Snow Day update

It finally stopped snowing about 2:00pm. We took a ruler outside and we have 9 inches of snow. Our backyard is relatively flat, so the kids and I shoveled the snow off our elevated patio to create a mini hill. They took turns using the sleds to slide down our slope. I don't have any pictures however as snow was blowing like crazy and I didn't want the camera and lens to get wet. After our snow adventures we came inside for some yummy hot cocoa! We even used candy canes for stirrers, whip cream and marshmallows!! I didn't accomplish much else today, but I did get some computer maintenance and back up completed. Gary is on his way home now. He tells me he accomplished what he had to get done and now he can officially take 2 vacations days next week and be off until the new year. (Except for phone calls and email checks :) I'll take it, we haven't seen him much lately!

Snow Day

The kids are home for a SNOW DAY today. Today was the last day of school before Christmas Break. Luckily we had school parties yesterday. Gary went to Kyle's preschool party and I participated in Megan's in the AM and Justin's in the afternoon. By afternoon I was partied out! It is 8 am and we already have quite a bit of snow on the ground and it isn't supposed to slow down until after lunch. Right now they say we are getting 1-2 inches per hour. We live on a main road and usually it stays plowed and clear but the few times I have looked out it has been cleared but it doesn't stay cleared! ( The bottom pic is from my front door. Beyond the crabapple tree in our front yard is the road, but in the picture you can't tell what is what under the snow!) Traffic is pretty light as well. However, it didn't stop Gary from getting up earlier than usual and making his way downtown to GM for the day! Hopefully it will be is last before he uses some vacation added to the shutdown and is off for the holidays!

He can't wait I have a big painting project waiting for him in our basement! I don't feel to bad though, I wanted to get it done 7 years ago when we moved in our house....so it is long overdue and I have been patient! I need to get the patching started so all the holes and dings will disappear under the fresh paint.

The kids have BIG plans for some fun in the snow. I slowed them down a bit as they wanted to go out immediately after breakfast but I tried to hold them off until late morning or lunchtime and hopefully the snow falling will slow down. Our black dog was white after going out for her morning potty break. Hopefully I will be back later today with some fun snow day pictures!

Through the years

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

I started looking through the files and was swamped with memories. The time seems to have flown by, it is amazing how much the kids have changed from year to year.

12 days until Christmas

Today we went to visit Santa Claus. We love to visit the Santa in the Renaissance Center, which is where Gary works in downtown Detroit. In years past I would take the kids down and we would meet Gary for lunch and go see Santa. This is our first year with all day school for Justin, so we made alternative plans and went downtown on a Saturday for lunch and our Santa visit. We took the long route home and gave the kids a first hand view of some of the blighted areas in Detroit and tried to give some explanations about poverty and the like. I think Megan and Justin understood at least some of it. Megan kept saying, "this kingdom is very sad and dirty". I haven't thought of Detroit in any fairytale like scenerios lately, but I thought it was cute that she kept using "kingdom" rather than "city".

We are praying that the Big 3 get some government assistance really soon or things will be looking really bad for us and most everyone around us in SE Michigan. So keep us in your prayers. Meanwhile we are pretty much prepared for Christmas and looking forward to getting together and spending time with friends and our families in the upcoming weeks. Danielle's parents and Ryan, Lisa & Matthew will be celebrating together in Michigan for Christmas this year. We started playing card and other games during our Thanksgiving visit and are looking forward to getting our competitive streaks going again during our next visit. Megan and Justin are finally old enough to play some more adult type games and enjoy being part of the fun!

We hope you all are happy and well!

God Bless, Danielle

Megan's Nursery Rhyme Recital

Both Kindergarten classes participated in the Nursery Rhyme Recital today. Megan was happily participating! Such a change from last year when she would just stand on the stage and not sing or do any movements. Megan is wearing a light blue shirt and is standing at the very top on the right side. Unfortunately 8 children in Megan's class were home sick today with the stomach flu today, so luckily we are going to get a repeat performance next week during their Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast! And I can't leave out Kyle. He hasn't had any recent performances but he sure looked cute cuddling with his bear! And I realized I never got a Halloween photo posted either, so here it is! (you will want to go to the bottom and pause the music before you start playing the video clips)

Justin's artwork at Book Fair

Justin had his artwork displayed at our local Barnes and Noble this week for the Hill Book Fair that was held there. He was quite proud to go into the store and show us his masterpiece!

October Updates

Megan and her friend, Sydney, made a trip to Libby Lu's today. They had a great time and so did their moms! I just noticed I haven't posted an update for ages. Sorry, we have been BUSY! One more week and soccer will be over for the year. I have been heavily involved in the school's PTO and our huge Jog-a-thon fundraiser. The event and the award ceremony were great successes!!!! Most of the other committees I am involved with are events of a much smaller scale. I have several friends involved and they all pitch in, so it is actually pretty fun to participate. The committee I am most excited about is the school yearbook. That is right up my scrapbooking alley!!

Justin and Gary went to Cub Scout camp this weekend. They stayed in a cabin with lots of other scouts and their dads. It is kind of cold and rainy here this weekend. Hopefully they stay dry and warm. I am sure they will have fun regardless!! There were lots of activities planned to keep them busy. Hopefully Gary follows instructions and gets me lots of good pictures!

Kyle is really enjoying preschool, at least most days. I was surprised today to hear him reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to Megan this afternoon. I didn't know he knew it!

I will be helping at both Justin and Megan's class Halloween parties this week. The kids are so excited to go Trick or Treating!!! Justin's class also has a field trip to the zoo this week. Gary is chaperoning. Justin thinks that is pretty cool. So lots of fun picture taking events coming up!!! October always seems to be a big picture month.

I hope to get more scrapbooking done now that the Jog-a-thon is over,so hopefully you will be seeing more pictures soon. Happy Halloween. Danielle

Blake's Orchard and Cider Mill

Camping at Port Crescent

Roller Skating

Megan's T-Ball layouts

Justin Baseball Layouts

First Day of School Layout

Here is my layout of the photos from last week of the kid's first day of school. I am getting a lot more scrapbooking done now that I have a laptop and can sneak in a few minutes here and there. It was more difficult when I was tied to the basement computer. I also work while I watch TV with Gary in the living room after the kids go to bed.

Justin's best friend's name is Carter, they met two years ago when they both attended the Young Five's Kindergarten and stayed best friends all through last year in their regular kindergarten class and it appears it is continuing again in 1st grade, they are happy to have the same teacher again. There are a lot of coincidences between Carter's family and ours,to start with his mom's name is Danielle and he also has a younger sister who is 5 and is now in Kindergarten with Megan. This has thrown us together with Carter's family frequently for playdates, sporting events and school. We have become pretty good friends. The funny part is we don't discuss it, except afterwards and laugh, but Danielle and I must think alike because we are constantly dressing our kids alike. Notice the bottom right picture, that is Carter and Justin. We did not discuss which shirts they would wear the first day of school. And I can't tell you how many times this summer at T-Ball, Safety Town and Soccer Camp Megan and Sydney (Carter's sister and Megan's friend) had their hair styled the same, down to the color of hair bands holding their pony tails or pig tales. They already had matching shirts at this events because you wear the shirts they provide but people kept asking us if they were twins. Just funny coincidences.

Today is Carter's 7th birthday and after school I have to pick Justin up (rather than the bus bringing him home) so he can get ready for the party at Chuck E. Cheese. I am picking up 3 other friends and taking them all to the party. Afterwards I have to bustle home, drop everyone off and run to the PTO meeting. We also have curriculumn nights on Wednesday (Kindergarten) and Thursday (1st grade) this week. It is where you go meet the teacher and get the scoop about her plans for the year. Oh and I can't forget soccer practice for Megan and Justin on Thursday as well. The arrival of fall is keeping us busy! But so far the kids love being back in school.

Last year Justin used to make books (daily) and go through a lot of paper. While it drove me crazy to see him use so much paper, I just bit my tongue because it was a good cause. Over the weekend Megan decided to take up where Justin left off. She (on her own) decided to make an alphabet book. One letter per page! Then she decorated each letter and is quite proud (and so am I) but I need to introduce the idea of using both sides of the paper. I couldn't get my stapler to go through all the papers. I am going to have to get brads to hold her book together.

Kyle's first day of preschool is tomorrow. I am sure I will have a report and pictures for that occasion as well.

1st Soccer games

Today Justin and Megan had their first soccer games of the year. Gary and I had to split as they were at the same time. Since Gary is Megan's coach, he went with the Kindergarten girls and I took Justin with me to watch the 1st grade boys. Justin is playing with most of his friends and thinks it is great. Click the title to go to my Photobucket album with pictures from Justin's games. Hopefully I will get pictures of Megan next week.

Our first week of school went well. The kids love school and riding the bus. Justin is anxious to join Cub Scouts.

First Day of School

click on the "First Day of School" title above to go to my photo album with pictures of Justin and Megan's first day of school. Justin is excited to be a first grader and Megan is thrilled to be going to school. She told me she was going to school and going to learn how to read today. I think she thought it could happen in one day. Both kids like their teachers and are excited to go back again tomorrow. :)

Tigers game

Pictures from a Tiger's game we went to in June. We split a partial season of tickets with some friends this year. It has been fun attending games.

Soccer Camp for Justin and Megan

Justin and Megan both attended soccer camp this year. They both had a great time. This was Megan's first year to be able to attend. This will be her first year to play soccer on a team and Gary will be one of her coaches. Justin will be on a 1st grade team of boys at his school. He already knows (and likes) all the boys on his team, so he is excited to start next week. With 2 kids playing games on Saturdays our weekends will be hopping. Luckily they both have practice at the same time and on the same day at the same park.......a handy benefit to Gary coaching and being friends with the coaches on Justin's team. :)

Nature Center Field Trip with Megan's class

Megan's preschool class took a tour of a local nature center. The kids loved learning about the animals! They especially liked touching them. This guy was wearing the snake around his neck while he talked about him. Finishing this page today reminded me that on our last camping trip the kids were playing with some worms and recently Kyle had seen someone wearing a snake around their neck on TV. I look over at Kyle and he is trying to get is worm to stay on his neck. It was adorable until it fell down into his shirt. Kyle didn't mind, but the worm and I were a little freaked! YUCK!!

Port Huron Camping

While we were camping at Lakeport State Park in Port Huron this year we met up with some good friends for the day and spent the day at the beach and riding on their boat. It was a blast. Their family owns a beautiful home right on the water. We had a lovely meal and great fun haning out that evening as well. This layout shows all the kids.

Megan Safety Town

Megan attended a 2 week camp this summer called Safety Town. It is for children who will be entering Kindergarten and preparing to go out in the world on their own. I feel we have prepared her best we can to get on the bus and go off to school....by herself. She learned all about these different safety issues: fire, electric, stranger danger, traffic, poisons and ect. On the last day a policman came and let them check out his car and get in it and use the loud speaker and then they had graduation.

Photobucket Updates

I have been (finally) uploading my summer photos in my Photobucket account to share. Click on a link title to see a slide show of those photos. Enjoy!!

Summer T-Ball and Baseball

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Port Huron Camping trip

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Hoffmaster Camping Trip

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Soccer Camp for Megan and Justin

Flag Football

I found this is my files. I had started working on it before all the computer woes. These are photos of Justin playing Flag Football last spring. It was his first time playing flag football or for that matter any organized football. He really enjoyed it and proved he is a really fast runner.

Click picture to go to my Iowa Trip 2008 photo album

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Basketball Camp

Justin attended Basketball camp last week and loved it. Here is the 2 page layout I made. Megan had Safety Town during the same time, but for 2 weeks. She learned all about the different types of safety in our lives: electrical, traffic, fire and so on. They also got to take a bus ride to one of the local parks to familiarize themselves with bus safety for the upcoming school year. Megan has been busy telling me all the safety rules lately....not that she always follows them.

Justin and Megan are both playing ball this summer. Megan is in T Ball and Justin is in Coach Pitch....as parents we were in for a suprise that this year they finally give our coach pitch kids an "out"...in T Ball they didn't do outs :) More pictures and layouts to come.

We loved seeing all of our out of town "Iowa" family and friends. I will be posting more pictures and sending out pictures to you soon! Take care!! Danielle

Camping Photos

Click the photo to go to the website with the slideshow of our camping photos.

Finally getting some layouts made!

I have still been having computer woes, but perhaps I have finally solved my problems, at least for the moment my programs are up and running at a decent rate of speed again. As much as I love "playing" on my computer, I am definitely not a computer wiz! Hopefully all my computer needed was the "registery cleaning" after all the time I have put in to trying to make it run effeciently I will be mad if it dies any time soon. It is about 5 years old but until recently it has always worked great and does what I need it to do. I guess time will tell and in the mean time I am even more diligent about backing up all my stuff. As long as my new external hard drives don't quit like the old one, I will be in good shape. Photos I am a bit more obsessive about and they have always routinely been backed up to a disk as well, so in all my woes I have not lost any of my photos. Enough rambling about my computer.

We went camping "up north" with some friends last weekend and had a good (but rainy) time. I am downloading my photos from the SD card as we speak and hope I have some good ones. It rained a lot during our time at Harrisville State Park and on Saturday afternoon it also hailed. By the time the storm passed the ground looked as if it had snowed. Crazy!! We slept nice and dry in our pop up camper....our friends were a bit more damp in their tent. Over all though it was still fun. We love this campground as we had an awesome site right on the beach. We fell asleep at night listening to the waves and while sitting at our campfire we watched the almost full moon rise above the water each night. Unfortunately on the east coast of Michigan you don't get the awesome sunsets...but it is the only place I have ever seen the moon rise on the water and it is a site to behold. I tried my hand at taking some night photos of the moon...we shall see how they turn out. At least this year I remembered my tripod...last year I forgot the piece to mount the camera to the tripod :)

I spent all Sunday evening washing the damp and wet dirty stuff from camping. Today has been a rainy day, so since we are stuck indoors I have been cleaning my house...fun, fun, fun!

We are anxiously awaiting next weekend to travel to Iowa for our annual visit with Danielle's family and friends. The kids are very excited to go swimming and to try out the new golf clubs Grandma and Grandpa got for them. Oh and of course to drive the golf cart around and around and around Grandpa's yard.

New Email addresses

Gary and I switched internet/cable service providers, so we each have new email addresses!

danielleclippard@wowway.com

garyclippard@wowway.com

Kyle's 3rd Birthday

I am a month late in posting birthday photos, but normally I post scrapbook layouts and since I haven't gotten but one done in the past month, I decided to post pictures instead. If you click on the title you will be taken to the photo album with Kyle's birthday photos. He had a good celebration the weekend before his birthday with Aunt Lisa, Uncle Ryan and Matthew traveling in from Chicago and Grandma Betty and Papa Randall coming in from Iowa. And of course the Clippard side was present as well :) If anyone notices....I am aware that Kyle had the same Elmo cake last year for his 2nd birthday, but he insisted on having Elmo again for birthday #3. He still loves Elmo and Sesame Street!! We had cupcakes and more presents on the following Tuesday which was Kyle's actual birthday. He got to help make them which he thought was great fun!

Preschool Field Trip

Megan's class met at a local Nature Center and a guide taught them about animals and the nature around them on a walk and during a tour through the nature center. They got to touch a turtle and a snake and look a a frog. Megan thought it was all very cool.

click on the title to go to the photo album with Nature Center pictures!

Washington Oregon Trip

During May Gary had a business conference in Portland, Oregon. I flew out and met him and we spent 6 kid-less days exploring. We spent a day on the coast of Oregon driving from Tillamook to Seaside (in the rain) but it was still beautiful. Day 2 we drove north to Astoria and crossed the bridge into Washinton and drove up the western coast. We stopped at several state parks and saw some cool lighthouses and scenery. That night we made our way into Seattle. We stayed for 2 nights and toured most of the popular sites. We also took time to drive by the house where we lived in Kirkland and checked out the neighborhood. Not exactly like I remembered it from 30 years ago.... Day4 we drove to Mt Rainier from Seattle. It was the only day it did NOT rain on us, we had clear beautiful skies. We drove around the mountain counter-clockwise and had to go 1 1/2 hours out of our way on the south side as Steven's Pass still was not opened due to snow. We stayed the night on top of the mountain at Paradise Inn. It was a cool hotel built during the Depression and had just reopened after being refurbished for the past 2 years. Our room was the size of a closet and it had no phone or TV but it was still a really cool place and they still had so much snow it was hard to believe. Day 5 we drove back to Oregon and traveled along the Columbia Gorge. It was so beautiful, there was just waterfall after beautiful waterfall. We stopped at all the scenic views and took little hikes and I took lots of pictures. Our last stop was Multnomah Falls, we hiked all the way to the top and it was a hike...UP!! Then we at the restraunt at the Falls. The next day we got up early, turned in our rental car and spent an entire day flying back to Michigan and our dear lovely children! Kyle says we are never to leave him again! Even so the kids had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa Handley and are now wondering when they are coming to stay again?!?!?

You can click on the title if you would like to see my photo album of this trip, but be prepared it contains lots of pictures!

Kindergarten Class Picnic

Justin is still in school until June 16th. Today was his final party. We had a picnic outside on the playground. The kids had a blast. Click on the title to this post "Kindergarten Class Picnic" at the top to follow the link to see all the pictures.

Preschool Graduation Pictures

Megan's last day of preschool was June 6th and we had a big party outside at her school. The kids had a blast playing in the little pools and sprinklers. The preschool is located at our church. One of the things the kids get at the end of the year is a certificate telling which Fruit of the Spirit they display the most...Megan's was PATIENCE. Obviously she behaves differently at school than at home :)

About a month ago my External Hard Drive crashed and died which has been causing me a lot of delays in keeping up on my computer. I have only just started digital scrapbooking again as it has taken me quite some time to reconstruct my files to my satisfaction. Anyway here are some pictures with more to follow, just click on the link. http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/danigary/Megans%20KCP%20graduation%20June%202008/?albumview=slideshow

Touchdown!!!!

Justin joined a flag football team this spring. This is his first experience with football and so far it has been a good experience. He has discovered a good use for his ability to run and run fast!!! He scored 2 touchdowns for his team last Saturday at their first game. This picture is proof that Kyle does indeed get into EVERYTHING!!! I asked him what he was doing and he told me "I am being a monkey momma!!" These are progressive photos of the same play, ending with Justin's touchdown.