Soccer Saturday's

Many of you know that Jacob is not fond of change, ANY change. He likes the idea of doing something new, but once the day is here (or in the case of kindergarten, 3 weeks away) he decides he doesn't want to do it and starts worrying and fretting about it. Anyway, we decided that the only way to get him to get over this problem would be to "encourage" him to do more new things. What better time than right when he starts kindergarten?? With this in mind, we signed him up for soccer. Now, Curt and I know nothing about soccer, but it sounded good for Jacob. Well, we found out that Rod, Curt's cousin is partly in charge of the AYSO soccer league that we signed Jacob up with. He ever-so-gently asked Curt if he would coach. How do you say no?? Curt said yes and I am his back-up. Did I mention we know NOTHING about soccer. Anyway, we are now spending saturday's on the soccer field and Jacob is loving it.

This is Jacob getting ready to practice kicking the ball into the net. I love the look on his face. It is hysterical watching him. Sometimes he just stands there with his fingers in his mouth and sometimes he is just running around in circles.


This is during Jacob's first game. I was pleasantly surprised that he was actually participating in the game and trying to kick the ball. Go Jacob!!

First Day of Kindergarten!!

Sept. 5, 2007

Today was the day that Jacob has been waiting for all summer, the first day of kindergarten!!

Labor Day Weekend

Curt, the boys and I went up to Deaner Lake in Vestaburg with the rest of the Ford Family. This is something that we try to do every holiday weekend during the summer months, but this year we were only able to make it over Labor Day. It was good to see everybody. We went up on friday night and stayed until sunday afternoon. We had to leave early because there was a race on sunday night and we had to be home to watch it!! It's a good thing we did because Jimmie got his 5th win of the season. Yeah!!


This is Deaner Lake as it looks from our dock. It's not a very big lake so most of the time it's pretty quiet. We had fun playing with the boys in the water. They have both turned into little fish over the summer.

Curt and Gary took the boys fishing and turtle hunting on saturday. They had such a good time even though they only caught one fish that was too small to keep.

On Monday Curt and I took the boys to Binder Park Zoo for the afternoon. It was our last hoo-rah with the boys befores school starts. We started this tradition last year and will keep doing it until the boys outgrow the zoo and then we'll find something else to do.

A Day With James

During last school year the boys and I had the privilege of babysitting James (Jeff and Kim's little boy) on Wednesdays. Jacob and Ethan became really attached to him and consider him part of our family. In fact, they often complained that James had to go home to his mom and dad at the end of the day. During the summer we try to get together with them about once a month so they can spend some time together. We were excited when they asked us if we could watch him on Wednesday while they were at the school preparing for the upcoming year. Here are a few pictures of what went on while James was with us.

We saved a bunch of our "baby toys" just for the days when James comes to visit. Jacob and Ethan get a kick out of playing with them all. In fact, I am surprised that there were any available for James to play with.

This is the three of them being artistic. Ethan was a little upset that James was ON the mat instead of BESIDE the mat, but he remembered that "James is little and didn't know any better," at least that's what he told me.

This is lunchtime. By this time of the day, James starts looking a little tired.

See what I mean?

Girls Weekend

This past weekend The Rachels, two of my best friends, came over for a little overnight scrapbook extravaganza. We were afraid we would have to cancel because we were having some major storms. In fact, tornadoes ripped through the Charlotte and Potterville area and farther northeast causing major damage. We had planned to go up to Okemos to visit Hobby Lobby and my favorite scrapbook shop and the storms were going right across our path. Fortunately, the storms passed by quickly and our weekend went on as planned. When we got back from our field trip it was about 10:30 in the evening. I was sure that we would put our stuff away and head off to bed, saving the actual scrapbooking for the next day. I was wrong.

This is Rachel G. scrappin' away.

This is me. Obviously I am at the "I'm so tired I'm giddy" point. We stayed up until 3:30 a.m. Yeah, I said 3:30 a.m.


This was the YUMMY sandwich that we had on Saturday for our lunch. Rachel G. made it just after breakfast so it could meld all the flavors together. I was ready to dive in right then, but I restrained myself until lunchtime.

This is us on Saturday just before they went home. We are each holding up our two favorite pages. I think we all finished at least 8 pages. I had such a good time. It isn't often that we get together without the husbands and kids and get to just be silly girlfriends. I will treasure this weekend and hopefully, we will plan another.

Pizza Beach -- a place for kids of all ages

Our good friends, Jeff and Kim, asked us to go to Pizza Beach for one more day of fun before summer ended and school resumed.

They said it was a place for kids to play.

They said the boys would have fun.

They were right.

Race Weekend

Finally, race weekend has arrived. Curt has waited for this for 363 days and it was a difficult wait. Chad, Brad and Curt decided that this year they were going to go out for qualifying and practice on Friday. It was a great day for them to go; it was cool and sunny, just what they had hoped for.

Right when they walked in they saw a huge Lowe's Chevy display that had Jimmie Johnson's car as the centerpiece. Curt was able to have his picture taken with it. Pretty cool.



While they were walking around they happened to see Rusty Wallace signing autographs for fans. Chad was able to snap this picture with our camera.



This is turn four at MIS, close to where Curt, Chad, and Brad sat.



Saturday night we went over to Doc and Georgia's house for a Sunday School Reunion party and Georgia decided since it was race weekend, the party would be race themed. This picture is of our closest friends. On the left are Stan and Sue, Curt and I, Chad and Rachel Green, and Brad and Rachel Hunt. It was a good time. Afterwards, the boys went out for their annual shopping trip for race food.

The race was rain delayed on Sunday and then postponed until Monday at noon. Unfortunately, the rain didn't stop so they postponed it again until Tuesday at 10am. That means that the guys were at the track Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. It was a good race once it finally ran. Kurt Busch, Brad's driver, ended up in Victory Lane and Jimmie Johnson, Curt's driver, had a solid top 5 finish at 3rd place. YEAH!!