This year James began dyeing eggs on Palm Sunday. James gave a basket with some of the eggs to Aunt Peg (who just got out of rehab on her leg) and decorated the house with the others. We had to go easy on the green grass as the cats got into it and it wasn’t a pretty site.

While visiting Home Depot to buy an Easter plant, the Easter Bunny got a chance to sneak up on James as we kept taking pictures. James bought a lilly plant while at Home Depot and put it in a pot on the front porch. By Easter Sunday it was blooming!

Finally Easter Sunday morning arrived and the Easter Bunny had delivered his magical baskets to James. Now we get to eat and watch sports (The Tigers play LA at 1pm and the Wings play Boston in the Stanley Up playoffs at 3pm). Hopefully the Easter Bunny will be on our side for the games (at least its not Thanksgiving when we have to watch the …, well,lets just leave it at that).

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We were all thrilled when we found out that James had made the honor roll at Hoover elementary. In order to do this, James needs to maintain a B average in all his classes. While this is not the first time James has had this honor and we certainly hope it won’t be his last, we all feel extra special each time he does make the honor roll.

James participated in the Hoover elementary science fair with a couple projects, one he did on his own and the other was a class project. James’ project was how heat affects ice, inspired by the harsh winter and how the warm spring air melts the ice. The class project was how flowers can change color to match the color of the water they are in. Flowers in red water would turn red, flowers in blue would turn blue, etc.

James received a blue ribbon for his individual project and is already thinking about his 2015 project. The entire science fair was very informative and fun to visit.

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James enjoyed an evening at school that promoted reading and was done in a very fun way. First the principle had a raffle and raffled off some nice gifts (including Tiger tickets and an auto graphed jersey). We were also entertained with two skits between the raffles (A salad skit and a stirring rendition of RESPECT).

Next we went to our first course, it was called Barnyard Express where James learned about farm animals and how they milk them and such. Included were a small horse, a sheep, a goat, a baby pic, a couple baby goats, and the star of the show, a dog. After the course James got an ice cream sandwich from his teach, Mrs Jent.

In between courses, James got to pick out a free book.

James second course was “Big Block of Chocolate” which was a story about … you guessed it, a big block of chocolate. After the story the kids had to “melt” a small piece of chocolate and as a reward they got to dip a marshmallow and pretzel in a chocolate fountain.

All in all a great evening at the school with all sorts of entertainment and an inspiration for kids to read.

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The winter of 2014 was record setting not only for snow fall but also for the extreme cold brought about by the new buzz word – Polar Vortex. This has to be as close to living inside a freezer as possible. From a driving perspective we have seen every type of driving hazard (white out, snow, sleet, freezing rain, etc) sometimes on the same day, we have gone weeks without dipping above freezing (temperature in the 30’s is a heat wave) and for the first time in my life I noticed frost on the inside windows one extremely cold day in January.

I think everyone is disappointed with the intensity of this winter and trying to make the best of it. Warm days are ahead and I don’t think you will hear any complaints from the people of Michigan once the hot weather hits.

I am posting these pictures so that I never complain about the heat or humidity during the summer months again.

Continue reading “Finally, The Official End Of Winter 2014” →

James wanted to thank everyone who got him the fruit basket when he caught cold this winter.

This had to be one of the coldest days of the year, in fact, school was cancelled for the next day. But Dad had promised James we would attend the Hoover Elementary Movie Night and watch “Monsters University”, the prequel to the Monsters Inc movie that James loved as a child.

The event had an average attendance so I am sure this was affected by the weather. However once inside it was warm and the popcorn was fresh. The screen was an inflatable screen on the stage which I had never seen before. The movie went over very well and James enjoyed the evening.

We hope to attend the next showing at Hoover, but this weather has got to break first. Going out and starting the car to go home the temperature was about -10 and we did not feel warm air until we pulled up in our drive at home.

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James got a surprised this Christmas when he received a new pet from the Humane Society. These kittens were rescue kittens and have really become a part of the household (especially with the cold winter we are having where everybody is inside most of the day).

Currently these kittens are on a kitty chow diet and I don’t know what they put in that stuff but the kitty litter used in the house has gone up a lot more than you would expect. We also keep the kittens out of the basement because we don’t want them messing around with some of the nooks and crannies you can find in a basement (or with the decorations stored down there). Once it warms up we should be able to put the Holiday decorations in the garage and the kittens will be much bigger and not able to crawl into small places.

All in all, everyone is enjoying the new additions and watching them grow.

After Granpa Landis funeral we had a long drive back to Michigan, but we felt James needed an emotional break so we took him to one of his favorite places on earth, Dinosaur World in Kentucky.

James was very unselfish this trip and spent his money buying souvenirs for his classmates back in Michigan. The gift shop specializes in educational material for kids, including dinosaur books, models, toys, fossils, games, postcards, and dinosaur movies. All these things help children learn about the prehistoric past that we all share. Dinosaurs must be the most fascinating animals that ever walked the earth and you can certainly understand why kids gravitate to them so. James made sure each of his classmates got at least one souvenir from Dinosaur World.

All things considered James held up pretty well, but he was much more quiet with his enthusiasm on this visit than past ones, and who could blame him.

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This year our trip to Nashville was not as joyous as ones in the past had been. Mom had to fly out to Nashville under difficult circumstances – Grandpa Landis had passed away.

Mom took these pictures on the flight down where she met Uncle Bill to help with the funeral arrangements. James, Grandma, and Dad drove down one day later in what could best be described as an incredibly wet drive with nothing but rain from Cincy to Nashville.

The funeral service was very nice with military honors and the weather remained calm long enough as well. On the drive home the rain began again, but it was nothing compared to what we went through the night before.

Continue reading “Nashville by Air 2014” →