The Kleiber Family Timeline

Category: General Day to Day

General Events

  • First Snow of 2015

    The first snowfall of the year came during the Lions playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys. Unfortunately the Lions lost despite leading until about 2 minutes to go, but we finally got to see how our snowmen display looks before being put away for the season. James helped with the snow and shoveled about half of the sidewalk while Dad took these pictures. It’s suppose to snow a few more times this week but hopefully they will be light like it was today (everyone still remembers the harshness of last winter). While it wasn’t a white Christmas we can’t say we didn’t get any snow this Holiday season.

    Unfortunately it was the Lions out of the playoffs that signified the end of the Christmas/New Year Holiday (24-20), its back to school for James and back to work for everyone else.

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  • Lunar Eclipse 2014

    The family enjoyed the lunar eclipse which was very well publicized and easy to see due to the nice clear weather in October. It was visible from North America, parts of Australia, China and Japan. Parts of South Asia, and Eastern Europe saw a partial eclipse.

    Taking pictures of this was not easy as you can tell, but we tried. James also has a telescope that came in handy during this time period, but does not have the capability of allowing us to photograph the images.

    All in all a very fun experience that the whole family enjoyed. Anything having to do with the moon in October has to be enjoyed by this family.

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  • Haunted Garage Sale 2014

    We have had much success the past few years picking up Halloween items at garage sales and such. Finally we made it to the ultimate garage sale, the Haunted Garage Sale held annually in Belleville Michigan on the County Fair Grounds. Mary found out about this through a friend on FaceBook and as it turns out this was the 13th annual time they had this event which really surprises me that no one in this family found out about it until this year.

    Plenty of surprises and fun, the event was free to attend and I would suggest this to any Halloween enthusiast if for nothing else than to get some fresh ideas.

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  • Bowling at Woodhaven Lanes 2014

    James came out to Woodhaven for a bowling fundraiser that supports his summer VIP Camp and had a blast. In addition to the bowling, he enjoyed, pizza, pop, and cake! James got to meet many of his friends from the camp including the counselors and parents. It was only a little more than a week ago that VIP camp ended, but it was still a reunion for James. James bowled very well but did not throw a strike, however he did do a spare and finished up nicely. All in all, it was a great day that constantly looked like rain but never actually did – and we have had enough rain for one summer.

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  • Great Flood of 2014

    James kept telling us a big storm was coming and boy was he right. After one of the most brutal winters in history no one expected to see a summer storm which would dump the most water on us in one 24 hour period in the last 100 years (1925 is the record).

    The rain started late morning and continued for about 8-10 hours straight. Twice dad had to go out and clear gutters on the house during the down pour.

    When it was all over, over 4000 cars were stuck in flood waters and billions of dollars in flood damage occurred. Fortunately for us, we did ok, although the water got almost up to the sidewalk on our street before subsiding. A day or two later the Governor flew over the area and declared us a disaster area. While we did ok, many of our neighbors lost much in the flood as many basements (and some houses) were under several feet of water. We hope the insurance companies do their best to help our neighbors in their time of need.

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  • US 12 Garage Sale 2014

    Imagine a garage sale that goes from Detroit to Chicago and you have the U.S. 12 annual garage sale.

    This year everyone in the family did good as Mom found a birdhouse she liked, James found a box of National Geographic magazines, and Dad found two zombies for Halloween.

    Our tour usually starts in Saline at the farmhouse where you can visit all sorts of booths and still see chickens on the farm. A true throwback and done in a very organized manner. Our garage saling takes us into Clinton, then to the Irish Hills, then to the Michigan Speedway, then to Jonesville (where dad found the zombies), then to Quincy (which is also the antique capital of Michigan), to Coldwater on U.S. 12 and 69, and finally to Colon where we visited garage sales as well as took advantage of all the wonderful things the magic capital has available for us.

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  • Full Rainbow Over The House

    James wants to be a weather man when he gets older so naturally he is fascinated with weather, both good and bad weather. Jame’s favorite weather is a rainbow and it is rare that he see’s a full rainbow (a rainbow that goes 180 degrees across the horizon, most only go 90 degrees) and its even rarer that he see’s a full rainbow right smack dab over his own house.

    James was “johnny on the spot” as soon as he spotted it hovering over the garage in the back yard. According to our calculations there should be a pot of gold on Pardee and/or Vassar as that appeared to be where the rainbow started and ended.

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  • Summer Pool Fun 2014

    With summer finally here we had a couple weeks before James VIP camp started and James took advantage of the situation by swimming in his new pool several times a day. Once VIP camp started, James continued to use the pool on a pretty much daily basis.

    However in August James rarely used the pool, perhaps because there was so much going on, or perhaps because it was no longer a novelty. Regardless, the first two months of summer and the pool were a wonderful time for everyone, even though it was hard to maintain and keep clean (IE we could no longer mulch the back yard when mowing or the clippings would end up in the pool).

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  • Chasing a Rainbow at a Softball Game 2014

    James and Dad went to the park (despite a slight rain) to watch some of Dad’s friends play softball at Levigood (spelling??? The park outside Divine Child high school) park in Dearborn Heights. James spent most of the time playing in the park nearby, but was on hand when the game went into extra innings. The game went into extra inning and (unfortunately) Dad’s friends lost in the extra innings. All the same it was a fun visit for both James and Dad, who used to play softball not that long ago.

    On the way home we were treated to a rainbow hovering over Dearborn Heights. James decided he wanted to chase it down so we continued past Dearborn Heights into Taylor but the rainbow continued to elude us, going more and more South the close we came to it. Although we came close, we never did catch up to the rainbow.

    Finally the rainbow disappeared altogether and James and Dad returned home from a fun afternoon in “the heights”.

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  • Bad Omen on Happy Meal Day 2014

    James still likes McDonald’s Happy Meals. He still gets the smallest one they have since they are probably not that healthy, but they usually are Happy! James enjoys the nuggets and dips them in ranch dressing.

    Not a whole lot can go wrong while you are waiting at the drive thru at McDonalds, but things got scary when we realized the customer ahead of us was driving a hearse.

    Actually the hearse was a promotional vehicle for a Halloween event and the owners were just taking it out for a summer spin to keep it in running shape.

    Despite that, the initial reaction of seeing a hearse in front of you at the drive thru is still an unsettling experience for most, but James took it in stride and wanted to know why we didn’t drive around in a hearse.

    At least James got his Happy meal ok

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