Congratulations

Jackson has informed me that I have gone blog crazy this week, so I figured I might as well go the whole nine yards and keep adding more posts. Today both of my brothers are graduating from Dental School and a couple of weeks ago my mother-in-law graduated from the U. We are sad that we missed out on their graduations but so proud and excited for all three of them. So congratulations to Barbara, Boss, and Boss Hog (otherwise known as Trevor and Derek).

Grilling

We have been having so much fun with our grill. Tonight we put our pizza stone on the grill and grilled up some pizza. It was delicious, especially the herb crust from Trader Joe's. Jackson is becoming a Grill Master.

Digitabulists

Have you ever wondered what exactly a digitabulist is? Well I hadn't. It is a thimble collector, for those who don't know I am a digitabulist. I got bored at work today (still am in case you didn't notice) and so I typed thimble collector into google and found a myriad of information! There is an international thimble collector group! And people actually write books on thimble collecting. While this new and quite honestly random information (mostly for you) has inspired me to start looking at more antique stores and garage sales for thimbles, I am pretty sure I will never be the digitabulist that buys a thimble that costs thousands of dollars. I am even more sure that Jackson will never let me become that person! I hope you have enjoyed the product of my boredom.

A day with the Dentist

Today Jackson had his very first patient, me. This is a picture of us after the 4 hours spent filming Jackson giving me directions on how to brush my teeth, paperwork, and finally getting my teeth cleaned (which probably took the longest only because every step had to be checked off by a Professor.) Jackson did a great job, despite my tendency to talk a lot while at the Dentist (just ask my brothers, both Dentists), that may have contributed to the amount of time spent in the chair, but only a little.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to everyone, especially our Mothers. We are very sad to be missing out on family dinners and Sunday brunch with our families today, but we are thinking of you from way out here!

Henry Ford Estate

Jackson and I drove out to the Henry and Clara Ford Estate today. We took a two hour tour of the house (it has 52 different rooms) and the garage.


The Fords had a 9 hole golf course, billiards room, bowling alley and swimming pool put in to keep their son busy.

I thought this dam was interesting. It was designed by Jens Jensen (they kept saying his name as though I should have heard of him before. I haven't.) You can see thought that he put in stepping stones across the top so that the Fords could cross the water to visit their friends. Apparently Henry Ford was in the habit of buying houses near the estate for people he liked.

On the left is their five story garage (which was actually the most interesting part of the tour I thought.) The garage is where they generated all of their electricity, filtered their own water along with the garage and Ford had a work space here too because he was afraid of people stealing his ideas apparently.

This side of the house is inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, who originally designed the house before his falling out with the Fords.

A Ford tractor

The car on the right is, in Henry Ford's opinion, the best car he manufactured. It has cup holders, a rear window wiper and a car phone. They didn't manufacture this car for very long because those features were not very popular, if you can imagine that.

This is the master bedroom. Above the beds are pictures of Henry Ford's parents.

This table is actually a lead safe where Henry Ford kept millions of dollars on hand (he didn't trust the banks, especially after the depression.)

The small racing car broke a speed record in the early 1900's when it reached about 70 mph. It gave Henry Ford the notoriety he needed to start his third company, Ford Motor Company.

This car ran on batteries! Clara Ford would drive it around the estate because it was quiet and didn't scare off the animals.
Jackson and a Model T


So after the last post the lip got bigger, if you can imagine that. Thankfully it went back to normal a couple of days ago!

Holland

Today we drove to Holland.... Michigan. It is a fun town on the west side of Michigan. Every year they have a tulip festival. So we drove out and joined Ryan and Camille and watched Klompen Dancers (Dancers dancing traditional Dutch dances in traditional Dutch clothes and wooden shoes) and we went to Windmill Island to see the working windmill and tulips. We had a great time and we can't wait to go again next year.



These last two pictures are up at Jackson's request. I am pretty sure he is trying to get me back for the pictures in the last post. The weird thing is I didn't bite my lip or burn it. It just started swelling last night. We talked to our friend Kara, who is a nurse, and she looked up the symptoms in the grocery store and told us she is pretty sure it is a food allergy. Problem is I am unaware of any food allergies I may have. Until the swelling goes down I continue to look like (or at least I feel like) Sloth.