Summer Days Driftin' Away...

Wow it's been a couple weeks since I've posted. Thankfully that time has been spent here in Michigan versus traveling abroad (that begins again next week with a trip to Natalie's for applesauce). Even though we were home though, there was much activity to do. We had another event with Botsford Advocates that Joel was even able to attend, an ortho intro party, one of our last date nights as Joel's schedule has been getting fairly hectic lately (welcome to reality, right?!) lots of fun lately with Amy K, and a the culmination of a trip by Natalie to visit me the past few days! I'm so blessed!


Botsford Advocates is a group that residents' spouses can join that has philanthropic intentions, but whose main purpose (as I see it anyhow) is to connect the spouses so that we all don't feel quite so lonely. As ortho tends to be male dominant, and REALLY family-oriented (I was told that if I don't pop out a kid in the next two years I will be lagging behind. Someone told me that there were 8 babies in this past year and there were 3 that are expecting), most of the people in the BA group are ortho wives-- which is nice because it gives me a better chance to get to know them :) Every month, Botsford pays for us all to get together and do fun stuff. In August we were able to spend the evening playing miniature golf, riding on go-carts, testing our swing in the batting cages and playing in the arcade. This month they are taking us to an apple orchard :)

Putt-Putt Golf with the Hollands

Go-cart riding with kids (Joel adopted one for the ride)

Chris, a fellow ortho intern and his daughter rockin' out

The closest Joel will get to owning a motorcycle

Date Nights... I love date nights :) Last Friday, Joel and I were able to head to a park nearby where we had a picnic dinner by a creek. Frequent guests were scattered rain showers and ducks, one of whom would come back unrelentingly to our blanket time and time again after Joel had shooed him away. We then hiked up to downtown Farm where we were able to enjoy one of the last summer concert series... country music. The guys were pretty good and could play anything you asked them to. Even Liam enjoyed the music, laughing to Sweet Home Alabama as we ate Cold Stone Creamery, while watching the sunset in the horizon! Yum! We also played Joel's new fav... Settlers of Catan.

Enjoying icecream while listening to the concert

Our frequent friend on our picnic

The only unsettling discovery of the evening was realizing that by moving here to Farmington, we have become traitors of sorts... the plaza downtown was created by Morton Buildings! Yikes!



Today Natalie left after she came up for a visit for a couple of days. It was fun having girls dominate, with her, Portia and Cosette here :) Unfortunately, we were housebound, due to my car being in the shop and her's not being able to start! So much for shopping!! But it made it so that we went to a park, and just got to talk and create yummy foods... cantaloupe sorbet and chocolate peanut butter squares. AND I got to see Amy K (and John too) again... I think we saw each other 3 days in a row... with a trip to IKEA to boot!

We don't have a lot of toys that will entertain toddlers, so Portia was forced to play with Liam

Portia wanted to go on the big person slide... but not by herself. Natalie was told that she was "too big" by some other kids.

Amy is going to make a great mom... even if she has twins :)

On our way to becoming "Domestic Goddesses"... the non-baking way :)