Princess Party

Madison has met quite a few new friends in the neighborhood and school.  Yesterday she was invited to a princess birthday party across the street.

Sports Class

Dylan and Isabella

Dylan went to his first Introduction to Sports class on Saturday, it runs weekly for about 2 months.  We saw some familiar faces there and Dylan really had a good time.  Next week -- hockey, even better!

Franklin Cider Mill

Dylan, Maddie, Alexandra, Isabella and Maxwell (he's in the carrier and half in the picture on the right).

Off to another cider mill with some of our good friends from MI.  Actually, this is the 3rd time around for us with the same friends ( Blakes 2008  Blakes 2010 ) -- first with 2 kids, now with 5!

Dance Class

Maddie started her dance class this weekend, Tap and Jazz.  Nice to be back in the swing of things, Dylan starts his first class next weekend -- Introduction to Sports. 

The Lorax

When Grandma visited Brazil a few months back she arrived with a present for the kids -- a movie called The Lorax.  I never heard of this Dr. Suess film, but she insisted Avery and Chelsea loved it.  Long story short, we popped the film in before the kids went to bed so they could enjoy this new hot hit.  Roughly two minutes into the flick and our kids lost interest in what appeared to be an "older" film.  I was surprised that Avery and Chelsea loved this movie so much, but Grandma insisted they liked it -- 10 minutes into the film and Grandma was deflecting multiple wise cracks from the peanut gallery (myself, Cathy and kids as well).  Anyway, I had left it at that -- and The Lorax film was never requested by my children again. 

That is until we arrived back in the U.S. and we were shopping at Target and saw a bright orange sign for The Lorax.  Hmm, could this be a movie made in 2012 I wondered?  Things quickly pieced together from there.  The movie Grandma brought over was the original, released 4 years before I was born! 

I suspect, although I'm not a professional detective, that Avery and Chelsea were referring to the slightly (by 40 years) newer release of the film.  The question is, did Grandma know she had made a mistake the instant we started playing the older version of the film?  Or was it a senior error?

First Day of School

It was the first day of school for both kids -- Madison started Kindergarten and Dylan started full-day preschool.  I started this blog when Maddie was 6 months old and ruined Cathy's phone after she ate it, now it's almost five years later and she's starting elementary school.  You're not going to hear me say, "where did the time go"?  I never liked that expression -- I know where the time went, I documented it!  Just because we get older and a time period becomes a smaller fraction of our lives, doesn't mean that it goes faster!

Anyway, so the kids have moved on to school and it was a smooth transition.  I'm interested in seeing the various teaching methods and watching things progress, I'm sure I will have much more to write about in the near future.

Dylan's Birthday

We had a small party for Dylan's 3rd so Eliane could participate in the celebration.  Dylan certainly was happy to celebrate early, it was a Marvel comic theme -- including ALL of the gifts.  His favorite, the Incredible Hulk costume -- Dylan has put this thing on 10 times in the last 24 hours. 

Pics of Maddie and Dylan

I gave Maddie the camera to take some pictures while we were eating.

Took lots of pics of the kids while we went out to eat at Mac and Ray's, first time we have ever been there -- it was actually pretty close to our old house before we moved to Brazil.  Decent meal, nice view -- if only I had a boat.

Indoor Pool

There's a nice recreation center down the street from where we live now, so we decided to check out the indoor pool -- they actually have a huge outdoor waterpark, but we kept to the inside for our first visit.  I think this place will be great particularly during the winter months.  My only issue was the huge list of rules: no swimmies, no going down the slide on your belly, no going down the slide backwards, no going down the slide together, no going down the big slide (even with the kids on your lap), and on -- and on.  The slide pictured above was made of foam and it went into 1 foot of water, seriously, you would have to put forth solid effort to to even score a tiny bruise on this one.  In Brazil, for a place like this, there would be one rule:  watch your kids! 

All that being said, the kids loved it here and we will be going back.  There were a few other areas of the pool where the kids could play, I just didn't have my camera in hand.  In fact, there was a section in the pool where buckets of water would randomly drop over your head.  Cathy, who tried to keep her hair dry the entire time, walked right into the trap -- it looked like a scene straight out of a comedy film, but alas, I wasn't ready with the camera.

First Tigers game for both kids





Waiting for the fireworks to start -- Maddie spotted "Paws", the Tigers mascot.  Usually she is not a fan of people dressed up in costume, but at 100ft. altitude he's not so intimidating.

 Maddie waving down Paws, trying to get him to wave at us.

The kids made it until the end for the fireworks -- surprisingly, Madison is a much bigger fan of fireworks than Dylan.

This is how Dylan watched about a quarter of the fireworks. He would peak to check them out and then cover back up, he is still warming up to all of the noise they make.

Sold out game on a Saturday night at Comerica Park with a concert going on at the same time at Ford Field.  We were warned about the potential traffic, compared to Sao Paulo, it was a piece of cake!  The weather was perfect and we enjoyed all of the overpriced treats at the game.  Unfortunately the Tigers lost 3-2, but a fun time was had by all.