Lake house

Jason's parents bought a lake cottage last winter on Beaver Dam Lake. It's located about two hours north of Indianapolis. It's a nice little house right on the lake. They plan to stay here during the summer months. Jason is really excited to have his parents close as he left home at 18 to go to Wabash and has lived in Indiana since. Summers will be a nice time not only for our kids to bond with their grandparents, but nice for Jason to get to spend some quality time with his mom and dad as well.

Jack fell in love with the bird bath outside. He filled it with rocks most of the time we were there. He also got in a little fishing time with his grandpa. It will be fun to watch him learn to fish with John as we visit more this summer.

Back to the rocks. He loved throwing them in the lake

Jason in the cold water helping put the dock in for the summer

Earth Day 2010

Earth Day set up along the Canal

Today was Indianapolis' annual Earth Day celebration. Each year the city celebrates Earth Day by setting up little booths, handing out information about different companies being Earth friendly and educating kids and adults on how they can lesson their "carbon footprint". I volunteered at Earth Day way back in college and Jason has volunteered working at the Health Department, but today we went as a family and enjoyed the event through Jack's eyes.

Checking out different animal pelts...because killing animals is "Earth friendly"

Playing a tune on a homemade musical instrument made of recycled materials

He really just liked the pinwheel

Up close and personal with the radiated tortoise from the Indianapolis Zoo

Planting a corn seed

Coloring his water cycle t-shirt

Downtown Indy

Bowling

Earlier this year my friend Cecilia posted a link to a website called www.freebowlingforkids.com This site allows you to register your kids to bowl for free all summer long. Since I'm a big fan of FREE I decided to sign Jack up for this program. Today was the first day we were able to take advantage of the offer, so Jason and I took Jack bowling.

Being an "alley kid" myself I was quite excited to take Jack bowling. For years my mom and dad bowled in Friday night leagues and Jack Pot bowled on Saturdays. I spent many a weekend running up and down the bowling alley, playing video games, trying to win stuffed animals out of the crane machine and driving my parents nuts while they were bowling. I even bowled in a Friday night league myself when Jason and I first met. So like I said, I was really excited to have Jack experience all bowling has to offer.

We got to Woodland Bowl and Jack looked around in awe at the vastness of the bowling alley. We went up to the counter to get his and Jason's shoes. (Yeah, I'm so cool, I had my very own shoes!) But once we got to the counter they told us they didn't have shoes small enough to fit Jack's feet. That made me sad! Half the fun of bowling is getting to wear the funky shoes! But we quickly got over that once they brought out a really cool ramp thing to help Jack roll the ball down the lanes!

Jason was too afraid to let Jack carry the ball to the ramp himself, so he ended up going up with Jack each time. Jack was into the ramp thing the first couple of frames, then he wanted to throw the ball like me and Jason. Obviously that didn't work so again, Jason had to help him each time. I think Jack liked when it was his turn, he just didn't like watching me and Jason roll the ball nor waiting on us to do so.

We made it through one entire game before Jack lost interest! Not too bad for his first time. It was a fun way to spend a Friday morning together as a family. I definitely want a rematch though.

Happy Birthday Jason!

Jason turned 36 today. Jack and I baked him some "happy cakes".

Coloring Eggs!

Easter was so much fun this year. Jack has gotten big enough to be able to do stuff and Jason and I just enjoy seeing things from his eyes. Sometimes I think we're more excited about doing things than he is! Last night we colored eggs with him. He did a great job putting the eggs in the cups to be colored.

After coloring the eggs, we had to let them dry because instead of decorating them the normal way, we got eggs where you put stickers on them after coloring them. So Jack took his bath and put on his jammies (yes...our child is wearing Christmas jammies at Easter! LOL) and came back to finish up his eggs. He was just as happy looking at the colorful eggs as he was putting the stickers on them.

The Easter Bunny did a great job of hiding all the eggs. And boy were there a lot of eggs for one little guy to find! Luckily our house is not very big and the Bunny hid them all around the same area...because Jack soon got tired of looking for eggs. Once he figured out there were "snacks" in the eggs and toys to be played with...he was done hunting for all of them!

It's sort of long, but hope you enjoy

Bowen and Jack

Today Jack and I met Stacy and Bowen at Holiday Park. This is one of my favorite parks in the city. It has trails that run down next to White River, three different play ground areas for different aged kids and a wonderful nature center. Stacy and I decided to take the boys out for a little nature hike today down to the river and then picnic back up by the nature center.

Jack running to meet up with Bowen by the river.

Hey, Buddy, it's good to see you!

They had a good time exploring the trails. Stacy pointed out lots of bugs to them along the way,

they threw some rocks into the river,

and Jack found lots of good places to sit and relax. The only way we could get him to keep moving was to have Bowen go take his hand and pull him along.

After so many times though...Bowen decided maybe Jack had the right idea...what's the saying...if you can't beat them...