The Run Forever Park

Douglas Walker Park is on 84th street on the south side of Grand Rapids. I call it the “Run Forever” park though because that’s what’s best about it. It is quite an expanse.

June 25th, and I believe this was Nina’s second trip here. I loved this moment, as soon as we got to the park, they hopped on a sort of hanging/bouncy bridge… Ian immediately stomped around. Some kids would be terrified of being jostled around… Nina loved it. See this image larger.

Ian almost looks like he’s either oblivious to what was going on with Nina, or just too focused. See this image larger.

I think this was supposed to be an airplane… See this image larger.

This picture is from July of 2009… Ian would be about 2 and a half at that point. As I’ve said to everybody, I love this picture. See this image larger.

And sort of accidentally (I did say “go run!”) here’s a very similar picture of Ian three years later. See this image larger.

Another pretty close! See this image larger.

Ian down a slide! See this image larger.

We had a lot of fun that day… See this image larger.

Nina and Ian off to play “drop sticks” off a nearby bridge over a small stream. They’d read about this in a pooh-bear story, and finally got to try it themselves! See this image larger.

Ian was excellent and catching his sister and stopping her from falling into the dirt. You can see he’s even kind of looking away here so that they don’t headbutt each other! See this image larger.

Alright so let’s let these speak for themselves, there’s plenty of them! See this image larger.

A little tickle to get the smiles started, good boy! See this image larger.

🙂 See this image larger.

🙂 See this image larger.

🙂 See this image larger.

🙂 See this image larger.

🙂 See this image larger.

🙂 See this image larger.

🙂 See this image larger.

x See this image larger.

🙂 See this image larger.

I need to turn this one into an animated gif… I have two shots that show Nina at the apex and lowest point of a “bounce.” See this image larger.

I took a picture of a group of people, and sure enough somebody offered to take our picture! It was a very happy day! See this image larger.

Nina Graduates!

Ian wasn’t the only one to graduate recently! June 22nd was Nina’s last day in her “Younger Toddler” class… for quite awhile she’d been held back from progressing because there was no room in the next class, the “Older Toddler” room. She’d had to wait so long that when an opening showed up, it was in the class AFTER that class, the “Early Preschool” room. She’d visited her next classroom several times, but finally it was time to move on. It was a little scary having her skip a class. She was doing so well talking in the old class, that suddenly moving up might be frustrating for her. But what was a amazing was that even in just visiting the new class and being around the more mature students, Nina’s speech improved dramatically. See this image larger.

Nina’s caregiver hands Nina her diploma. Really that’s just her daily sheet that says what she ate and if she pooped. See this image larger.

*HEY!* See this image larger.

June 23rd, Nina cheers as she deletes all of Ronald McDonald’s personal information. See this image larger.

Our awesome kids! See this image larger.

Meijer Gardens Field Trip, June 2012

June 19th – Came home from Doctor (good visit! My “bad” cholesterol dropped from 141 to 117! Yay!) to find that water was streaming into our house. The culprit was a downspout draining in a bad way. Found that this had happened before, because there was mold in one of the rooms.

June 20th – Mold torn out of room.

June 21st – Found carpenter ant damage behind torn out drywall. (The good news is that later on, it turned out that the damage was somewhat old, and the exterminators that Melissa called did not even spray or even really recommend a course of action.)

The above trio of days would end up costing us thousands of dollars, and cause a lot of the “down” parts of the ups and downs for June.

June 21st, the night before, tension was high because of the above events, and Ian was misbehaving a bit, but absolutely cracked me up when he looked at Mommy’s blouse and said “If you turn your head sideways your shirt has a bunch of hot dogs on it.”

I’m not sure what day it was, but I came in early to pick up Ian, and Ms. Jill was taking pictures of her TumbleTime class. I told her to get in on the shot, told a couple kids to smile and snapped this one for her… must not be bad, ended up on her flier! Ian’s in the shot, see him?? I do remember that day was a really good one too… Ian always enjoys a little extra attention.

On June 22nd, I went with Ian and Ian’s class as part of a field trip to Meijer Gardens! Thanks to the girl that is standing behind Ian in this image, I can tell what he’d look like with a ponytail. No thank you! See this image larger.

This is a sort of topographical map of the Great Lakes. Perhaps you’ve seen it before in one of our many other trips here. 😉 See this image larger.

One of Ian’s friends, Dominic. We’ll miss Dominic and his mom and dad… they’re good people, but Dom won’t be heading to the same school as Ian. :-\ See this image larger.

Ian was an amazing boy this day. He helped a kid get a boat. I saw him sharing a lot as well. See this image larger.

Later on in the field trip, we ended up in a place where they needed adults to spread out and watch the exits, so I had to lose direct observation of Ian, but had him more or less contained to an area. I found him helping a kid in a wheelchair to play with a sort of fun exhibit with doors in the trunk of a tree. The kid couldn’t reach them from his chair. The child then ran over Ian’s toe. I immediately downplayed the scenario, because Ian has a tendency to overreact to injuries. The child’s mom then said “You might want to check him out, that chair weighs 300 lbs.” Ian was fine, and calmed down quickly, and even better, he went back to play with the child in the wheelchair for a few more minutes. See this image larger.

I really should send this image to Ian’s daycare. Ian’s not in it, but it still struck me as funny. See this image larger.

Ian’s in this one as the group forms to move on to the next activity See this image larger.

Some of the local flora. See this image larger.

Ian running all over the place, as usual. See this image larger.

The great big sandbox activity is always a hit with the kids! See this image larger.

Possibly for the first time in my career as a dad, I turned down help from a passer-by that offered to take my picture with one of my kids. She just looked frail enough to drop my camera, I guess. Anyway, meanwhile, I did pull off this one with Ian in it. See this image larger.

Sometimes I just provide images that I think could be used for wallpaper on Grandma Marcia’s iPad! 😉 See this image larger.

Another one! See this image larger.

This was another area. One of the parents said “alright, this says ‘hops’ better jump through it.” Well done! See this image larger.

And then, the egg hunt was on!!! See this image larger.

Ian was like a little pale hornet, buzzing around the grass, grabbing eggs left and right! See this image larger.

I mentioned something about sharing because the littlest boy found zero eggs. Ian was more than willing to let him take every egg Ian had, and then he looked upset. So I looked at the little boy and said “Hey you think you could give a couple of those back?” They got it figured out.

Afterwards there was song. See this image larger.

She stumbled through “three blind mice” and we were all happy it was over quickly. See this image larger.

Because Ian and I met his class at the field trip, when it was time for him to go back I loaded him on daycare’s bus, and they went to daycare while I hopped in my car for the trip home. Ian wasn’t wearing his I.D. bracelet because he had been with me that morning, so I made sure he got in and sat in a chair before even walking toward the car. What was neat was that I could tell what seat he was in, so a few lights up the street I pulled up along side of the bus, and chanced a quick glance to see if he was looking. The windows were tinted but I could make out his silhouette, and I saw his hand come up to a wave. As I waved back, there was this moment that felt important, like life was telling Ian and I “You gotta do what you gotta do. Daddy works. Ian goes to school. But you can still love each other from any distance.”

Nothing Found

Sorry, no posts matched your criteria

©2024 Copyright - Out Of Their Minds Design, LLC