Labor Day and other goins' on

Check out Mom, me and Katie kayaking during Labor Day weekend. Mom had never been kayaking before and did great . . . I'm sure we can convince her to go with us again. Katie's been out on a kayak a couple of times and looked like a pro. We saw some awesome turtles, including a pretty big snapper and some blue herons, but not much else on this trip.

Both Katie and Mom visited over the holiday weekend and we had such fun. Katie came out first and we went camping at Yankee Springs State Park on Thursday. We took Jake (her dog) to see if he was up for camping. It was busy at the park and there were lots of people and other dogs, but Jake did great. He didn't like the rain at 4 am on Friday, but settled down after a while. Yankee Springs is on a Gun Lake, a beautiful and pretty big lake so we wandered along the shore line with Jake and hiked in the wood for a couple of hours. We all had fun and it started the weekend off right.

Mom joined us Friday evening and the famous kayak trip on the Kalamazoo river was Saturday. We made sure to get some good ice cream at the end of the trip too! Mom went to church with us on Sunday and Katie got on the road for home later that afternoon. She hung out for a while because we were waiting for a special delivery. Yes, we are trying a second dog again. She's a cute 6 month old pit-mix and we're pretty sure this one is going to fit our family. We are having fun so far and can deal with any of the challenges she brings. It's always an adjustment when someone new joins the family, so we expected to have to make some changes. I'll let you know more when we decide to officially welcome her.

Now I'm off on another fairly heavy travel schedule over the next few months. Of course, some of the travel will be fun, like Joshy's wedding (only 5 more weekends!). I'm off to Santa Barbara, CA all next week for work. My flight tomorrow is at 6:50 am -- way too early and I get back Friday evening. We're staying at a cool resort -- where they specialize in Glamour Camping, or Glamping as my co-workers are calling it. We'll do creative ideation for new ideas for Kashi for 2011 and beyond. If you have any good ideas, be sure to let me know!