awesome sales! He picked out some really cute things and I can't wait until he can wear them! Except I started looking in the 18-24 mo. sized clothes...and then I realized that those probably won't fit him in a couple months. Well, the next size up is a 2T. Did you catch that? A 2T. (One more time.) 2T. No more buying clothes in "months." Just further proof that he is growing up.

Speaking of growing up...my (and Jolyn's!) birthday is Saturday. And boy, I'm starting to feel older! 27. No longer "young twenties" or "mid twenties." I've moved into that "late twenties" group. And I'm only 3 years away from 30 now. At least I have 3 years to get used to that idea.

Enough of my rambling. Sorry for only one picture! I need to get better about remembering the camera when we're out... More pictures next time :)

I can never think of appropriate blog titles...

My grandma passed away yesterday :( She was my last grandparent that I had left. I am sad, but also know that she is in an even better place now :) She lived in Colorado and though I didn't get to see her often, I do have some great memories for which I am thankful. I am mostly bummed though that she was never able to meet Jack.


On a sort of related (but more cheerful!) note, I am so thankful to have Rob's grandparents in our lives! They let me call them my own and they are so kind and welcoming. In fact, just last week Jack and I went swimming at their pool (all to ourselves :) one afternoon and then picked some fresh lavender in the garden. Then grandma fed us popsicles and fruit on the lawn while we dried off in the sun. I instantly relived my own childhood memories of my grandparents and it was nice. Grandparents definitely play a special role in our lives :)

In MyAmalies news, I invented a new animal last week! Say hello to the bird (this ones name is Hank):


And then I made this whole gang. They are all sold already...bittersweet. It sure was fun to make them and I sort of didn't want to part with them!


I'm working on a few more animal concepts and I think Amanda has a few up her sleeve as well! Fun times for us :) Also, we are excited to announce that you can now find MyAmalies critters at Hopscotch Children's Store in Grand Rapids! Rumor has it there will be a MyAmalies animal exclusive to their store in the near future (in other words, not available online so you'll just have to visit!) We're very excited about this partnership!

Jack got to have a little buddy, Colton, come and play for a little bit today! Most of Jack's little friends are girls right now so it was a nice change of pace to have a little boy for him to play with. Colton is 3 months older and such a sweet little boy! They got along so well and Jack couldn't stop giving him hugs :) I think we'll do more play time with Colton again soon!

Well, I'm off to catch some TV with Rob and relax. Everyone have a good evening!

Maybe my longest blog yet...or at least with the most pictures.

Lots of recaps for you! Enjoy the pictures :)

What a fabulous time we had last weekend with Rob's sister Jen and her husband Derek. Jack LOVED spending time with them. Last Friday we went to the Whitecaps game and although we left early b/c it was raining and Jack needed to get to bed, we still enjoyed the time with family (and all the calories that ballpark food has to offer.)

Jen and I pretending we know what's happening in the game...


The "lemon chill" pucker :)


Dancing and singing on the stage during the rain delay

Saturday, Jen, Derek, Rob and I went kayaking down the Rogue River in Rockford. Such a great time! I haven't been kayaking in probably 10 years. The river was very very calm though and (at most spots) only a couple feet deep. I didn't want to get my camera wet for obvious reasons, so no pictures from that event :(

Later on Sunday we did fireworks at Grandma and Grandpas! Too much fun!


Some of them were LOUD!


Admiring the pretty displays :)


We even managed to spring a leak in one of the buckets. Oops.

We also finished our vegetable garden last week. (Well we need to put a gate up yet...) As I mentioned previously, we had a really late start to the whole thing so we had to go with pre-grown plants this year. I just hope they stay alive :) Jack was having a blast helping us plant everything and putting up the chicken wire.

And as usual, Jack can always be found where the water is...

Yesterday, the fourth of July, we headed out to Holland to bike/skate. (Rob skates while I bike with Jack.) We all had a great time and it's one of our favorite things to do as a family! Not sure how many miles we covered as the odometer thing wasn't working but it was several hours worth. After a stop to get ice cream at the general store (yum!) we headed home. We did a few sparklers and some leftover fireworks from last week but were all in bed well before the big fireworks started.

Before biking, we made a pit stop to play some miniature golf...Jack just liked to throw the ball.



(Sorry, no pics of biking and skating or the sparklers we did that night...I forgot!)

Today Jack and I woke up early and made blueberry pancakes (from scratch :) We went back out to Holland but to the beach this time! So much fun! Jack had a riot playing in (read: throwing) the sand. We did go for a few quick dips in Lake Michigan as well, but it was quite chilly.

A quick shower after breakfast as he was covered in blueberries. (Oh and a favorite current pastime is brushing his teeth. All. the. time.)

And more random pictures from the last week...

Parading around the living room in mommy's pink heels. Well, one of them at least.

After a really rough night (TEETHING! And it's 7 all at once now...not 6 as I had thought!) this is how I found Jack and Daddy in the morning.


Four generations of Strating men! It was really bright in the sun, hence the squinty eyes :) (Each one of them has their father's name as their middle name too, a family tradition.)


Jack loves playing with Great Aunt Nan every Sunday!


Being goofy or charming...or both.


Every morning at 10am we have a date with the underground sprinkling...