With VIP camp ending the same week as Magic Week, James has not been able to spend as much time at Magic Week in Colon as he has in the past, but we still make sure he gets out there for at least one day of fun and magic. James had a blast looking at magic in the dealers room, seeing magic in the street, and seeing magic shows inside. This year was special as it celebrated the 80th birthday of the Abbott Magic Shop in addition to the 77th Magic Get Together. During this event, the small town of Colon doubles in size and becomes the Magic Capital of the World with everything from Vegas quality magic shows to a graveyard tour where many professional magicians are buried.

Next year the dates are August 5-8 if you want to add a little magic to your summer.

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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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The 2014 VIP camp came to an end with a party where all the family was invited. Mom and Dad joined James for the luncheon which included games and all sorts of fun.

The festivities began on the indoor field where the kids (and adults) participated in several games, races, and activities while the lunch was being prepared.

The lunch was alot of food, no other way to explain it. Everyone had plenty to eat and after the lunch the adults challenged the kids to a competitive game of “pass the ball”.

At the end of the party, James said his goodbye’s but fortunately he should meet up with most of the kids either through the fund raising parties, the winter skating activities, and (of course) his own Halloween party.

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While watching a Tiger game on TV, James and Dad noticed the blimp floating around Comerica park and James decided he wanted to go “Down Town” and see it in person.

Hopping in a car, we headed down to Comerica Park and navigated so that the car was almost directly under the blimp. It was actually a Direct TV blimp, not Good Year, but regardless we followed the blimp till it made its way down 94 and across the river into international waters.

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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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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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”.

Continue reading “Chasing a Rainbow at a Softball Game 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

Continue reading “Bad Omen on Happy Meal Day 2014” →

After a year of waiting James got to attend his VIP camp. This year they had more field trips including the zoo, Turtle Cove, Heritage Park, and Texas Roadhouse. One of the pictures is at the Texas Roadhouse with Jame’s friend, Dynamike, who is a Master Magician in Michigan. When not on the road the kids participated in various games and crafts for a six week period. Mom and Dad had to keep up with the lunch schedule since sometimes James had to brown bag, other times he had to pay for a lunch. Lots of fun and it kind of reminded us all of school recess, except this recess lasted about six hours each day.

James plans on returning next year and participated in several fund raisers for the camp later on in the summer. Below are pics from several different days.

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We decided to try our hands at another garage sale. Jame’s had outgrown a bunch of toys and mom and dad needed to make some room in the house. We did not have a garage sale for two years so we were due.

While the garage sale did ok, the gist of this post has to do with who visited the garage sale. The first day, Dynamo the Clown stopped by and bought a few things on the way to a show on Pelham street. We thought that took the cake, but the very next day a family showed up in a golf cart.

All in all, the garage sale was a success and we are thinking about possibly having another one in mid to late September to help us make room for Halloween, if needed. I can’t wait to see who will visit us then.