We have a new addition to the family

Do you remember the cartoon Pixie & Dixie and Mr. Jinks from the late 50's early 60's ? Well it was one of my favorite shows as a young kid.***************

FAST FOWARD MANY YEARS*****************

Jack Jr.brought home this little kitten yesterday he named Jinks. She is on probation for now, she has to win over Daddy Jack first. so if she is a good little girl she may get to stay.
We will keep you posted.

P.S.(RUSTY WAS NOT A HAPPY CAMPER WHEN HE SAW JINKS)

SUMMER BREAK****FINELY!!!!!!!!!!

Well It is August 14th and summer break has finely started for Kyla. This is what I woke up to today. Kyla and rusty watching "the wonder pets.
We went to Michigan Adventure on Tuesday with work, and of course Kyla wanted to go on all the coasters. We went first thing over to the Thunder Hawk, it is a hanging coaster and I think she likes them the best. The very first coaster she ever went on was the Montu at Bush Gardens in Tampa. It was her first coaster and my first hanging coaster. when we got done she was screaming" let's do it again " " Faster". The speed demon was born!!!

For the love of sailing

Well we finally got Happy Jack out on the boat!! Well actually it was his new girl friend Shaina that got him out here! Isn't it amazing the influence that a girl can have on a young man!! I'm beginning to really like this girl!! Good job Shaina!!!

This is a pic of Jack & Shaina out on the bow of our boat, we were about 3 miles out on the big lake (lake Michigan) the winds were steady at about 8 to 10 knots.

Sailing can be just as quiet and peaceful as this picture, well that's the ideal day of sailing we all hope for. As most of you know we have only been sailing for 2 seasons on our own, so some time I will tell you some of our horror stories.

Please don't hold our stories against us if we invite you on the boat! we do manage to make it back safe and sound every time!!!! It's just that some days are more eventful than others.

This is what we saw when we first left the Muskegon channel, It is a laser class sailing regatta.
Kyla even enjoyed the day out on the big lake. Usually she is ready to come in as soon as we hoist the sails, and the boat starts to heel a bit. In this pic we are just coming into the channel, you can see the light house and a few more sail boats in the back ground.

I'm taking a pic of Shaina,taking a pic of Jack who is on the bow of the boat being silly...........................NEXT PIC PLEASE.............................

ENOUGH SAID !!!!

It's 6:30 A.M. Do you know where your children are?

We know where Kyla is. She is walking down to the end of our street to catch her school bus and go to school and then on to work.
Kyla gets up at 5:30 a.m. 3 days a week during the summer. she rides the bus into Grand Rapids to her school and then from there she will walk about a block down to a local city bus stop with one of her teachers, and on to her work study job.
Some of the places that Kyla works at are Good Will, Y.M.C.A., and her favorite is God's Kitchen.




Kyla is very use to this routine, You see she has been doing this since she was 3 years old.












Kyla will have at least 3 more years of school and job trainning

before she will be placed in a job.
I will post job trainning pics once the fall school year gets under way.



















This will be her last week of school for the summer. she gets the month of August off !!!!




ONE MORE WEEK UNTIL SUMMER BREAK !!

CORRECTION*** TRIVIA QUESTION

This is a correction from my recent post about our trip to Disneyland.


Who's castle sit in the center of Disneyland?

1. Snow White


2. Cinderella


3. Sleeping Beauty

In My post of our trip to Disneyland I said that Cinderella's castle was in the center of Disneyland.
I recently found out that I was wrong. Can you guess the right answer?

Here are a few hints.

And the answer is: Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

The answer confirmed by: http://www.funtrivia.com/

Check it out sometime they have trivia on all most any subject.

Farmer Mc Greggor A.K.A. Grandpa Norman V.S. Peter Rabbit

You all know the storybook tail of Farmer Mc Greggor and Peter rabbit, Well we have been having our own little version of that same tail.

Farmer Mc Greggor A.K.A. Grandpa Norman has been having this on going battle with Peter rabbit, Bambi too.
First Bambi ate all the tops off his green beans, and then Peter rabbit descided that he would have a salad from the garden.
These pics are of Grandpa trying to chase peter out of the garden.
It's suppose to be our family cat Rusty's job to keep all the criters out of the garden & house.

I think Rusty has it a bit too good here, He's been caught sleeping on the job!!!


This is what Rusty was doing while Grandpa was chasing Peter rabbit around the garden.

Annual rite of passage

This is an annual rite of passage at the Draper house, every summer we have to rake the lake in order to be able to swim. We usually do this over memorial day weekend but now that we have a sail boat, the lake has kind of been put on the back burner.

After church and a quick lunch we headed for the lake. This will need to be repeated at least 3 or 4 more times in the next few weeks. You see we live on a man made lake which was a swamp about 12 years ago, so we have to keep up on it.

You can see how big the rakes are that we use to clear out the weeds. they are special rakes made just for lake weeds. the handles are about 10 feet long and the teeth are about 4 or 5 inches long.

Kyla working hard.

working even harder!!!

I will work for ice cream

We finely got Kyla to help with the boat! Of course we had to bribe her a little. We told her if she would batten down the hatches then we would take her to Dog & Suds for Ice Cream.



STRAWBERRIE CHEESECAKE
ICE CREAM !!!!!!!!!!!!


YESSSSSsssss.....

making new friends

This is Bruce & Mary, they are two new friends that Kyla made at the yatch club.
They took Kyla on a dinghy ride out to the moorings and back.
They got out as far as his boat, and she was ready to come in.
Thank you Bruce & Mary for taking the time to do this for Kyla. She talked about it all the way home!!!!

DISNEYLAND WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE !!!

Disneyland here we come!!!

Kyla was real antsy at the airport, she hadn't flown in about 8 years, so everything was like brand new. She did real well going through security even when she had to take off her shoes and put her beloved back pack up on the belt to go through the x-ray machine. She didn't care she just wanted to see the MOUSE!!!




Annie





Because of Kyla's disability we were able to get a special pass that allowed us to go to the front of the line for all the rides!! We had less that a 5 minute wait on any given ride!!!
REALLY COOL!!!

MICKEY & PLUTO

Hugs from the mouse!!

Bye Pluto!!!

MINNIE, Mom & Kyla

Kyla chased down as many of the characters as possible, Mom had a hard time keeping up with her at times!



Pocahontas

On the California side of the park they have an Aladdin show that is worth the price of admission alone. If you ever go to Disneyland that show is a must see!!!

Ariel

King Trident

Snow White grotto next to Cinderella's castle.


Cruella De Vill


EVERY ONE LOVES A PARADE !!!!!!!

MICKEY & MINNIE

Goofy


Lion King

Snow white Blew Kyla a kiss!!!!

Tinkerbell waved

Prince Caspian

The Royal Pooper scooper !!

SOME EYE CANDY FOR MOM & DAD!!!!

Christian & Cheryl, The 3rd place winners from Dancing with the stars were the Grand Marshals of the parade!!!!!!!!!!!

Dad didn't want to go on the Mad Hatter ride because he
said that he gets sick on spinning rides. well guess who
talked him into ridding it? HE SURVIVED!!!!!!

Kyla and the famous statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.

Cinderella's castle at night

Inside Cinderella's castle

THIS WAS A VERY COOL SHOW!!!!!!!!

Jack said that he must have been one of my long lost relatives!!!!

Maybe Who knows!!!!

ELVIS IS IN THE HOUSE

Dad wanted to go to this show, Kyla and I didn't want to
but our feet were tired so we decided to go. We were one
of the last people they let in for that show and they couldn't
find a seat for us so they let us sit in Walt Disney Private
booth!!!!!!!
We were also able to view a scrap book about the history
of the show and Walt Disney's involvement in the parks development.

CALIFORNIA'S ADVENTURE

This is California Screaming, Kyla talked mom into
ridding. Her and her dad didn't bother to tell me
that it is a launching coaster, It launches you from
0 to 60 mph in like 3 seconds flat!!!!
DID I MENTION, I DON'T DO LAUNCHING
COASTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


AS YOU CAN SEE IT WAS A BLAST, AND
I SURVIVED !!!

The dare devil in Kyla came out on this trip,
If a ride was fast and bumpy Kyla was right
there ready to go!
MOM AND DAD HAD TO BE VERY BRAVE
AT TIMES!!!!!!!

A few of the other rides Kyla loved was Souring over
California,Indiana Jones, and the Tower of Terror!!

California Baby

Monsters INC.

This is the Animators building, we could have spent the
whole day here!


CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO
It is a kaleidoscope of Woody's round up!

It will take a moment to get started, it is

really cool!!!!

Beauty and the Beast Library



LADY BUG KYLA!!!

IT'S TOUGH TO BE A BUG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Taking a break

Sun set strip

As you can see, Kyla was a very HAPPY CAMPER!!!

We ate lunch at the worlds smallest winery.

Kyla had spaghtie of course, and dad & I split a plate of the

best lasagne I have ever had in my whole life!!!

ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END!!!!!!!!!!


Our trip home was a disaster, we were able to get on an earlier flight, but when we got on the plane we discovered that our seats were in separate rows. BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!!
One person was nice enough to switch with us, but the other person was a REAL JERK!!!!!
So I sat next to Kyla and Jack sat between two very nice ladies behind us.Then we were told that we would be sitting on the tarmac for about 2 hours due to bad weather in Chicago, so we got off with Kyla because we could see that she wasn't handeling it too well.
I called our son Lee to let him know that we would be late, and we found out that he was locked out of the house due to a power outage. He left the keys in the house and went out and closed the garage door, then the power went out!!!!
We got back on the plane and finely got up in the sky, it was an uneventfull flight. The JERK that was sitting next to us didn't say boo to us the whole trip, But Jack and I had a Great time talking to the Ladies in his row. The one Lady was a little Jewish lady going home to the funaral of her 4th husband. We were able talked to her the whole flight, The other Lady was flying to Chicago to see her Daughter.
when we got to Chicago we found out that our flight to Grand Rapids was delayed, due to the fact that our flight crew was delayed due to the weather
we finelly landed in Grand Rapids at 1:00 a.m.
FINELY HOME we were all HAPPY CAMPERS!!!!!!!