The latest and greatest...

Thankfully I'm in a much better mood since my last post. I wrote it last week, despite just recently posting it. Anyway, here is what has been going on the past few days...

**Soccer**

Last Saturday Jacob had his second to last soccer game. It was organized chaos as usual, but the highlight of the day was that all of the players received a medal! Jacob is quite familiar with medals (from Wii) and was so proud to have his very own. This Saturday is their last game until fall, which I think we will sign him up for as well.

**Geocaching**

Memorial weekend an online friend informed me of a thing called "Geocaching". In case you don't know...

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

It sounded somewhat interesting to me and somewhat nerdy, but nonetheless I checked out the website and did a quick search of caches in my area. My interest immediately perked when I realized there was a cache hidden right here at the hatchery! Two, in fact! I shared the information with Aaron and we both eagerly headed out to find them! Once we found the first one, we were hooked! It was exciting and Jacob loves our treasure hunts. We often times just go on drives and check out different parks in the area (there are a ton of State and Federal parks in this area), so this would be an exciting little adventure to add to our lazy Sundays (or whatever day it happens to be when we have no plans). So far, we've found 8 caches and were unable to locate 2. Has anyone else heard of this? Anyone else geocache?

**Visit from the Ex's**

The Nascar race is in Michigan this weekend so that means one thing... a visit from the ex's! My old childhood/family friend Sherry Pollex and her longtime boyfriend Martin Truex, that is! We were hoping to let the boys check out their plane again on Sunday, but the Pocono race had a rain delay so it would have been too late for the boys to head to the airport. Darn rain! Hopefully we'll be able to do it in August. We met up with them on Monday and the boys went fishing right away and Mom, Sherry and I headed out to eat. As we were visiting with Sherry on her bus, Mom received a phone call from my brother Mark saying that he needed her help because he needed to go to the ER right away because of severe back pain. We hurried to Elk Rapids and dropped mom off to watch Noah and Mason while Lisa drove Mark to the hospital. Meanwhile, Sherry and I went to dinner nearby. While we did enjoy our dinner and alone time to catch up, it wasn't quite how we wanted it to be since we were both pretty worried about Mark. The doctors ended up diagnosing him with two ruptured discs and sending him home with 4 shots in his back and lots of meds. We are still waiting for Mark to get into some specialists to see what the next step is, any prayers are greatly appreciated!

The next day the guys got up early to fish again while the boys and I went shopping and to lunch with Sherry and mom. The boys were so good (yay!) and it was fun to be a tourist in my town for a bit :) That evening we got another babysitter and went out to dinner with everyone and had a great time.

Wednesday the guys went fishing again and the girls planned a trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes. We only made it to lunch though and then Sherry had a killer migraine and headed back to the bus :( The boys, mom and I headed to the library and found some new books and then went lakeside to introduce mom to geocaching and take the boys for a little walk. We also took Brody on a train ride (my cautious little Jacob chose to watch). It was a beautiful day and even though it wasn't what we had originally planned, it was a great day. That evening Aaron took the boys out to his parents to babysit and we celebrated Bruce's birthday at a fabulous bayside restaurant with a great view. We picked up our kids after dinner and went back to my parents (where we stayed all week) to watch the end of the Stanley Cup Finals. Aaron was happy with the end result, the Ex's... not so much.

Today the guys went fishing again and for the first time all week they had poor results. They didn't mind though since the rest of the week had gone so well... ridiculously well - Martin even caught a 5 3/4 pound small mouth bass! We enjoyed a quick lunch on Torch Lake and then they headed on down to Michigan International Speedway and we packed up and headed home. We wish Martin the best this weekend!! We can't wait to visit again this August and hope our Sleeping Bear Dunes trip works out this time.

**What's next**

This Saturday we have Jacob's final Soccer game and then we are headed out to visit with Kim, Peggy and friends at the the Leland Wine and Food Festival! Mom will be watching the oldest boys while we are gone and Austin will get to attend his first Wine Fest! We can't wait, it seems like forever since we have been able to hang out with Kim and Peggy.

Then next week while Aaron will be at a big meeting in Marquette a few days, mom and the boys and I will be heading to Cary, Illinois to visit Debby and family!

Another 10 days after that Shannon and family will be back in town from Arizona and we will be visiting with them for a bit!

We may not have any friends where we live, but we have amazing friends afar and I can't believe I get to see so many of them in such a short time span - yeah!!! Just another reason why I love summer :)

Picture post coming next.