Another year has sped past and my little girl continues to grow. Despite a promise made to me many years ago that you would not, you have aged and grown once more. You would tell me that this is my fault because I keep feeding you vegetables, but in reality you’re the one who likes to eat frozen peas! This year has been a busy one for you, with some major life changes thrown in, but you have handled them with grace and a little complaining. 🙂 You began and completed third grade and made some great improvements during the school year, I even got to come spend a day with you! We got to spend a day at the museum and another day learning about birds of prey. The two biggest changes in your life this year, however, were the changes to your family. You managed to gain new parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins with both Mommy and Daddy getting married this year! You played a major part in both weddings and we are all very thankful, and proud, to have you as our daughter. We all look forward to watching you grow and develop into a beautiful young lady, and we can’t wait to see what the next year holds in store for you. Happy Birthday Kylie, we love you very much!
Category Archives: Kylie
On to Fourth Grade
Today was Kylie’s last day of 3rd grade. I can’t believe how fast the school year went. Kylie has had a great academic year that has seen some much-needed improvement in her math skills. She came a long way during the year it that subject and is now pretty much back on track. We couldn’t be more happy with this particular turn around. All of her other subjects remained strong throughout the year. I was also able to take part in the WatchDOGS program this year, and that was an interesting day. Hopefully I will get to participate again next year, but we will have to wait and see what my availability is with work. Hard to believe she is going to fourth grade already!
Another Year of Ballet
Today was Kylie’s ballet recital, and I know I may be just a tad bit biased but she was awesome! It’s so cool to see all her hard work come together in the full routine. The change over the last four (almost 5) years is astounding. She has grown and learned so much, and her love of this art form continues to grow along with her. As is our tradition the recital was followed with ice cream down at Stroh’s.
A Night of Song
Kylie had a school choir concert tonight, and she did great! Kylie really enjoys singing and watching her have so much fun is very enjoyable for me. The concert lasted for about an hour and all the kids did a really good job. Watching Kylie grow and improve at the things she enjoys makes me very proud and I hope she continues to follow her heart and dreams. I know we will all support her along the way. I do wish my Mom was able to stay one more night though, so she could have witnessed this event as well. Obviously with us being so far away she doesn’t have the opportunity to see things like this for a number of her grand-kids. We do try to send her videos when we can, but it’s not the same as seeing it live.
Mom’s Last Full Day
Seeing as today is the last full day that Mom will be in town, I decided to keep Kylie home from school so she could spend the day with Nana. We went out to Little Daddy’s with Tracey and the girls (Julian couldn’t make it) for lunch and then took the kids to play at Bishop Park. The weather started to get bad so we decided to cut the park and visit short and go to the mall so I could pick Mom up some headphones for her new Kindle Fire, and we get stuck in shelter due to a tornado warning! I had never had that happen before and it was an interesting experience that I don’t really want to repeat. Luckily we weren’t in there too long and were able to go get what we came for. Kylie was a little upset when it was time for her to go back to Tiffany’s house, but seeing as Mom needs to be at the airport early to make sure she gets through all the checkpoints for her flight, I can’t justify keeping Kylie out of school again.  Afterwards we went back home to relax and spend the few last hours with Mom before she heads back to NY in the morning.
Husband and Wife
I am very happy to announce that today was a great success! It took a log time to happen, and many (including myself!) 
never thought it would happen, but today Melissa and I are finally husband and wife. Â The weather was beautiful (though a little windy) and Melissa was even more beautiful! The ceremony went off without a hitch and I was blessed to have my beautiful daughter, Kylie, participate in the ceremony. Additionally, my mother was able to come out from NY to join us for this celebration, and that means more to me than I can express. It was a small personal ceremony and we are very grateful that we were able to have the ceremony on the campus of the university where we met. Afterward everyone went over to Tower Inn to celebrate with us. The ceremony and reception were small and lovely, just like we wanted. While we both would have loved to invite more people to be with us today, we ultimately choose to keep it small and personal both for financial reasons and because planning anything larger was really causing us emotional stress. We are very happy with how everything turned out, and thank everyone for their participation, gifts, thoughts, time and well wishes! Photos from the day can be found here.Â
Daddy-Daughter Date Night
Tonight I surprised Kylie by showing up after work and taking her out to dinner. I didn’t get to see Kylie last weekend and I won’t see her this weekend either, because she is spending both weekends with Mommy. This week Mommy is out of town with Mimi, Aunt Sissy, and a few others enjoying a cruise for Mimi’s birthday and Neil has taken the week off to watch her and make sure she gets to school. Seeing that I missed her very much I arranged this little surprise with Neil. So when I knocked on the door and entered Kylie was very surprised and happy to see me. She yelled “Daddy!!” and ran to me with a big hug. She asked what I was doing there and I said “I am taking you to dinner, anywhere you want to go.” As I expected she choose Texas Roadhouse, and off we went. After we both enjoyed a nice meal and some very nice quality time we headed back home. On the way back she asked if we could get a McFlurry from McDonald’s for dessert, so we made a detour and each had a snack sized one and talked some more. Afterwards I brought her back to Mommy and Neil’s and came home. It was a very nice dinner and I enjoyed spending some much needed Daddy-Daughter time. I hope when she is older, she will look back and enjoy these memories as much as I do. Daddy loves you Kylie, whole bunches forever.
Predators of Today
Today we went to our local district library for a presentation on present day Predators and Prey. The presentation ended up being a series of activities that we were all able to participate in preceded by a short talk about how all organisms interact with each other to create an interconnected web we call the ecosystem. There were three activities that we all took part in, mainly helping Kylie through them as they were mini science type experiments. One was designed to show the various impacts that humans and animals have on our environment and those of each other. The second was a mock dissection of various types of fish and the types of things we would find in them including different chemical elements that humans have introduced into nature that end up in the fish. The last one, and by far Kylie’s most favorite, was the dismemberment of a real owl pellet (the regurgitated non digestible portion of an owl’s meal). During this activity Kylie discovered the remains of an entire Shrew skull in her pellet and thought that was pretty amazing. The lecture and activities were presented by a member of the University of Michigan’s Museum of Natural history, which we found ironic as we just visited there two weeks ago. It was an interesting and engaging few hours and we look forward to attending other such seminars and workshops.
Some Natural History
We took a trip out to the University of Michigan’s Museum of Natural History today, and spent a few hours walking around and looking through everything they had to offer. I have been in a number of Natural History museums, as they are my favorite kind of museum, and I have to admit I was impressed with the amount of exhibits that the University has. Kylie was most interested in the dinosaur exhibits and being able to sit in a dugout canoe. I was interested to see the display of all the natural wildlife that exists in our area, as was Melissa. While it was nice to visit a local Natural History museum, because it is associated with and operated by the University, their exhibits do not change very often, so I think it may be a while before we return to this particular destination, but it is very nice to know that it is here. We took a few pictures while we were here as well.
Donuts with Dad
Tonight was my second Watch DOGS meeting, and it was titled Donuts with Dad. All the fathers (and father figures) who had already been Watch DOGS or who have signed up to be, were invited to come in with their student(s) and have some donuts. This was also another recruitment meeting where interested fathers could learn more about the program and hear from others of us who had already participated to learn more about the program. It was a nice time, and of course, Kylie loved having the donuts. I’m still not sure if I am going to be able to be a Watch DOG another day this year, but I would like to do it again at some point. I know Kylie really enjoyed having me there last time as well.