James had his first VIP camp activity today at the bowling alley. This puts the final stamp on his Christmas/Winter vacation as he will be starting school Monday. James was losing by 22 but came back with a spare and a strike to make it close (he lost only by two), however the fun was not in winning the bowling game but in seeing all his friends from summer camp.

Around a dozen campers showed up for the bowling and some of the talk was how Michigan would do in the National Championship game on Monday, should be alot of fun.

One of the staff was a volunteer from France during their exchange period and James had a chance to practice his French.

Continue reading “Bowling With VIP Camp 2024” →

Happy New Year! This was a strange one as prior to New Years Eve we had the Monday night football (between the Lions and Cowboys), was held on Saturday, Dec 30 (New Years Eve – Eve). This game will live in infamy as the Lions had the game stolen from them due to the refs – again. In this case they called out the wrong eligible receiver and then flagged Detroit for illegal touching and took the points away on what might have been a game winning two point conversion.

During the day on New Years Eve we spent our time watching some of the bowl games as we tried to get the bad feelings of the Lions game out of our system and prepare for Michigan’s third straight appearance in College Football playoffs. We also enjoyed Prime Rib for the second straight year, although last year we had it at Christmas.

James did his annual countdown for us in the living room. Once again, after the big moment, we went outside to see the impromptu fire works show that the neighbors put on each New Years.

Later New Years Day we saw Michigan defeat Alabama in overtime and will participate in the National Championship game next week against Washington.

Have a Happy New Year!

Continue reading “2024 New Years” →

We had a great Christmas but what really was a surprise was the Lions winning the division for the first time in about thirty years on Christmas Eve. Congrats to the new division champs, but enough on the Lions.

We spent at least an hour opening gifts and I think everyone got what they wanted. Deviled eggs again were a hit with no left overs and we even brought out the Donald Trump standup out of the rafters for Christmas since we are going into an election year. Lots of fun, great food (turkey and stuffing with all the trimmings) and great gifts made this a great day and lots of fun. Later in the evening we got a special treat with a firework show on our block.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Continue reading “Christmas 2023” →

James got all A’s this semester (one was an A minus and the others all straight A’s). Because of this great first semester at Wayne State Mom and Dad treated James to a visit to his favorite restaurant, Bubba’s on Eureka road. Despite being a rainy day, it was raining A’s for James!

Great Job James

James took advantage of his college location and went to his first Red Wing game at Little Caesars arena.

Thanks to my family for all the wonderful gifts, I really did not expect it since I received several gifts early so that they could be used for our Halloween display (the spooky bird bath and the creepy fountain). This year was great with plenty of Halloween gifts including a fantastic Halloween cake.

As usual with any birthday in our family we ordered out. We found a new favorite near our home, Captain Jays, which has seafood and gives us an alternative to Long John Silvers when we order take out for fish.

Of note was the Christmas hoodie I got which I will wear at Christmas. I have plenty of Halloween hoodies but not a single Christmas hoodie.

Continue reading “Dads Birthday 2023” →

In the past few months James has been volunteering his time helping others through a volunteer program at Wayne State. While he does not get school credits for this, he does get volunteer credits which help him on other things while at Wayne State. It also looks good on a resume!

One of the volunteer works he did was a ten hour stint where he helped set up tables and decorations in a school auditorium in Detroit in preparation for a visit from Santa for all the local kids. James said when the kids came in he acted like an usher making sure the kids were in the right spot to visit Santa. James had a great time at this volunteer event and certainly put him in the Christmas spirit.

Unfortunately James had a class at nearly the same time as the VIP camp Christmas Fantasyland. Rather than miss it, James and Dad left early and were able to attend for about ten minutes before heading on to his class at the Mike Illitch School of Business in Detroit (Fantasyland was in Lincoln Park near an exit so James made it to school on time, although it was close).

James got to say hi to several counselors and a few friends from VIP camp and also got his picture taken with Santa, which has been a tradition since he was little.

Thanks to VIP camp for putting on a great event for the campers!

Continue reading “Christmas Fantasyland 2023” →

The tradition of the Lions loosing on Thanksgiving continued this year, but what made it hurt was that they had already beat the tar out of the Packers while on the road in Green Bay, which would lead one to believe the Lions should at least win when playing in Detroit, but alas the Thanksgiving losing streak continued.

As in the past we put up the Christmas decorations after the Lions game to get in the Christmas spirit, and enjoyed a traditional Turkey dinner. We also enjoyed the parades on TV.

On Saturday we enjoyed a very exciting football game between Michigan and Ohio State and the Wolverines held serve and won the home game, thus sending them to play against Iowa in the Big Ten Championship game.

Continue reading “Thanksgiving 2023” →