Down by the meadow in an itty bitty pool, swam three little fishies and a... Jack!

On our last day of our Escanaba vacation we went to my dad's house so Jack could go swimming in the pond with their fishies. My dad and Roxanne have a beautiful Garden with a gorgeous pond in their yard. They bought him a cute little tube for him to float around in while the fish swam around and nibbled at his toes as he threw out Cheerios to them.

The big fish that is surfacing in the picture is Goldie. She is a koi and she is HUGE. She is just like a little puppy dog. She comes swimming over when she hears Roxanne's voice, and she eats out of your hand as she lets you pet her.

This picture makes me laugh because at first you don't even notice the fish right by Jack's foot with it's mouth wide open sticking out of the water.

And... an attempt at a family portrait. They never work. It looks like I have a bird growing out of my head.

My son, the ham

Not much to say aside from the fact that earlier this week Jack was sick and I stayed home from work with him on Tuesday and Wednesday. His baby-sitter's daughter had hand, foot, and mouth disease and I think he may have caught it. Tuesday night he was burning up with a very high fever and he refused to eat pretty much anything for 3 days aside from popsicles and jello. By today, however, he was back to his normal, smiling self.

Jack is definitely starting to grasp the concept of photos. He is beginning to put on little shows for me when I get the camera out. Here he was doing various poses such as waving, 

giving his version of a "thumbs up" (which is putting his index finger up),
 

and apparently calling me a loser.

But then he more than made up for it by blowing me kisses.

Disney Fun

My mother and sister will be happy to hear of this news. I forgot to mention in my previous post that Jack's new favorite movie to watch is the Disneyland Sing-Along DVD that we got for free from Disney Rewards. He wanted to watch it 3 times yesterday. He even turned down watching Toy Story!
His favorite songs to dance to are "Rumbly in my Tumbly" with Winnie the Pooh (our favorite, too!) and "Making Memories."
However, he does not like "Grim Grinning Ghosts" and makes me skip that song when it comes on. I find it fascinating that he understands it's supposed to be "scary" (even though it's really not) and doesn't like it. They show the ghosts that are inside the Haunted Mansion and the characters that dance in it are the Wicked Witches from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, along with Captain Hook and Donald wearing a sheet to look like a ghost. But Jack has never seen any of these movies nor does he understand what a ghost is, so it amazes me that in-spite of this, he knows that these things are scary. It's just cool how much of that kind of knowing we are just born with.

Jack's Words

Jack's vocabulary has been growing by leaps and bounds over the past week.
Words that he's known such as "off" and "eye" are becoming much clearer (he actually says the "ffff" of off now so "on" and "off" don't sound exactly the same haha)
Some of his latest additions are "mouth" and "hot dog." And no. Not as in the food. As in Mickey Mouse. When they sing "Hot Dog!" at the beginning of the Hot Dog song, Jack will repeat it.
And as of this morning I've learned  that he's added "Cookie" when Josh sent me the following message:
Josh: Jack said "cookie" this morning.

me:  no way

really?

like it was obviously cookie?

was he pointing to the cabinet?

Josh:  He was at the cabinet and it cleary sounded like cookie. I was proud, so we both had a cookie for breakfast.

Jack also surprised the hell out of us when we discovered that he knows his numbers and letters. We recite the alphabet and count with him at home, and Stephanie does when he's with her, but not really in a manner to encourage him to learn them, just more so he gets used to hearing/seeing them. Josh discovered on accident that Jack knew his numbers when Josh said the number "3" and Jack pointed to it. We then wrote out numbers on a dry erase board and asked him various ones and he knew every one! 

Yesterday we were doing it again as we were coloring so I decided to see if he knew the alphabet too. Sure enough, he knew several letters! I don't think he's confident with all of them, but he definitely has the first few down pat. We sure have a smarty on our hands!

Parade, but no Fireworks

 Our 4th of July celebration was half success, half failure. A success because the rain held out long enough to have the parade and spend some time down at the park. A failure because it poured during the time that they were supposed to shoot off the fireworks. Needless to say, we got soaking wet as we scrambled to get back to Travis' from the park. However, Jack was able to sneak in some play time with Tyler and Carry's little girl, Chloe, and Amy and Jamie's little boy, Noah. It's too bad that we all don't live closer together so they can see each other more often. Jack and Chloe were hugging each other within 2 minutes of being introduced and Jack and Noah were giggling as they chased each other around the park like they've been friends forever.







Jack had a great time at the parade, of course, and managed to get tons of candy. He was a little Grandpa's boy and rarely wanted to leave his side.

After the parade we walked down to the park for some "patriotic people" watching. Jack passed out in his wagon and slept the entire time.

After the park, Jack got treated to a 4th of July ice cream cone.

Currently the sun is shining and looks to be a nice day. I'm sure they will set off the fireworks tonight since they couldn't last night. Unfortunately, we won't be able to stay as Josh and I both have to get back to work tomorrow. Our time in Escanaba always flies by too quickly.

Lions and Tigers and... Lemurs?! Oh, My!

Greetings from Escanaba, Heaven on Earth, God's Country U.S.A.

Yesterday Dad and Roxanne took me, Josh, Jack, and Jillian to the DeYoung Zoo in Wallace. For those of you who have never heard of it, I'd highly recommend checking it out. It's in the middle of nowhere and the coolest zoo experience ever. They have the largest collection of "big" cats (Tigers, Lions, Leopards, etc)than any other zoo in the world. Furthermore, every hour they have "Animal Experiences" where they take out all of the baby animals from the zoo and let you hold and pet them! I thought Jack would go nuts over the baby lemurs but he was terrified of them. What a wuss!

They look so terrifying, don't they? I love the look on this face when they are handing the Lemurs over to him.

When we went in the fawn pen, I was in 7th heaven. When I was a child I used to cry because I didn't understand why I couldn't have a deer for a pet. Jack was less enthused. The baby deer started sucking Jack's little fingers because to a baby deer they looked like, well, you know. The deer thought he was going to get a yummy milky snack out of them.

We bought a bucket of food so Jack could feed many of the animals there. He raced into the goat pen, thinking it was going to be awesome. The goats swarmed him and got the best of him, immediatly knocking him to the ground. Jack would have nothing to do with the goats after that and stuck to more gentle animals such as llamas and donkeys.

For those of you who are interested, the DeYoung Zoo has it's own series on the National Geographic Channel called "My Life is a Zoo." If you are ever channel surfing sometime and see that pop on, check it out!

We also went to the cottage on Thursday night for a bon fire with friends. Much firewood was burned and alcohol consumed. The next day we tried to get Jack to swim in Lake Michigan. He wasn't really game. The waves were scary to him and he hated the sand. We managed to sneak in a few photos with smiles (yes, Josh actually took some pictures!)

Now it's off to Gladstone for the 4th of July festivities to begin. I hope everyone has a fun and happy 4th!