Happy Birthday Gordie...

I finally got to use one of my Christmas presents... Brian W. gave me four tickets to the Redwings game vs. the Nashville Predators on March 30th so we all made the trek down to "The Joe". Turned out it was also Gordie Howe's birthday so they had a number of things going on that night remembering the days when he played. We asked Ally what she remembers most about the game and of course her reply: "it was someone's birthday". We got there a little early so we got to go down against the glass to watch warm-ups. Nathan was right against the glass and took a number of shots from his point of view (funny). Too bad our seats weren't that close! Anyway, the Wings won 1-0 in overtime (Franzen). Here are some shots:


Arriving at "The Joe":
Red Wings warmup through the eyes of an 8 year old hockey fan (he seemed to be focused on McCarty... probably because he got to see him in the dressing room at Van Andel Arena):Dad and the kids from our seats:

Bauerwood Elementary Spring Concert

Nathan had his 3rd grade spring concert tonight. It was actually called a "fine arts night" at the school. His class sang a couple songs, played a song on the xylophones, and did a group dance that sped up each verse. It was a fun night (and Nathan actually sang and danced!). After the show, we ate cookies and toured the hallways to see some of the art projects all of the kids had made. Here's a (very) short clip of the end of one of the songs..

One of Nathan's projects was a sculpture of a face... (reminds me of the Gum Gum.. Dumb Dumb guy in Night At The Museum). The other picture is Allison posing below a shadow drawing of herself singing with a microphone. Her teach did one of these shadows of a few of the kids to hang in the gym during the concert.

Allison is a Special Person...

Allison is the special person at school this week. She took her WebKinz in for show and tell. She also got to bring home Lily Pad... the class' traveling stuffed animal. The kids are supposed to take pictures of what they do with Lily Pad during their "Special Person Week" to share with the class. Since the snow is just about gone, our adventure was a bike ride to the playground at the kids' school. Here are some pictures of Ally with Lily Pad...

Happy Easter!

Just when we thought spring had arrived, Mother Nature dumped a load of snow on Easter weekend. But all was not lost. We went to see High School Musical On Ice on Friday, celebrated Zachary and Reygan's birthdays at Bounce Party on Saturday, and the Easter Bunny left baskets and hid eggs for an Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday...

Nathan, Allison, and Reygan after the hunt...

Our annual Easter photo of the kids on the deck with Zoe (nice snow...)

Wrapping up winter sports...

Thank you to all the friends and family who were able to come watch a game this year. It was a lot of fun...
Last Tuesday marked the end of the 2007-2008 Cross-Ice Hockey season. Nathan's team played in a Jamboree against a number of other teams from around the area. He got to play goalie the first game and made some nice saves. The rest of the games he was skating as hard as he could. It's amazing how the kids can play hard for 5 straight games when they know they're the last ones of the season. These pics are from the Jamboree at Van Andel Arena on February 16th to celebrate Hockey Day in Michigan.

(Photos courtesy of Uncle Mark Weiss)

Casually celebrating a goal against East GR....

Breaking out of the zone against Holland...

One of the highlights during the Van Andel Jamboree was getting to see Darren McCarty and Jonathan Erickson in the dressing room. Jonathan had visited one of Nathan's practices last year so Nate likes to keep tabs on him. He got called up to the Red Wings a couple weeks later and McCarty is up with them now. Go Wings!

Swimming in the snow...

Well, not really in the snow...

No vacation on the planner for this year so we decided to take a trip up to Traverse City from Feb. 24-26 to Great Wolf Lodge during the kids' winter break. It was cold and snowing outside but a balmy 80 degrees in the water park. We had a lot of fun and the kids saw many of their friends from school there. Seems we weren't the only ones from Bauerwood Elementary with the idea of getting away and pretending like we're not enduring another cold Michigan winter.

The kids' Wolf Den in the room (even had their own TV..)