Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

I looked at our blog today for the first time in a while, obviously. At first I felt bad that neither of us had blogged for a while; but then as I was perusing though others' blogs, I noticed that everyone else had not reached their full blogging potential this summer either. So there, grandparents.

At the end of August, Eric went out to Michigan for a backpacking trip with his brothers - I'll let him blog that later. Meanwhile, instead of being at home by ourselves for a week, Henry and I made our way out to Ohio to see Mimi and Opa. It was so nice to be able to get away from the mundane every day and spend time in the woodsey haven that is Mimi and Opa's house.

Opa kept the garden nice for us alllll summer long. With hungry deer and not much rain, this was a very appreciated feat. Henry loved being in the back yard. He found some great basil leaves and sticks to chew on, and we even got to see some deer - up close and personal.

We went out to lunch with Mimi and our friend, Deb. This is when Henry had his first (and definitely not last) experience with a dill pickle. Let me tell you, this kid was talking, being kind of fussy, and generally unsatisfied with the amount of attention he was receiving, but when we gave him his first dill pickle spear, he was a whole new (much more content) baby.

Mmmm Pickles

The same thing happened again a few nights later when we were eating dinner with Opa. Speaking of that night....Henry also got his first taste of chocolate ice cream. Mimi and I were just sitting on a bench and Opa took Henry somewhere to get some ice cream (supposedly for Opa). After quite a while we started to wonder where they were. We looked around this giant bush next to us, and, "DAD!!!!" There was ice cream all over little Henry's face. The minute I took Henry away from the ice cream was the first minute of true sadness in Henry's life.

Is it just me, or does this photo like like two pics stuck together?

Later in the week, we drove out to Michigan to pick up our Eric. He was staying at his brother, Daniel's house, so Henry got to see two of his cousins, an aunt, two uncles, and Gammie. We had an excellent breakfast and lots of fun with the fam. (I feel like there should have been pictures of more people though - we'll get them during Christmas.)

Don't worry, Henry's just punching cousin Ray - toughening him up.

This trip being Eric's first trip to Ohio with me, we had to do some fun stuff. We spent the whole Labor Day in Cleveland visiting the Rock Hall (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for those not in the know). It was really fun, especially for Eric - it was like his Disneyland. Plus he got in for free because he's a super talented musician who has an amazingly awesome CD. It just so happened that there was also an air show right next to the Rock Hall, so we got to see a whole bunch of airplanes doing crazy tricks.