July 2012

As we get through the half-way point of this very hot and dry summer, we are enjoying our house and having more room for guests and space for Allison. She has started walking and that has flipped our house upside down at times, chasing her around and baby-proofing the house. It has been fun to see her become more independent and show sides of her personality, but that also comes with some screaming when she doesn’t like what we are doing or eating or saying. My dad always told me I didn’t do a good job hiding my emotions on my face…and I think Allison has picked up that trait! Allison has also started in her new room at daycare, which had her coming home with 2 bloody lips and a chipped tooth that first week. No big damage, just hope for them to keep a closer eye on her because it appears she also has my clumsiness!

We started off the month spending July 4th by going to visit my Uncle Paul. He had open-heart surgery and is doing pretty well. We stopped by there on the holiday with Allison to say hi and see how they were doing. They gave us some really cool glasses that were from my grandparents and they had a “C” on them. Those will be fun to have around. After the short visit, we went to a party at Denny & Nancy Lawton’s house, where it was pretty hot and Allison stayed inside most of the time. The party was well attended and there were plenty of kids for her to play with.

We had the second half of the family reunion the first weekend in July. One evening, Laura and I wanted to take a boat ride and just hang out without kids or everyone else around. As we are driving the boat, on a lake that isn’t visible from my mom’s dock, we run out of power. We had 50% power and then it was zero, just like that. Being from the Carroll family, this isn’t our first situation to be stranded somewhere. We found our way to propel our boat to shore, found a dear new friend named Marla to let us borrow her power and sat there for 45 minutes drinking some beers. After we “thought” we had enough power, we decided to head back. We got about 100 yards away and the battery died again. We then slowly propelled ourselves through a tunnel so they could see us from the dock. After helped arrived, we pushed the boat while swimming back to the dock. We had a good laugh about it and realized when Mom’s electric boat says it has 50% power remaining, you should consider that zero!

The following weekend, we went to St. Joseph, MI with some college friends and their families. There were 10 adults and 10 kids in a 7 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom house. It was quite the adventure and we loved it. Now, having the second youngest in a house that big, we were concerned that Allison could wake up and it would wake the entire house, which had us sleeping with one eye open. She did really well at the beach and enjoyed the sand. She played with it, moved it around and as all kids do, accidentally ate some. It was great hanging out with all of our friends.

We went back to the same area 2 weeks later for our annual “Beachmo” trip with family. Deb and I decided to take an extra day off and head up there on Thursday. The Vandervaarts did the same thing, so Laura and I hung out in the lobby for a few hours talking on Thursday night. The next day, we spent the day talking around St. Joseph, having coffee, riding a carousel, having lunch at Schu’s, and waiting for everyone to arrive on Friday evening. On Saturday, we went to the beach early with intentions of leaving around 1 to take Allison to the hotel for a nap. Jan walked with her and she fell asleep and she slept at the beach for almost 2 hours! It was great! We were able to stick around, climb the dune and enjoy some bonus beach time!

A few more items from this month:

• We enjoyed some steaks on the grill for Deb’s birthday. Allison and I got a gift certificate for a massage. It was a quiet, but enjoyable evening.

• I played golf at Prairie View with people from work and our commercial bank.

• Brian and Gareth came over to see our new house and enjoy some beers on evening.

• Deb took Allison to my mom’s pool to get some swim lessons with one of our babysitters.

• Allison leanred to walk this month.  Very exciting but definitely a game changer!!

Allison and Daddy's favorite game!!