Farewell Kiwis

I guess that's what you call someone from New Zealand. You can Google it later. We had to say farewell to soon to be Kiwis, Jason and Shannon. They left on Thursday to begin their trek to the other side of the world. What an adventure.

They came to visit for the weekend and we tried to pack in as much as possible. On Saturday we had a going away party. On Sunday we went to the Apple Orchard and watched football. On Monday, we did a whole bunch of stuff including watching more football, eating more food, going shopping and doing a few projects around our house.

The farewell party

Her first donut at Blake's

Do not come between this girl and her donut

What? There's more donuts?

Elijah has such great fashion

Not that Isla doesn't look cute in this photo,

but is Dave a stud or what?

Atop the mountain of hay

All aboard!

A group shot on the hayride

(minus Suzanne and Art)

Cute little pumpkins

She was going "night night" on the pumpkin

Sweet girl. She never got a morning nap and only slept 2 hours in the afternoon.

(She usually naps between 4 and 5 hours a day.)

But despite being hungry and tired, she was a peach.

And even helped carry the popcorn

which weighed about as much as she does

Uncle Jay and Auntie Shanni with the kiddos

We will miss you guys. Skype often and send me some sweet leather boots and handbags. Love you.

Goin' to the Lodge

...goin' to the Lodge (goin' to the Lodge), goin' to the Lodge. We're going to the Great Wolf Lodge. Its just such a catchy tune!

We went to the Great Wolf Lodge a few weeks (well months) back. It was a blast! Isla didn't care much for the slides, but she loved the lazy river.

We went out for Italian one night to this amazing restaurant that overlooked the water. The view was nice, but the food was better. The kids were pretty good for the most part, but after about an hour and a half, they played on the grassy knoll near the outdoor eating area.

We convinced Isla to play on the splash pad. She didn't hate it.
The following night we had an awesome dinner with everybody at the Blue Tractor. We had 10 adults and 9 children. Our waiter had four kids ages 4 and under, so he was totally cool with our never ending requests for more water and napkins. The food was so good that Dave even shared with Isla

Pizza and French Fries.

Like father, like daughter.

We also celebrated Leslie's 25th birthday.

The candles should read 25, not 52, but you get the idea.

We found some poor soul to take a group shot of us all.

Despite the shade, it turned out alright.

We then headed to Kilwin's for dessert.

Isla split a carmel apple with me.

Long live the Lodge.

4th of July

4th of July weekend is typically devoted to the Borowicz side of the family. This year we decided to head down to Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio for our little get together. Although I have no pictures of our commute down to Ohio, I will share the relevant parts of the drive.

We left St. Clair Shores around 5:30ish p.m. We decided to ride with Dave's parents. In order to bring all the items we needed (you know, necessities, like a kiddie pool, expresso machine, waffle maker and fire wood), we had to tow a trailer. We filled up with gas and Dad Borowicz started driving. When it got dark, Dave took over driving. We got a call from Jason that there was absolutely no cell phone reception at the house we rented so he had to "drive into town" to make a phone call. Well, no worries. We were making good time and had good directions.

The trip would normally take about 4 hours. We were going through some pretty rural areas when the low fuel light came on. Typically, we would still have about 20 miles until we actually ran out of gas. But, towing a trailer makes the gas go a lot more quickly. So about 3 miles later, we were stuck on the side of the road with no gas. I called AAA which took about 40 minutes to actually explain to them where we were. We were only about a half hour from our destination so we tried calling/e-mailing/texting everyone at the house, but to no avail. After about an hour and a half, we started walking up and down the side of the road trying to flag people down. FINALLY, someone stopped. The kind gentleman said that he saw a gas station a few miles back. We volunteered my father-in-law to go with him to get gas. It was sketchy, but our options were limited. An hour later, my father-in-law and AAA showed up simultaneously with gas. We decided not to stop to get additional gas, but rather to just try and get to the house since it was 2:30 a.m. and Isla was still awake. We barely made it. Thankfully we arrived around 3:00 a.m. with Art as our guide.

Our first adventure was Ash Cave. It was absolutely amazing.

and huge.

Isla couldn't believe how high up we were going

The Betancourt Crew on the top of the Cave

Mom and Dad Borowicz

Cuties.

The kiddie pool

The next day we headed to the beach. I should really use the term "beach" loosely because the sand was really weird and there was no clarity in the water whatsoever. But, it was water, so we threw on our suits and stayed for a whole 30 minutes.

Isla LOVES the water

and the sand.

But she warmed up after Elijah shared his fun toys with her

Can you see the resemblance?

That night, we decided to play Borowicz Trivia except that, woops, we forgot the Borowicz trivia cards. So we ended up playing the Genius Version of Trivial Pursuit from the 1980's. It was riveting. So riveting in fact, that to put an end to our misery, Dave decided that the game winner would be determined based on penalty kicks.

Needless to say, the girls team won.

The rest of the vacation we spent eating, hanging out, going to Flea Markets and eating. It was a grand time.

The only things that were missing from the vacation were Suzanne, Shannon and a group photo. Better luck next year.

Fins Up!

So that catch up blogging isn't going quite as quickly as I had envisioned, but better late than never right? I have no intention about making this a pregnancy blog, but I thought it might be a good intro to this post to explain how we found out about the newest coconut to join our palm tree.

June 21, was a Monday (I know it seems like a long time ago) and the day before the Buffett concert. I have been known to consume a Margarita while in Margaritaville like any self-respecting parrothead would. I had to run out to the store to grab some hair products. While at the drug store I thought it might be a good idea to pick up a test just to make sure I wasn't introducing tequila to a minor. I bought the cheapest test which was right near the cash register. I got home and Dave had to leave to go to Home Depot (his home away from home). I put Isla to bed and took the first test. It immediately came up positive, but I thought that it probably was one of the .0001% inaccurate tests. So I took the second test. Same result. How did I tell Dave? Isla didn't get him a card for Father's Day, so she wrote him a sweet little letter to tell him how much she loved him and that mommy couldn't get wasted away in Margaritaville. This time, he realized I wasn't trying to tell him that we were getting a puppy.

But the party must go on! So we continued preparing our tailgate items and headed to Margaritaville with some of our faithful parrotheads!

Dave decided to put on all these leis before we went into the concert

He had only started with one (lei) at the beginning of the day

Some parrotheads came armed

Some parrotheads came thirsty

(Bottoms Up Board handmade by Viky Ketelhut.

Contact her attorney, Gregory Yatooma, for patent details)

But all the Parrotheads came together and had a great time.

Fins UP

Thanks to all who participated. We'll see you next year.

Father's Day

Let the catch up begin!

We headed out to Grand Rapids for Father's Day because most of the brood was out there to celebrate Jenna's baby dedication. We spent the night at the DeKorne's house on Saturday night. We thought we'd take a quick shot of the daddy's and the girls before we left. Don't the kids look great?

They are really happy most of the time.

We then headed to meet the Dads for breakfast. We had a great meal at the Red Geranium and then we were off to the Zoo! It was Isla's first trip to the zoo, so it was especially exciting for us.

We were so excited in fact, that we neglected to put on her shoes.

But, its Grand Rapids. The Zoo is WAY cleaner than the Detroit Zoo, right?

Poppy was a champ that day.

He was carrying or pulling at least 2 children at all times.

All the dads and the little babies (except for Jenna, she was napping)

This picture brings tears to my eyes.

They love their Poppy.

My sweet daddy with 3 of the 4 girls.

Wuzzle couldn't make it and was devastated to miss a day with all 5 kids.

9 adults, 5 kids, 3 strollers, 1 wagon and a partridge in a pear tree.

Father's Day Part 1 was a success.

And on to Father's Day Part II. Although it is not easy, we spend many holidays splitting time between families. Its certainly getting more difficult with more kids, but for now, it has kept everyone happy. We came back home and the Borowicz crew came over to celebrate Father's Day. It was so great to be home except, well, it was really hot. Not just outside, inside too. Unreasonably hot. Awesome. The air conditioner is broken. This left us doing this for the remainder of the day.

Trying not to move because it was so hot.

We headed outdoors where it was cooler (seriously) and grabbed a cute shot of the daddies.

Isla was really hot, so she just rocked a diaper for the rest of the day.

Our girl loves her daddy.

We are so grateful for so many wonderful Daddies in our lives.