Saturday at the Riverwalk

This past Saturday the entire family set out to experience the new Mishawaka Riverwalk. We walked, talked, ate lunch and all that fun stuff. It looks beautiful, and has amazing potential to become a very quaint, community-building site complete with benches, walks, bridges, drinking fountains, waterfalls and open lots which would allow for the construction of say a nice walk-up Starbucks for example :)

The only problem we ran into was the temperature. We forgot that it was going to be in the 90s all weekend. So our walk was a little less enjoyable than it could have been. The kids looked like strawberries and wouldn't even play on the park equipment because the plastic burned them :(

But for future reference - this is a great place to hang out - just do it in the cool of the evening or something like that...

Check out our web gallery for two or three more pix from this trip...

Flash Video (.flv) Is a Wonderful Thing

Just messing around with Flash Video - trying to see if it was even possible to embed it in the blog. Looks like it works! But don't worry, I won't put full length feature films of the kids on here - just a few seconds worth from time to time...

Here we see the girls trying to teach Tyler to clap (although he already has a pretty good idea how it's done...)

Girls Day Out

Yesterday I had the privilege of spending the day with some of my best girl friends. We took the day and headed to my parents lake house. It was a beautiful day, the weather was perfect, the water was warm, the kids were content and the time hanging with the girls was what it was all about. It is really nice sometimes to just be with the girls and talk about girlie things, okay not really though we do talk about boys sometimes (mainly our husbands and children). There are just things you talk more freely about with your girlfriends then you do when the boys are around, even though we have a pretty tight group and we talk pretty freely about things even with the boys around. We decided that it was such a good time that we need to do it again this summer. I am telling you as I was sitting on the dock just relaxing and hanging out I thought why don't I spend all summer doing this. Then I remembered I had a job. If I ever win the lottery or come into a lot of money I would for sure have a house on the lake and spend all summer there. I can dream right!

This is Becky and Debbie hanging out on the dock watching the kids swim. Lexi (Debbie's little girl) is in the car seat next to her.

This is Jami playing in the water with the kids, they tended to have more fun when there was an adult in the water with them.

The 4 amigo's-Abby, Allison and Jacob in the back. Rachel in the front. These guys swam all day and fortunately for us fell asleep in the car on the way home. Made for some nice peace and quiet.

Thanks girls for such a good time, I love hanging out with all of you. Let's do it again sometime soon!

Here we go

First jet ski ride

He is just way too cute!!!!!!!

Allison and Joe G. relaxing

Allison and her cousin Joe G. don't get to see each other much but when they do they are together all the time. Here they are vegging out!

Rachel full of sand

Allison enjoying the lake

Fourth of July Fun

What a great weekend we had. Fourth of July weekend is one of my favorite weekends of the year, because we always spend it at the lake. My parents have had a house on Lake Syracuse for over 20 years and in those years I have spent many July 4th's there. This year was no different. We headed that direction on Saturday after church and the kids could not wait to get there. Sunday we had all the family over, I think we had about 20 people. My cousin and her family who live in Pennsylvania are always in town for the weekend and the kids had a great time playing in the water and watching movies together. It is always a lot of work to have all those people there but it is worth it. Monday was by far my favorite day. We had some of our best friends there and just spent the day hanging out, relaxing, eating, making sure kids did not drown and doing some water activities ourselves. Allison and Rachel had their first ride on the tube behind the boat. Allison and her best friend Abby were in one tube and Rachel and Jacob were in the other. They had a great time and kept yelling at us to go faster. I have to admit my heart was beating like crazy while the kids were back there. All I kept thinking is someone is going to fall off and I am going to end up in the water trying to get to the kid in time. All was well though. Tyler had his first boat ride and looked way too cute in his life jacket. After the kids were done I had the urge. Like I said I have spent many years at the lake and one of my favorite things to do is tube, as a kid I used to do it for hours at a time. So I convinced my best friend Becky to hop on a tube with me. We had a great time and made it around the lake one time before we could not take it anymore. Yes, someone did fall off a couple of times, I will let you guess who it was. Even though I am sore today I still have to say that tubing is one of my favorite things to do and I cannot wait to get back out there. So Beck you up for it again?

Early Mornings

Daryl here - my first official post on the family blog. It's early in the morning and the family is still sleeping - a wonderful time for peace and reflection... I guess I've held off adding to this blog for a while due to my busy schedule and the fact that I don't have time to think much less pontificate about life and it's intricacies. But from time to time I'll add an entry just to feel like I'm part of things...

This morning my thoughts turn to Maslow, Abraham Maslow that is, and his Hierarchy of Needs. The image to the left shows Maslow's theory that suggests everyone must have certain needs met in order to move up to a higher level of "being." He suggested that a person cannot be any higher on the pyramid than his or her met needs will allow. For example, someone whose safety needs are not met will be unable to develop his or her esteem needs.

Before I bore you to death, I'll get to the point... It occurred to me this morning as I pulled my thoughts together, that blogging is most often an activity that people participate in when developing belonging, esteem or self-actualization. Assuming most bloggers are not overly focused on their physiological and/or safety needs, we can assume most bloggers are probably looking for one of three things: community (belonging), acceptance (esteem) or a better understanding or him or herself (self-actualization).

Since the majority of my friends have taken up blogging, I think I'll try to analyze which of the three needs they are attempting to meet (just joking). As for me, I'm not really sure why I do it. Tell you what, I'll think about it and get back with you...