Days with the Dorans

Jonasen and Ali Jane have been asking about "Papa Dave" a lot lately, and the funny thing is, Papa Dave showed up! My parents best friends live in California but make the trip home still usually once or twice a year to visit family and friends! The Bigs have taken a liking to Papa Dave like we haven't seen with anyone else. And my mom took lots of pictures of them together but they were all actions shots and blurry with the kids running, laughing and playing. Papa Dave of course came with his lovely wife, " Maronica " (really Veronica...) and it was such fun to see them and to spend some time with them. We had beautiful weather and played a lot in the lake and they happened to come on the weekend of the big fireworks show on my parents lake. Once again, the fireworks didn't disappoint and we all had a great time oooohing and aaaahing over the beautiful sight! Though my brother is on a motorcycle trip across the country, my beautiful sister-in-law brough...

Jodi was my best friend in college and the reason I met Jeff. She is also Ali Jane's Godmother, which is why she is referred to as "Auntie Jodi". She met her fiance', Randy, at a party we stopped at after she and our best man picked us up from the airport after our honeymoon. Now, nine years later, we are getting ready for her to become a "Mrs." and today we celebrated at her bridal shower. Jodi and Randy will be getting married on a beach and so the decor was all related to the beach. Everything was so creatively put together! Randy's mom also made a beautiful cake which Ali Jane said was DELICIOUS! (I passed on the sweets since we had a yummy polish lunch that left me stuffed!) Jodi and Randy got many wonderful gifts and I think that Ali Jane is suddenly excited at the thought of one day being a bride and getting 'showered' with gifts. (When I first told her that we were going to a "shower" for Auntie Jodi she looked at me a little f...

The Bigs just completed a week of Vacation Bible School at our church. They traveled the 'High Seas' and learned all about God. Our church had almost 600 kids for a week and though I can't speak for all of those kids, I know the two Doran kids had a blast! Each day we heard all about Jesus and what they learned. They also have been singing some great songs complete with dance moves! I walked in on both Bigs practicing their songs and moves this weeks and it was such fun to watch them and hear them talk about God. Today was our Church's outdoor worship service and picnic. Jeff was leading worship at our other campus and it was an interesting morning for me. Pele' had to go to the vet this morning at 8:30 (Jeff was already gone) so I loaded up all four kids and a dog that HATES going to the vet. Though I was supposed to just be dropping him off to have some teeth removed, I ended up being there for 45 minutes (someone forgot about us!)! Once back in the car, we m...

Zach. Our loose cannon. Our Silly Goose. Our Charmer. Our 3 year old who still wears diapers... though perhaps not for long... Yesterday we told Zach that if he wanted a cookie, chocolate or a movie he would have to poop and pee on the potty and to our surprise he did! All day long! We handed out the sweets and lots of hugs and cheers. It was a great day and I was so excited at the prospect of only having one in diapers! And then this morning he had a diaper on and I asked him if he had to go potty and he said no. Two seconds later he pooped. (A lot!) I was so bummed and he knew it. He wrapped his little arms around me and said he was sorry. I wrapped my arms around him and told him I forgave him (that's what we do in our house) and that I knew he'd poop on the potty next time. I went downstairs and was doing Pilates when he told me that he wanted a cookie. I smiled and told him that he could have one when he went to the potty. I continued my workout when in walks Za...

My brother doesn't live far from the zoo and I was excited when he called the night before and asked if I'd like to bring the kids to visit the animals. Like Jeff and I, Dan is a teacher and summer means we get to see more of my him and my niece, Maddy. The trip to the zoo was a great idea because the Bigs have VBS all week and I knew that the L ittles (namely Zach) would LOVE to do something special since the Bigs have been having all the fun lately! I loaded up the double stroller and picked up my brother and niece and we were off! Unfortunately storms were predicted, so we knew that it wouldn't be a long visit but going for the morning turned out to be just perfect. Both Danny and I are fast walkers and we saw just about all the animals. Most of them were out and walking around which was wonderful. Zach loved it. He would jump out of the stroller, see an animal and then get right back in and say, "Let's go to the next animal." It was as if he knew a s...

I finally moved all my 'stuff' to my new classroom and got the heck out of there. I found that thinking about the move... and next year... and the way it all went down... well- it made my head hurt and so the perfect cure for that was to get out and start summer. I know that this will mean a lot more work in August, but it was worth it. Summer for us means lake living. Growing up on a lake was wonderful and we never took summer vacations because... well... every day felt like vacation! It's been fun to share what I grew up doing with the kids and thankfully my folks are pretty close, so we can take advantage of all their lake toys! (And I don't think they mind having that 'draw' for the grand kids ! Sean's first boat ride actually happened a while ago and like all the kiddies, it rocked him right to sleep. Today, however, was his first time 'experiencing' the lake. He started by just sitting in the sand and he LOVED it! My hope was that he would ke...

The Bigs finally got their wish tonight- a Tiger's game without the littles ! Our day was quite busy prior to the game. Ali Jane had an eye appointment which was a couple hours (no change in her eyes and she's still going to do the patch ) and then we had a great mother-daughter lunch at Olive Garden (much better than McDonald's which is what she chose last time). Joe spent the day at our neighbors' pool so it really wasn't a surprise when they slept a bit on the way down there. Since I was little we always bought our peanuts from people selling them on the street. Thankfully they were still selling them still even though we were running a bit late and the game had already started. We were able to buy water from them too. We figured we saved at least 10 bucks or more by buying from the local church. It was a hot and humid day, but our seats are great and we had a bit of a breeze that didn't make it too bad. Though we are season ticket holders, this was only ...

It's hard to believe that Ali Jane is finished with preschool- but then again it's not. She has been ready for kindergarten since her big brother went and has not looked back. She is going to do great too! (I know because now that I'm an early childhood teacher again, I did some testing with her- to see if I could still do them- and she did really well!) She may not look back, but there are certainly some people she will miss. She had a wonderful teacher and some great girl friends, which is important since she is surrounded by boys around here! Ali Jane told us that she was going to sing this time and that she was going to sing loud! But because she can be shy and past experience has told us that she isn't too comfortable at 'performing' in front of others, we were curious as to what this last performance would be like... which Ali Jane would show up... Well- as you can see from the picture ,'loud' Ali Jane was in the house! It was such fun to watch h...