Sunny Saturdays at the Dog Park!

Well the sun is finally shining around these parts again despite the fact that it is still BRRRRRRRR cold! It was a high of 30 degrees today when we loaded up the 3 mongrels in Tommy's truck and headed to the Soldan Dog Park in Lansing. But they didn't care one little bit!

they are immediately off and running!

staying close to Dad though...

meeting new friends

Murphy clung to our legs for about half an hour until his "scaredy cat" side subsided

Dewey found some little dogs - he discovered there are actually dogs smaller than him and was very happy about it!

Everybody ran and played with new dog friends for over an hour. Great times - can't wait for next Saturday!

Three exhausted dogs... that spells "Great Day"!

Backyard Spring Cleanup!

Well after a lot of griping that that stupid groundhog Punxatawny Phil was wrong about an early spring, we both concluded that this was the absolute earliest we have ever been able to do a spring cleanup in the backyard! March 19th and we raked up the last of the leaves from fall, removed all of the dog poop that the kids missed on their daily pooper scooper duties over the winter and put bacteria and salt in the pond to start working on all of the string algae that had grown up during the winter.

all 7 fish survived the winter under the ice and wagged their tails with a happy spring greeting for us!

Mango has spring fever too!

Tommy is hard at work bagging the rest of the leaves that we raked

first fire in the firepit for 2011! Burning up some brush that's been there since fall

Hazel chillin in the sunshine

Mango guards the garden gnome 

Stay tuned for progress on getting the pond and waterfall back up and running along with the Zen garden. We are hoping to have the Zen paradise up and running by end of April - just in time for the spring game on April 30th!

Tomorrow is Tommy's day for "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". He is jonesin to get the bike out on the road!

SPRING BREAK!!

Well we are just home from a much needed and fantastic Caribbean vacation with the kids. We took an 8 day cruise on Royal Caribbean out of Miami to the Eastern Caribbean and loved it! We sailed on Liberty of the Seas and the ship was unbelievable. Absolutely HUGE! We had a Junior suite which was great and the kids were in the balcony cabin next to us. We were able to open the divider between balconies for one giant balcony plus we had our own space which was especially nice for when poor Tommy was seasick as a dog the first 2 days and also I didn't have to live with the slobs next door. Our stops were in St. Thomas (one of our favorite islands), St. Maarten, San Juan Puerto Rico and finally Labadee, Haiti which is a little private island that RCI owns and a slice of paradise.

The ship from the back

the Pirate ship snorkel tour we took in St. Thomas to Turtle cove. It was great!

leaving Miami...

they had a mini golf course on the ship!

the kids at the pool

Tommy by the stage where the band plays at the pool

they had an ice skating rink for open skate and fantastic ice shows later in the week

Tommy and kids at breakfast after he finally started feeling better

on the snorkel tour

Drew was playing sea turtle

beautiful parrotfish

and a rarely spotted reef squid

the sea turtles were abundant

Jen and her FatDaddy

the view of beautiful St. Thomas from our balcony

St. Maarten

Jen got coerced into getting a few braids...these ladies were aggressive!

Drew does his Baywatch impression

downtown St. Maarten with great shopping

We ate here for Mango our little island puppy!

a few pics from inside the ship

the promenade

beautiful Labadee, Haiti

our balconies combined were huge!

the aquapark at Labadee - kids had a blast!

beautiful beach

Drew Baywatch "Take 2"

Drew climbing the huge inflatable iceberg

Jen on some Saturn thingy

pathway to beach

wine and cheese on the balcony

boys are chillin

pool bar and deck

the pool was ice cold but refreshing!

the had an H2O zone for little kids with fountains and splash pools as well which was very cool

Promenade

Jen on the flowrider

Mom's favorite spot... Vintage's wine bar! I discovered this on the 3rd night when I went to a wine tasting

Kids entering a staring contest at dinner

Our head waiter Ben goes the extra mile to satisfy his customers!

Mom and Dad back at Vintages!

Lucille from S. Africa and FennLei from China - our favorite servers in Vintages

Drew got a Shirley Temple every night. Tommy brought his unfinished ST back to the stateroom and added vodka and I renamed the new drink a "Sharon Osbourne"!!

Promenade at night

Tommy and me with Robert, the sommelier at Vintages

my favorite thing to do! ;-)

Co Ho even got into it!

Drinking a Chardonnay and I found a Coppola red wine I'd been looking for years that I'd had at his resort in Belize... Rosso. Give it a try!

Great trip and great time but glad to be back home with the rest of our "family"!

and finally Prom Night on the cruise and a great time to get some nice family and couple pics

He looked pretty damn good despite feeling like crap if you ask me!

He's not really that tall...

the last time the kids will ever be that close and still smiling!