Sunday, August 21, 2016

Turning 9 is Pretty Fine - Week of Aug. 15th

"You have the right to...a Birthday.  Anything you do or say should be fun today.  That's an order!"

Instead of a birth-day, Cam seemed to enjoy a birth-week!  The celebration began and didn't end until Sunday eve.

A trip to Boulder Ridge Wild Animal Park with Michelle started things out right.  Cam is a fan of the giraffes but Michelle is a bit leary of them and kept telling them to "back off" when they kept trying to lick Cam.  Boulder Ridge even upgraded their safari ride by offering a tram which has 2 lifts so our park fan can now ride up front.


With a week of treats, Culver's has had quite a bit of business from the Weatherfords and friends since they offer a short shake "happy hour" each day in the afternoon.  Any flavor shake is just $1 and it's the perfect size.

Jane took a few hours off of work on Thursday to take Cam and Michelle for a swim at the cottage with Oma.  It was a day filled with infinite sunshine and the warm water called us all in.  Cousin Megan joined us on the beach too.  It was a short visit but any amount of sand and Lake Michigan time is totally worth it!
Cam & Sally

On Sunday, we had an early visit from Auntie Amanda, Uncle Mark, Sally and Henry.  The kids played for a couple of hours and our awesome friends headed back to Ann Arbor.  We were so thankful they drove over to see us and celebrate Cam!

For the official birthday celebration, family and friends gathered to enjoy Cam's early dinner request of pizza, breadsticks, ice cream sundae bar and cake for all.  One cake was from the official police tour and the other from our favorite bakery, Rykes.  And both were filled with chocolate cake, filling and chocolate frosting, and tasted delectably delicious!

Mr. Ken, Cam & Amanda
(Ken's granddaughter/Cam nanny)
Cam's buddy and former Sergeant, Ken Kleinheksel brought over his original uniform and badge for Cam to wear for his big day.  What a thrill!  The birthday boy was able to wear an official deputy
police shirt and Mr. Ken brought over some of his police gear to show the kids.  As a special keepsake, Cam now has an autographed copy of Sergeant Ken from his on-duty days.

Liam & Cam
Buddy Liam and Cam both share a desire to be connected with the police department one day. Liam wore his official police tie and badge for the party.  These were two very official-looking boys.

We enjoyed hanging out with family and friends and the time went by much too quickly.  Jane was remiss that she didn't capture a group photo of all the VIP's, but was able to grab a family shot of a few.   We were so thankful for everyone's time on a Sunday evening, homemade cards and gifts!
Baby Ella, Gordy & Cam

Since Cam has become enamored with everything police, he has been asking his parents to tell a new police story for bedtime reading.  It became clear we had to call in reinforcements.  A month ago, we sent out a request to family and friends to send in their police stories.  Jane gathered them all into a shutterfly book you can see in this link below.
Ella, G, Molly,
Ah-Dah, Ann, Cam

Needless to say, even with 40 pages, we will be begging for more stories before Christmas so a volume 2 can be created.  Please, everyone start writing :)

Cam's Police Stories- Shutterfly Book:
https://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2Acs2LJi2bs3dg&cid=SM-PBAPP




Camology Quotes:

Saturday included some unexpected excitement as tornado sirens sounded throughout the Grand Rapids area.  

At the time of the warning, Chris and Cam were out running errands.  Jane reached them on the cell phone and requested they go into a store until the warning passed.  

Cam thought the entire experience was a great adventure. Upon arrival home, he announced:

"Mom, we are O.K.!  And it was not a drill!"

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