Christmas Letter 2010

When I asked Z what he wanted to say in the Christmas letter this year he said, "Merry Christmas to all my friends and if you come to my house, I'll give you something nice." Not sure what he had in mind but dust bunnies are free for the taking.

To be fair, I also asked M and her response was "Santa?"

I spent most of 2010 thinking it was 2009 so I guess that means this year was a lot like last year, no major shake ups, catastrophes or excitement. And we're very grateful for that! We spent the bulk of the year working on the house. The exterior is now done (progress is charted in previous posts) and we are beginning the upstairs renovation. When all is done, we should have a nice master suite and bathroom and the kids will have their own rooms. Oh yeah, and all the junk will be out of the basement making it usable once again. Can't wait!

Work is the same for both Mark and I. Quite a bit more of it thanks to budget cuts in both companies but we are very thankful to be employed in jobs we like. We celebrated our 10th anniversary this year with a trip to Chicago in August. During our Christmas photo shoot with the kids, the photographer suggested the two of us get a picture since we hadn't had a formal one since our wedding. Well, it will NOT be posted on this blog but we got a good laugh out of it! My how two kids will age you...

Z is enjoying his last year of preschool. He's off to kindergarten in the fall. Where did the time go? He's loving school and doing things I remember doing in first grade. Crazy. He's into superheros, camping and art. Quite the complex little guy and he keeps us on our toes.

M is finally talking. Her favorite thing to do is ask where everyone she knows is. She's still a social butterfly and thanks to her brother, becoming a prize fighter. She can hold her own with the big kids and at her size, everyone is a big kid!

Teddy still enjoys napping, stealing food from the kids and polar fleece.

A very Merry Christmas to all and best wishes for a great 2011!

The Elkins Family

Christmas Photo Shoot 2010

I suppose now that M is almost 2 we should have a family photo... We do an annual picture of the grandkids for my parents at Christmas and kind of last minute decided to do a family shot. Turned out pretty good. Probably do another one in 10 years the way we get around to doing things!

Fall Stuff

Just getting caught up on some pictures from the fall. Is it November already? It's been hard to tell with the warm weather. I have been taking pictures, just never have time to upload and post. This has been a year like no other at work, budget crunches have almost tripled our workload. And to think it could get even worse! It seems like 10 weeks has gone by in a blur and we're heading into the holidays at full speed. I think living on top of piles of stuff while we remodel heightens the stress. With the upstairs empty, every nook and cranny seems full. One day I dream of elbow space and kids who can retreat to their own rooms when they get on each others nerves!

In the meantime, we sort, organize, purge, and repeat. At least the outside looks good now. If you like yellow :o)



Love this. We call her an Olympic sleeper.

Z on his preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch.

The Fall Festival here in town. Z's first time on a horse and he didn't like it.

Happy Wheatland! Despite a day of rain, the festival was good and we saw all the groups we wanted.

Sorry for the shoddy post. Will have Halloween pictures soon.

Rennovation Complete!

Before... I guess I never noticed how dull this color was. Very negative energy you could say.

After! Back to the original color palatte of a Craftsman Bungalow (there are several but once Mark went for the green roof, that pretty much decided it). It's bright, but you have to take into account that today with our limited selection of vinyl colors, our world is a much more muted and boring place. Houses were more colorful back in the day and I have to say, now with the fall colors, the house looks awesome! (If you look between the house and garage, you can see our neighbor's house which is also yellow, see the difference?)

We debated on vinyl siding but the wood was in good shape and in the end, we were able to keep it. I'm glad, it just wouldn't look the same otherwise. On an older house, vinyl can create many problems. Our painter was wonderful and very patient helping us get the right colors. In the end, even he was surprised. People either love it or hate it. I've noticed that the more one dimensional people hate it and the more interesting, creative and artsy people just love it. Z loves it, it's his favorite color and he thinks we picked it just for him!

I'll try and post some fall pictures of it soon. Sorry for the delay in posting, back to school has been hellish this year to put it mildly but I'm slowly getting my feet back under me.

Farewell to Summer...

Another summer in the books. Am I ever ready for summer to end? No. I love being home with my kids and having all sorts of adventures. I know I'm lucky to be able to do it but before you grumble about teachers and all their time off, walk a mile in our shoes!!!! I like my job, it's just hard to give this fun and freedom up!

Tomorrow I get to welcome a new crop of freshmen to OHS, introduce my intern to the joys of teaching and remember how very exhausted I can be at the end of a day! Z starts his last year of preschool tomorrow. My baby has just one more year before heading off to kindergarten. M gets Papa all to herself most of the week but she'll be lonely. We're hoping she can join big brother at Bright Beginnings one day a week.

Here are some random pictures from this summer. Stay tuned, my next post will be the completed house restoration. Yes, it's finally done! (on the outside) and it will look great with the fall colors that are just starting to arrive.


Z at the Chelsea Teddy Bear Factory.

A the Saginaw Children's Zoo. Great zoo if you have little ones.

All the little cousins "helping" cousin C with his pigs at the fair.

Birds of Prey presentation at the Nature Conservancy. If I could perfect "The Look" of a great horned owl, I'd be the most feared teacher ever!

Happy Anniversary in the Windy City!

Ten years ago, I married the cutest boy in the world and Mark married the most stunning woman. OK, our real anniversary is in October but teachers can't just take trips whenever they want! So we celebrated our 10th a little early by taking the train to Chicago for 4 days. Sad that we live so close and have never been. Probably cause I always opt for Boston when I can. But Chicago turned out to be a great town and we will return soon, Z would love it and we promised to take him. Lots to do and just as Boston is all about beer, Chicago is all about food. Walked around 20 miles and still gained 5 pounds, my kind of town! Enjoy the pictures!

The Field Museum and the view of Navy Pier from it. Poor Chicago, they live on a Great Lake but get no cooling effects in the summer. It was hot!

The Crown Fountain in Millenium Park. The faces were a little creepy but I love that this is just one of many fountains in the city that you can play in. You just kick off your shoes and splash away or even get in your swimsuit. they expect it here, how fun!

Mark just had to find this eyeball sculpture. We found in on the very last day. Don't worry, it's not a permanent fixture.

"underground" at the Field Museum.

The happy couple.

That guy is made of Legos!

Just as our 5th anniversary trip was my Transcendentalist Geek trip to Massachusetts, this trip to Chicago was Mark's geek trip to pay hommage to Frank Lloyd Wright and architecture. While he suffered at times in Massachussetts, I enjoyed the architecture part of this trip. The river tour is a must-do.

This was the filming of Transformers 3 literally right outside our hotel. All that rubble is fake. See the stunt dude on the blue thingy? Bumblebee was parked right behind us but you couldn't stop and take pictures or security was all over you.

Sears "Willis" Tower

The Cloud Gate at Millenium Park. It's pretty cool at night too.

Summer Fun (and Pictures)

At long last the backlog of pictures has been downloaded and there were quite a few! So here's just a sampling to start. When I get a spare second I'll work on posting some more.

At Hartwick Pines. This "sculpted" guy was pretty buff, I had to have my picture taken with him! Check out those pecs!

Hiking in a stroller wore her out.

On our last day at Aunt Pat's, Z caught a nice size bluegill, his first all summer.

The boating incident. Mark's cousins bought a boat this year and they gratiously spent a whole morning tubing with the kids. On my ride around the lake, they decided to have a couple's argument about whether or not they had enough gas. Jill was right, we didn't. We stalled just yards from the marina, drifted into a nice family's dock and we waited for Uncle Duane to arrive and tow us to the marina. Except for the extreme heat, the kids had quite the adventure.

Ever tried the chocolate cheese at this place in Frankenmuth???

The Tall Ship celebration in Bay City. Always fun, the second time we've gone. If you get a chance, go! These ships are actually racing but they stop every so often for people to tour them. The one pictured above was used in Pirates of the Carribean.

Nature hike with Daddy!

Looking for agates at Whitefish Point.

Of course we did some geocaching, found just one though. Brimley had several listed but most were MIA. This is where we discovered that Z is the only one in the family allergic to poison ivy. After we visited the Sault Ste Marie hospital for his sprained ankle our first night there, he healed up and got poison ivy all over his legs. I didn't really get a picture but the poor guy swelled worse from that than the sprain!

House Renovation Continues & Wellington's Antics

Since our picture program is still not up and running, I thought I'd update you on the progress of the house. Hopefully soon, I have a ton of summer pictures to upload and share.


Above is a picture of what our new color scheme will look like. It's the original 1930's color palate popular for the Craftsman Bungalow. We lack the cool porch but Mark wants to eventually put one on. We also have original wooden shutters that will be painted and put on. Now it's just deciding what will be green and what will be red.



I contacted our painter to see what his schedule was looking like. He's a little behind but informed me that the feds passed a law a week after giving us an estimate stating that any house built before the 60's or something has to follow all these painting procedures under the assumption that there is lead paint involved. These new procedures include, 10 feet of plastic, not one speck of paint can be left on the ground while stripping the old paint, caution tape must be up at all times and ALL his gear must be cleaned up and packed away every night. Homeowners can sign a waiver to not do all that, unless children under 6 reside in the home. Oh fun! So he will spend twice as long on our job and invest a lot in extra equipment. But he's honoring the original estimate cause he's a nice guy. I'm looking forward to the constant questions I'll have to deal with because of the caution tape around my house! Small town you know...


Many of you wanted to know about Wellington, our resident "spirit". I guess I've always believed in ghosts. I've just experienced too many weird things not to. When we moved into the house we had some odd things happen as though he was just making sure we were aware of him. Twice now the bathroom faucet has turned on full force in the night. Once I awoke to find every kitchen cabinet and drawer wide open. Teddy will sometimes stare at nothing and growl. Not just us but other people have seen shadows move down our hall. Teddy sees them a lot and draws our attention to them.

The funny thing is, we always assumed it was a male because the doc died in the house, but for a few years now, Z has talked about the little lady in black that visits him at night. We once showed him a picture of the doctor and asked if he'd ever seen that man before and he said no but pointed to his wife and said he'd seen her. Kinda creepy huh?

Grandma Fifi

Christmas 2006 - Holding Z (6 months ) and Cousin S (3 months)

The minister who performed the funeral said that Grandma Fifi was a quiet "salt of the earth" kind of person who just went about life without making waves. I don't think he could have been more wrong.

On June 25, Mark's grandma died. And let me tell you about the real Grandma Fifi. No , her name wasn't Fifi, it was Elda. She earned the name by being pulled on stage at the Renaissance Festival as Fifi the French maid and it stuck. Cousin S, who was just a toddler at the time started calling her Grandma Fifi and all the other great grandkids did too. And it fit. She could be goofy. She felt the only foods you needed in your kitchen were popcorn and ice cream. She was gifted at knitting and cross stitch and loved just about any form of art. And what I liked best about her was her spunk. She was stubborn at times too and from what I can see, all her great granddaughters take after her just a little, if not a lot.

She lived to a ripe old age, she lived long enough to see her grandchildren grow up and get married and she got to hold and enjoy all 10 of her great grandchildren. May we all be so lucky. I'm happy my kids got to know her and that Z will have memories of her.

And should we ever think we'll forget her, all we have to do is look at the her sassy great granddaughters that look and act like her to remember that she was anything but quiet and ordinary.

I thought vacations are supposed to be restful...

Sorry for the long pause in updating, life since I walked out of OHS has been crazy to put it mildly. I must first warn you that I will have to post pictures next time. Part of the delay has been lack of computer. A lovely little virus infected us courtesy of facebook and we lost it until just this week. So I have to wait until we reload our photo program. And if you think of it, please send us a little email. We lost all our email contacts and are slowly rebuilding our address book.

Hard to believe summer break is half over. The first two weeks were some intense work on the house. Thanks to my co-worker Troy, the upstairs is gutted and awaiting remodeling. We think the roofers finally fixed the holes (knock on wood) Now we sit and wait for the painter. Funny story there as well but I'll put that in the house update.

On June 25, Mark's grandma, Grandma Fifi, passed away. She was slowly fading after a few hospital stays and a broken hip. More about Grandma next post.

That Friday after the funeral, we headed up north for vacation. Both kids did well, a sprained ankle, poison ivy and a little boating incident didn't ruin any of the fun. We'd been home a week when Mark cut his hand with a circular saw building a deck for his mom. Pretty nasty cut and he may need surgery yet. So that puts a halt on any house work for awhile. So somewhere I blinked and it's mid July already. I'm ready for some quiet...

Pictures coming soon, promise!!!!!

4 Years Old

I think this picture pretty much sums it up, he's not a baby anymore. Of course he'll always be my baby but he definately has that big boy look now. When his preschool teachers gave me pictures of him throughout the year, I couldn't believe how little he was back in the fall. I couldn't even remember him still fitting into the clothes he was wearing in one picture! I know they grow fast but that's really fast, too fast.

But even though he's becoming a big kid, he still is Z, a unique character indeed. And his love of costumes is still going strong. This year's party theme was pirates. He was excited to get a Jack Sparrow costume even though he's never seen the movie!



The big hit was the Buzz Lightyear action figure, thank you Grandma Folger! He even wrote his name on Buzz's foot like Andy did in the movie. (While Toy Story is a cute movie, I curse Disney for joining forces with Mattel and their marketing genius.)

Arrrrr.... It was another chilly day in the park. I think we'll move indoors next year. Z had fun and now asks politely for another birthday when he wants something. Funny when you want another birthday right way isn't it? Happy Birthday Buddy, don't grow up too fast!