Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! I just realized it had been a while since I had posted anything, so I added a bunch of pictures from our summer adventures! Last weekend we went to Deep Lake in Michigan with Grandma, PawPaw, Aunt Lisa and Uncle Jason. My Uncle Ted and Aunt Diane have a place there. We went to visit with them and to celebrate Rob's birthday, Lisa's birthday, and Father's Day. Joel had a great time. He was most happy about the boat ride and sitting on Ted's lap to steer! He was a little hesitant about the water, but he was smiling and giggly while Rob splashed with him. I think we could all get used to a vacation lifestyle! :0) Joel is doing well, but we are back to having some significant sleeping issues again. Some nights I don't know why I even go to bed! The worst night was when he was awake from 2:00am until 7:15am. THAT was ugly. He wakes up wide-eyed and ready to play. He isn't napping as much during the day either, so it is very frustrating. Last night he woke up about 2:30am and ended up coming to bed with us. He was awake for a couple of hours but we stayed in the bed and he eventually fell asleep there until 8:30am. I know that isn't a habit we want to get in to, but it was kind of nice cuddling him and watching him sleep for a while. This morning we went to church and tried to take Joel with us to the service since no one was in the nursery. NOT a good idea! We sat in the very back pew and Joel only made it through the first hymn! He was loud and unhappy until we took him to the nursery. I think he is playing us.....as we were leaving the pew I swear I heard him say, "All done!". He is talking more and saying more words: "cupcake", "ding-dong", "No, Bailey!", and a lot of "NO!!!". After church Rob had suggested that we take a little lunch to the dam, so we did that. Joel LOVES the meatballs from Subway meatball subs so we stopped for one of those. Of course, Joel loved running all over and picking up sticks. After lunch we stopped at a house in town that Rob had heard about where one weekend a year (Father's Day weekend) this man and his wife set up a very detailed and intricate model train display that takes up almost their whole backyard. It was free to go look at them and wander around. Joel was in Heaven! We had to watch him closely because he wanted to "Godzilla"-it and run through the village they had built. There were also replica train noises, which were a big hit! Once we got home it was pretty easy to get him to go to sleep. Now if we will just do the same tonight! We'll see! More later...