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Yay!  John had a birthday...and we celebrated !  His birthday always falls on the weekend of the Air Force marathon, but because he was recovering from knee surgery, he wasn't running.  So we went all out. Besides the party that Ethan and Rebecca threw for him at home, we headed to Michigan for some more fun. First, dinner at Smokehouse 52 in Chelsea.  I mean, c'mon, if John loves anything, it's barbeque, and barbeque is their specialty!  I can hardly believe that I have never even been there, but it might be on a higher plane now than Zingerman's.  Yes, I said it.  The food was to die for. Poppie, giving Baby a taste of Diet Coke... The food was actually worth a picture. These are some of my favorite people on earth. The next morning, we were up bright and early to visit the Detroit temple.  Because of different temples being closed for maintenance throughout the summer, we haven't had a chance to go to the temple for months...

Apologies at the beginning, I don't have any pictures of this past weekend, so I hope my mom goes in and adds them. This past weekend was Papa's 50th birthday, and Rebecca and I were determined to get him something special. Papa doesn't love your typical things. He doesn't even necessarily want useful things for his birthday. I have learned that a gift generally has to pass the "cool" test. Whether that's a video game that's cool (even if he won't play it ever), or a T-shirt that is cool, that's going to be something that he will want for his birthday. We decided to do something a little different. While we were in Poland (said in a snobbish British accent) Rebecca and I tried out escape rooms all over Warsaw. The basic premise is you're locked in a room and have 60 minutes to get out. We probably did six or seven of them while we were there. We did some with WWII themes (I never knew there were so many Enigma machines out there), we di...

Ten years ago, my grandmother died.  That event alone deserves its own post, but suffice it to say that her death was a tragedy. Because my grandfather had preceded her in death by two years, their estate was settled and divided when she died, and within that estate were three cars:  a new Toyota Corolla, a Model A Ford (I believe it was from the 1930's), and a 1970 Monte Carlo, painted Buster Brown. I spent every summer with those two wonderful people, and I owe much of anything good that I am to them.  Growing up with them, I was taken on weekly Sunday drives through their neighborhood in Tallahassee in the Model A, riding in the rumble seat.  (I have pictures of myself doing this, but my childhood photo albums are currently being held hostage and are unavailable.)  Like many things my grandparents did, I took for granted those experiences as being normal, everyday occurrences that most children had.  It took me growing up, and talking to other peo...

Two weeks at home. Here's what we did: The dogs.  It was a funny moment that I happened to capture.  All they ever want is to come inside the house. I sent Hannie out to pull some weeds.  She found some helpers :-) Hanna wanted to play I Spy before she went back to school.  Here's Mark in his game stance...but he still lost. A sketch by Mark of a girl who gave a talk in sacrament meeting.   Ethan and Rebecca sent us this pic of Baby in the hotel room.  A full length mirror provided hours of entertainment. Good old Mark.  Sneaking selfies and photobombing at the same time :-) Our first lesson in seminary.  Glo is holding a 30 pound rock.  It was all about burdens.  Obviously, Mark has none :-) Hoodie, making off with the dough.... I drove Glo to Philly for her lesson.  I couldn't find parking anywhere, so I made a quick reservation for the open house at the temple (which guarantees parking)...

I do believe Ethan has been counting down the days for football season since the last day of 2015's football season :-)  He has known the exact day of the Michigan-Hawaii game.  He has been posting countdowns on his FB page. Yep, we were all pretty excited for the football season to begin.  And yet at the same time, I wasn't. Last year at this time, I had two whole seasons (read that as two whole YEARS) of spending quality, fun time with my boys at Michigan...and its football games.  This year, as I sat in the stands, I got a little bit Sad Sally and thought about the fact that next year, Ethan might be somewhere else off living his life.  Actually, I should change that "might" to a "will probably". And that made me a bit sad. Going to Michigan football games with my boys is one of the most fun things I do in a year.  That's saying a lot, because we do and see a lot of things over 365 days.  I'm thankful too that we have it all figured out so...

So as some of you might know, two weekends ago, Allison, (the girl I’m dating) had a birthday! Originally I had just planned to do something with her once I got back to Michigan, but when some of her own birthday plans fell through for the weekend before the 24 th , I figured it would be a great time to invite her to PA(:Because, ya know, there’s nothing like experiencing the Kennedy family in real-life. Thankfully my family was totally down for her coming, and we started planning a classic Kennedy birthday bash. I think I can comfortably say that calling it an AWESOME weekend for all of us would be a SEVERE understatement. What follows though is a list of the highlights, in no particular order (although inevitably, some of the better parts will be at the beginning). The Birthday Theme: While this fact will DEFINTELY date Glo is the craziest artist. She did this without me even asking... this post for future generations, we decided to go wi...