Outings and Holidays

This past year I decided to take up video as a hobbie. I picked up a GoPro Hero 6 early in the summer and recorded a lot of our outings as a learning process for our Disney trip.  The result is pretty nice. We have memories of a lot of different events and things we've done.

This entry is a short "year in review" of all the things we did or went to.

This first photo is from Trinity's old school and was during spirit week. They were told to dress up like an old person.

This one is from mom's birthday. We went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant in Detroit. The significance here is that the owners are old neighbors from the Allen Park house. Everything was excellent and we all enjoyed a nice day.

Every year, Shannon's family has a get together around St. Patrick's Day at Rochester Mills. As usual, it was a nice way to celebrate and see family members.

This was a year of firsts for Trinity... thanks to some friend's birthdays, she got to experience ice skating, riding a horse and in the fall, she went roller skating with her school for the first time.

 

Every year we go to the Howell Nature Center for Breakfast with the Easter Bunny.  We also just attended Breakfast with Santa there!

The whole family out with mom for mother's day brunch at Captain Joe's. They had quite a spread!

Trinity decided on a super hero theme for her 7th birthday and dad was all too happy to make it happen.  I may have gone a bit overboard with the theme music, lighting, projections and the photo booth template designed to look like a comic book.  Regardless, she'll never forget it. There's a short video of us celebrating her actually birthday with Nana & Grandpa too.

We also went to Motor City Comic Con this year as we hadn't gone the last two years. One of Trinity's favorite movies is Disney Descendants (she dressed up like the character above last Halloween). We had no clue, but while wandering the aisles, we found out that the actress who play her was there!  Trinity got to meet her and was so excited, she was speechless! 

Another first was Trinity attending Summer Day Camp at our church. She really enjoyed it and wants to go back again next year.

Yet another first!  Trinity went to her first concert this year and it was her favorite artist, Lindsay Stirling.  She was in heaven that night!

The highlight (and another first) of our summer was definitely going to Disney World. If you missed the other posting about this trip, you can find it HERE.

One of the local stores in downtown Howell has themed events and this summer they did a Unicorn party.  Our new bakery sells these incredible shakes and had a special one themed for the party.  Trinity went dressed as a unicorn and won best dressed at the event!  The prize?  A huge stuffed unicorn (in the bottom photo).  After winning the unicorn, she had to ride along with us everywhere we went for several weeks.  She has been obsessed with Unicorns ever since.  Speaking of which...

It isn't Fall until we head to the Michigan Renaissance Festival.  We've been going every year for the last 15+ years and usually dress the part.

Trinity was very fortunate to start a new charter school this year (actually she started in June). We had some extreme issues with how the public school handled a few situations as well as the curriculum that they were pushing. We couldn't be happier with her new school and she is excelling there!

Another tradition we do every year is to head to Crossroads Village up in Flint for their Halloween nights. They decorate everything very nicely and everyone gets to trick or treat around the village. Video above.

Fall just isn't complete without a trip to the apple orchard. We even went to the Apple Festival in Fenton this year. 

We love to pick pumpkins at the local farms (they're cheaper than the stores too!) Trinity opted to wear her new princess dress (from Disney) on Halloween and went with Descendants for another Halloween outing.

Back in May, I received a special offer by email to get advance tickets for Marvel Universe Live at a really good price. The show wasn't until mid-November, but I ended up getting them and we sat just 14 rows up, center stage. The show was amazing and Trinity loved it.

The Friday after Thanksgiving we attended the Howell Fantasy of Lights Parade. Here's a video of the whole parade.

The day before Christmas Eve, the Altounian side of the family got together at 3 Cedars Farm in Northville for a Christmas outing to see Santa.  Trinity and her cousin Baela are in the first photo.  We followed that by going to dinner and catching up.

I took quite a bit of video here, but won't be able to edit it until after the holiday so be sure to check back for an update in a few weeks.