jeanners turns 1!

our little girl is no longer so little! jeanne just turned one and we celebrated it in style with lots of friends and family (including her pre-determined bff's: maura mccormick and lucy garvey who joined in her too-too and hairbow fun! thank goodness the girl's got extras!)

nearby niceities (?)

we've been touring the regional amenities of gorgeous parks, including our very own potawatomi park, the morton arboretum outside of chicago, and fernwood botanical gardens in niles. enjoy the pix and come play with us!

mccormick madness

the annual mccormick weekend up at the lake went down as usual. this year there were 8 kids (hannah brought a friend) and 4 adults between the 2 families with hannah rapidly approaching the adult side of the spectrum! we ended with a big hooplah of a dinner with laura and her crew coming up for the evening. james and will are becoming quite the inseperable duo.

this year we also headed up to the mccormick's lakehouse in ogden dunes for some reciprocal fun. we had mostly gray skies but that didn't stop us from having a blast. and, of course, the sun did shine bright later on... as we were leaving... there's always next year!

pymantuning

the annual summer trip to pymatuning didn't go exactly as planned, but for the time we were there, fun was definitely had by all. we headed out with clare and katie romero and her clan (minus michael... we miss you, bro!) we got a bit of a late start but still made it to toledo in time to do a whirlwind tour of the toledo zoo (a new ritual we really love.) once at the lake we had some crazy times with all our garvey loved ones (minus ALL the brothers as it turned out... poor corey!) 11 grandkids now 4 years old and under. nuff said.

and after 2 trips to po-dunk ER's we got the sense to visit a family friend ENT dr. who finally diagnosed me with shingles! seriously?! anyway, corey katie and her kids left me alone with the kids and it ended up being a bit much while diseased, so we had to cut our trip short. thank god for aunt clare who drove home while the rest of us slept (made for quite an easy trip back though!)

summertime special outings

taste of chicago in the rain with aunt katie on her lunch break, museum of science and industry (till we dropped! right, clare?!), walks around notre dame, and a trip to the dunes (we tried to find the ones of clare's memories but failed... i think... now they'll be the new memory indiana dunes!)

daddy's day

father's day was celebrated up at the diamond lake and carried over to a special trip to the fredrick meijer gardens with the cressy clan (aunt kimmers included!) it was HOT and sunny, but could we really complain about that?!

godmother/ grandmother comes to visit!

SO, it has been a while since i last posted. been working out a few kinks with picasa... anywho, aunt clare came out to stay for a month this summer ("godmother" to james, which sean then translated as "grandmother" oftentimes...) we had an absolute blast. we even taught art classes based out of our house in town and mom cressy's place at the lake.