Mom and Leesh!

Mom O and Alicia came out for a quick weekend visit. It was great having them around and catching up. We spent Saturday shopping in Hamilton. We came home and made dinner together. Here, Leesh and I are hard at work peeling potatoes.


The weather was beautiful! We enjoyed sitting outside and talking in the evening. Zach and Leesh are decked out in their Tigers shirts. We watched the Michigan game and Tigers' game after dinner.

Mom, Leesh, and Zach before they had to load up and head out on Sunday.

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

Thanks so much for coming out guys. It was great to spend time together and we loved having you!

Baby O Update

Zach was busy getting the nursery painted this week. Now for the decorating...

The exciting part of our week was having our first ultrasound! Everything is looking great. What a miracle to see that little heartbeat beating strong and healthy in that little body! It was amazing to see Baby O's spine, heart, legs, feet...etc! Baby O is quite a mover. He/She kept waving his/her arms back and forth and rolling over during the entire ultrasound (maybe a future little soccer player like Momma). :-)
This morning as I was getting ready Zach walked by and exclaimed, "Whoe, you are really showing!" He was so excited he grabbed the camera and took a picture of me getting ready (before I realized it.)

After I finished getting ready we took another shot. Here I am at 17 weeks.

Peaches!

I was invited to can peaches with a friend. I absolutely love peaches and was eager to learn how to can them. We had a fun peeling and cutting the afternoon away and I ended up bringing 29 cans home. So for any of you thinking of visiting, maybe the idea of delicious, juicy peaches will entice you to come!

Guess What...?

We have an exciting announcement to make... (Look at the picture closely.)

Just in case you didn't understand the first picture, here's a second one... :-)

I am 14 weeks along and feeling good. Baby O is scheduled to make an appearance sometime around March 9!
We had a VERY exciting weekend telling our families and friends in GR. It was so much fun to announce Baby O to the world and see the reactions on our loved ones faces.
Here we are having brunch with Mom and Dad M after telling them the news. This will be grandchild #9 for the Mallekoote side (all of which are under 4 years old!)

After a delicious dinner with family we ran into my friend Jodi, so we got to share the news with her as well. What a fun little surprise!


We got Hannah and Cal some special Aunt and Uncle shirts to share the news.

What a gift to have so much support and love already flowing for lil' Baby O. Thank you for your prayers, support and encouragement during this special time. (Baby O's the size of a peach right now!)

Summer Blast

Every Wednesday this summer Zach got together with a bunch of the youth from the church to play sports, games and just have fun together. He calls is Summer Blast. The last Summer Blast is always a big water fight. This year the kids had fun soaking each other with buckets, water guns, water balloons, and a hose. There wasn't a dry shirt in the crowd by the end.
Here is Zach's team filling up balloons.

House Guests!

Cal and Hannah stayed with us for a week. We were looking up fun things for us to do and Zach discovered the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition). There was a special deal going on so we decided to head to Toronto for the day to check it out.
We took a train to Toronto which was a lot of fun. Here Cal and Hannah are looking for the train to arrive.

When we arrived we realized that this was no ordinary fair. This is the big daddy fair of all fairs!! We were blown away by the size and magnitude of it all. It had more food than you can imagine, games, plenty of rides, shows, concerts... we only had the chance to see a small portion of it all. It was awesome!

We spent the majority of our evening in the ride section. Cal and Hannah loved it! Here we are going on a little Haunted ride.

Hannah fell in love with the Dutch Swings. I think she rode them over 20 times throughout the night.

Cal really enjoyed the Niagara Falls ride. He's in the log at the top of the slide.

Zach, Cal and Hannah went on this ride which let them fly like Superman! Cal's shoe was having so much fun it flew right off his foot- thankfully we recovered it quickly.

Here is a video of a bit of the fair.

On another afternoon we were hanging outside together reading Cal's magazine.

Zach and Hannah just hanging out.

A highlight of the week was going to Old Fort Erie. This was a famous fort during the war of 1812. We took a few tours and heard the British and American version of the story. It was quite interesting how the versions differed- I learned so much!

Cal and a cannon.

Here we are getting in the fighting mood as we wait for another tour to start.

Cal, Hannah, and our tour guide. We also went on a ghost tour in the evening. This fort is known as the most haunted place in Canada. Cal and Hannah loved getting spooked.

We met Dad and Tracy in Port Huron so they could pick up the kids. There is a beautiful park right under the bridge where we hung out for a bit.

It was neat to watch the huge ships traveling through.

We stopped for some hotdogs, fries, and poutine for lunch. We're not sure when, but at some point Cal got a lovely treat from one of the seagulls on the back of his shirt- gross!

We had a fun week with you Cal and Hanners. Love ya!!

Working Bee with Family!

Dad O, Tracy, Cal, and Hannah came for a weekend visit. And they came ready to work! The woman who previously owned our house must have been a full-time gardener. The backyard had several areas that have become a jungle of weeds much too difficult to stay on top of. Zach and I have been wanting to clear a lot of it out so we can start our yard fresh the way we like it. So the family came with the truck to help us accomplish our goal!
Hannah, Cal, Tracy and I started along the back of the house. Here we are at the start of the day, ready to roll.

We pulled up everything we found- not an easy task. Hannah and I made quite the duo. I held the shovel and she jumped on it several times to dig it deep into the dry ground.

This was a doozy. Rose bushes have strong roots! After a lot of digging and pulling with all of my strength, I managed to pull this bad boy up- whew!

Here is a video of Dad pulling out a bush with his truck...More Power!

Break Time! Zach, Cal and Hannah taking a ride on the truck.

After a hard day of working outside, we headed to dinner at our favorite restaurant here, Montanas. Since Hannah's birthday was just a few days earlier, she got to celebrate it Montana's style- moose hat and all!


Zach and Cal got into the festivities too.

And here lies my nemesis...I call it the Jungle....We waited until day 2 of the working bee to attack this bad boy.

We needed to call in reinforcements so we rented a rototiller- Go Dad go! The jungle is no match for him!

Several hours and many sore muscles later, here is the finished product- Alright!

We are one happy family after all the work we did together!!

The happy girls after a job well done.

After some relaxing, some showers, and some dinner, we headed to Cornfest, a local fair, to have some fun. We stopped at a little petting zoo and I saw this sign in front of one of the animals- it made me laugh...

Hannah and Cal went on a pony ride.

Cal on his trusty steed.

Cal persuaded Zach to join him on the "Sizzler." Zach was a bit unsure how his 30-year-old stomach would handle all the twists.

As you can see, they both loved it!

Thanks so much for coming Dad, Trace, Cal and Hannah! Thank you for all of your hard work and effort clearing out our yard. We can't tell you how much we appreciate it! We loved spending time together- it's always a blast. We love you!

Second Anniversary!

It's been two wonderful years of marriage. Zach and I decided to go to Buffalo to celebrate our special day. We made sure to visit one of Zach's favorite stores, Home Depot. He is like a kid in a candy shop when he is in that store. He gets this enormous grin on his face and could wander around for hours. If anyone is ever in need of a gift idea for Zach, Home Depot gift cards are always a huge hit! Here we are after our Home Depot visit.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal at our favorite restaurant, Famous Daves. Like last year, we reflected on the past year, areas we've grown, challenges, joys, how fast it's gone...Marriage is a great gift and I feel truly blessed to have such a wonderful husband- he makes being married easy.

On our way home Zach really wanted some icecream. We asked around and no one said there was a Cold Stone or Dairy Queen nearby. So we started the drive home, hoping our GPS could find one for us. It couldn't locate any, but then we passed an exit sign that said Coldstone. We both looked at each other, smiled, and said, "Oh yeah!" It wouldn't be a perfect anniversary celebration without dessert.