Michigan!

so glad to see everyone, especially the Richters and Uncle Mike! I don't think I've seen Uncle Mike since who knows when before I went to college and Aunt Sherry and Uncle Brett since I took a summer off to work at the shop and hang with the fam. And that was before I got married. I really wish we'd gotten to see Reeny though :( We missed you lots Reeny! Though you know... we've got a guest room! Not the lap of luxury, but it's calling "Reeeeeeny! Come visit William!" Actually, we'd love to have guests at all and I certainly don't get to see any of you enough so the offer is wide open! Sherry and Mike? Coming for Rolling Thunder next year? ;) Abbey and Spencer can come do summer internships here in DC! Free housing (I'll just make you guys cook!) So Happy Belated 4th of July! Going up to Ironwood was a wonderfully madhouse sort of trip and I just wish we'd been able to stay longer. Seth's work called him back too soon for taste, unfortunately, but at least we got to come! I was

To be honest, things have been a bit rough lately. Seth's been going out of town for work a lot lately. A couple times a month it seems like, or else one long trip a month. Next time he goes to San Antonio I'm going to go with and chill with the penguins at SeaWorld, but I wish William had his hoard of cousins here nearby to play with. He seemed to have so much fun with Jack and Aiden and everyone else. And he sure was pretty content hanging out with Ryan while we did grandkid photos!

It was so much fun seeing all the kids too. AnnaMarie and Michael's families have grown up so much since I last saw them! Sophie was so tiny last time! This picture is one of my favorites of Sophie and Jane playing on the computer chair, spinning each other around as fast as they could and laughing their heads off.

Going to Sunday Lake for the fireworks is my absolute favorite place for them. Even living in DC, nothing compares to the fireworks up there. The local shows here may be more spectacular, but they're also more crowded, and the traffic is appalling. Not to mention this year we had a huge storm come through and knock our power out on Friday night. It knocked out pretty much everyone in the DC area. I think the totals were something like 500,000 homes without power. With the typical service (that is to say, not much at all) that Pepco has up here, it took a week for power to be restored to us. In the meantime some good friends of ours were far enough north that they only lost power for a day and were kind enough to let us stay at their place- and to snakesit for us. Kitty's got a tank that self-regulates his temp and humidity so it's normally not a problem to leave him alone while we go for a few days, but it was the hottest week of the year and he'd have fried without someone to refill his water and AC to keep them temp from going way too high. Tangent aside, due to the electrical problems- and water shortages since the water treatment plants were out of electricity too- many of the local firework shows were cancelled altogether. The night we arrived we did bring the storms with us though apparently, as the power went out at Dad's house during a thunderstorm! Thankfully it came back by morning though. heh.

All in all, it was one of the best vacations we've had in a long long time and so much fun :) I still keep trying to call Christy Abbey though, they look so much alike.

William loved it too, even the fireworks. He didn't get scared at all, just stared and absolutely love it. We're definitely looking forward to doing it again soon.