Thing 2, Thing 1 and Daddy with the Cat

As I mentioned in the last post, we celebrated Father’s Day by spending a day at the Minnesota Zoo with two of the best dads I know – Joe and my dad, Bob. We even ran into our good friends Robert, Kwo Ue and their daughter, Athena! The zoo is always a great time, but it was extra fun thanks to Seuss on the Loose, an exhibit that featured the artwork of the great Dr. Seuss. Our own Thing 1 and Thing 2 were thrilled!

Papa and Grandma with their handsome grandsons

The pics from the zoo trip are in the May-June album. Also added to the album are pictures from some Wii bowling, teeball (including team pictures!), a deep-dive during swim lessons, and videos of Z&A talking about a favorite book.

Zach and Alex also reached a big milestone in June: their first ride on big kid bikes! Yeah! They did great – and they were so proud of themselves!

Tags: Alex, bikes, family outing, Joe, milestones, Papa Bob, Zach, zoo

Take me out to the ballgame!

June continued to be a busy month in the Vandermark household, starting with a week after Z&A’s graduation. It started with a Saturday trip to Target Field for the Accenture Family Social at the Twins game. It was a little ironic being at an Accenture-paid event, given that I was no longer employed by them since I had started a new job at UnitedHealth Group the week before, but you gotta love a free day of family fun!

The following day, we celebrated Joe’s birthday, highlighted with a special cake he requested – a cream cheese pound cake with strawberry sauce – and a wonderful day spent together as a family.

From there it was all about sports – Zach and Alex started their very first swim lessons (such water babies, they are!) and their first season of full tee-ball. They of course loved every bit of it!

Check out the photos in the May-June album!

The end of the week finished with a Father’s Day weekend trip to the MN Zoo (it really was a BUSY week!), but those pictures will be in the next batch uploaded.

Tags: baseball, birthday, family outing, summer, swimming

OK, so I’ve admittedly been terrible about blogging about all the events going on in our lives. I spend lots of time editing and posting new pictures, as you can sometimes see in the Recent Photos widget, but I never seem to get around to writing about it. Honestly, I think the photos tell a better story anyway (not to mention I’m already writing when I do the captions…).

The Vandermarks, Sept 2010

I’ll try to get better about posting simple updates when a new batch of photos have been loaded (like the remainder of our April trip to AZ that uploaded last night), but in the meantime, here’s just a straight list of the albums that have been updated/created since last Sept:

• Sept-Oct 2010 – the Scarecrow Festival, the circus, Halloween
• Visit with Auntie Mary Ann – who came to visit us in Sept
• Infiniti Crash II: The Deer – the results when a deer runs in front of a car doing 65 mph.
• Nov-Dec 2010 – Christmas decorating, Thanksgiving in Chicago, big snow storms
• Christmas 2010 – yep, pictures of presents and family at Christmas
• Jan-Feb 2011 – Cole’s 16th birthday, fun birthday parties, making cookies and craft projects
• Zach and Alex’s 5th birthday – including their 1st “friends” party
• Mar-Apr 2011 – Karen’s birthday, planting a garden
• Spring Break 2011 – a few days of fun in Chicago
• Arizona – April 2011 – a family get-together

Tags: Alex, Belouseks, birthday, booms, cars, Chicago, Christmas, circus, Cole, family outing, friends, GG, Grandma Marilyn, Grandma Pat, Grandpa Dan, Halloween, holiday, Joe, Karen, museum, Papa Bob, party, playtime, Santa, school, Thanksgiving, Tucson, Vandermark family, Zach