More from Mackinac

Arch Rock, a natural limestone formation, on the back side of the island

The beaches are rocky, and the views are beautiful.

Katie would jump right in if we let her. She loves the water.

One of the many colorful gardens on the island

Taking a break from our eight-mile bike ride around the island

Steve & I took a sunset cruise our first night there. The five-mile Mackinac Bridge, which is 50 years old this year, is behind us.

Pumpkin patch

Katie & I and Reese & Allison met Friday morning at a nearby pumpkin patch. It was Reese's 2nd birthday, with a Hello Kitty party to come.

Four months later ...

Some photos from our fabulous stay on Mackinac Island, Michigan! Steve and I celebrated our 13th anniversary, and the four of us plus Jim, Betty and Jim celebrated Cooper's 6th birthday and the Fourth of July together. Cooper and Katie want to return as soon as possible. I expect we'll go back in a few years -- it was super relaxing, beautiful, perfect weather plus all the ice cream and fudge you can eat.

The island is the "Land of the Great Turtle." This turtle was in our hotel lobby.

The island is in middle of Lake Huron, between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan.

For Cooper's birthday, we ate at The Woods, a restaurant run by the Grand Hotel.

The turtle was a popular photo spot.

We spent a few hours on the 4th at Fort Mackinac, where docents were in costume and a huge picnic dinner was served.

I think we all had at least one scoop of ice cream a day. Thankfully, there are lots of opportunities for biking and hiking!

This is one of the lookouts at the fort.

Spirit night

Katie's preschool had spirit night at Chuck E. Cheese yesterday. We sat with families from her class, ate and ran around. Steve had the tough job of keeping Katie off the playscape (or Habitrail, as he calls it), as we're still protecting her injury.

I don't really love Chuck E. Cheese. It's sensory overload for me -- the lights, sounds, smells, the mediocre pizza, all the people, the animatronic mouse with fading, unraveling fur. And a few years ago my wallet was stolen from my purse during a birthday party there. (We were celebrating Jeff's 50th -- he reasoned he'd never had a big deal party when he was little, so he made up for it that year. The thiefs went through a McDonald's drive-thru twice and then tried to buy a big-screen TV with one of my credit cards.)

Cooper and Katie, of course, love it -- especially the lights, sounds, pizza and the animatronic mouse.

An A-J reunion of sorts

I worked at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal for three and a half years. About two weeks before I left, Stacey began in the sports department. I vaguely recall her being there -- mostly because of her curly hair and the relative novelty of a woman in the A-J sports department.

A few years later, after I had been at the Morning News for a while, Stacey and I started working together on the CCI pagination project. We learned we shared a number of friends and loved discussing the legends of the A-J (some of whom are still there, Stacey reports).

Then, she moved on to the Washington Post, where she works with the two Michaels (Taylor and Ramey), also from our CCI project. I last saw her two years ago -- until this weekend. A group of us met for dinner -- all of us Lubbock exes except her friend from junior high. Three of us are NT Daily alums, too. It was great to catch up with everyone. Beth is now a Morning News reporter. John, who I worked with on the Regional desk, has a fancy job with NEC. And John's wife Caren, who I didn't meet until Dallas, is with JCPenney. (Caren is tall and apparently handy to have around, especially during confrontations!)

Stacey, Caren, me, Beth and Matt (John left early for a camping trip)

MVP

Cooper was MVP of Saturday's soccer game. It's always a surprise to the chosen player, but the parents know in advance -- we get a schedule at the beginning of the season. Each boy gets a turn. The MVP rotation coincides with the snack rotation, so I'll bet one of those boys will catch on soon.

When they do win, it's as if they've won an Oscar or the Heisman. So much jubilation! Our coach does a wonderful job praising the MVP and selecting specific qualities from the game to highlight. Cooper was singled out for his great defensive action. He is an awesome, scrappy defender, taking it personally each time a goal is scored, though there are no goalies yet (that happens in U09, I think). He doesn't really try to score goals, leaving that to his teammates. He's been that way since he started at age 4.

The game Saturday was messy, as you can see from the boys' white shorts. It rained the first half, and all those cleats beat up the field. As Katie would say, they were a messy mess. (More than one mom has remarked that a dad who doesn't do laundry obviously selected this season's uniform.)

Fodor's

Back in the spring I worked almost nonstop (at least it felt that way) for four weeks on a project for Fodor's -- updating their DFW listings on restaurants, hotels, attractions, shopping and nightlife. (I know, I'm no nightlife expert.) The results are online now.

Special thanks to Laura, who sent me the job listing; adventurous diners Julie and Layne; my little family, who followed me on all kinds of field trips; Liz and Betty for the free babysitting services; and all my friends who offered suggestions!

In addition to learning a great deal about my hometown, I learned that I've mispronounced the company's name forever. Fodor's rhymes with voters. (I'm also no pronunciation expert. I'd be a terrible broadcast journalist.)

September photos

On the way to a princess birthday party

Katie and her pink boots

Katie on the move at the Sippy Cups concert at the House of Blues

The Dolphins are in their fifth season together this fall.

Having fun at a soccer game

On the way to a den meeting

Adam turned 2 yesterday and graciously let Cooper & "T" help open gifts.

Howdy, folks!

Cooper and the Midway Barker (who looks like a man with just a torso) had a fun exchange.

Moments after I took this photo inside Music Hall, an usher arrived and told me she would either confiscate my camera or I could check it in at the booster seat/headphone desk.

Random updates

Katie fell off the slide at preschool on Thursday morning and broke her left clavicle. She's had a rough few days but is improving. (She started out sliding as usual but then stood up, lost her balance and tumbled about four feet onto her back.) We'll have to avoid playground equipment and classes at the Jungle Gym for three weeks, but then she should be completely healed.

Cooper and I had a great day together today. He participated in the children's Sabbath this morning, and then we headed for the State Fair of Texas. He rode a few midway rides, we ate some unhealthy food and we saw The Lion King. It was my third time to see the musical, and even still it induces chills. At times Cooper could hardly contain himself -- he waved his arms, sang with some of the songs and shouted "That's the best!" when Scar fell to his death toward the end of the second act.

Cooper is a Tiger Cub. He and Steve attended a lock-in Friday night with almost 300 other 1st-grade Cub Scouts. Poor Steve slept about six hours but woke up every hour, on the hour. He and Cooper had sleeping bags. Some families had king-size inflatable beds! Along with scouting comes fundraising, apparently, so if you're in the market for popcorn, let me know.

Cooper and five of his friends are part of a Destination Imagination team, coached by me, with help from all the other moms. They'll work until March to produce an eight-minute play and then perform it at noncompetitive tournament.

My blogging has suffered, as work projects have stacked up and are colliding with my volunteer projects and running-a-home projects. After I'm done with this update, I'll return to some writing, which this week includes M is for Malachi, a look at English translations of the Bible, a review of a Catholic blog, menu descriptions for Super Suppers for the month of January and household tips and facts for InnerCircle, a subscription Web site.

Steve's 20-year high school reunion is Saturday!

When to discuss Sept. 11

Cooper was not yet three months old the morning of Sept. 11. Our chunky little boy sat on my lap in our family room as I watched the "Today" show. Steve was just a few feet away, washing dishes before he left for work. We watched the horrible events unfold on our television. Steve went to work, and I stayed glued to the TV, switching among channels, fearful I would miss something. (That continued for about a week, and then I turned off network and cable news for years.) Later that day, I took Cooper to Grandma, who took care of him for a few hours while I went to work. I was still on maternity leave, but I couldn't bear to sit still at home, so I returned to the newsroom to stay busy.

We've purposefully not discussed that dreadful day with Cooper yet. When he was 3 and attended a local day-care center, I had a small battle with one of the directors. She was insistent on remembering Sept. 11 at the school, with children no older than 5. I'm sure she was well meaning, but I think she was so wrapped up in the idea of patriotism and honoring heroes that she lost sight of the fact that toddlers and preschoolers probably don't need to have discussions about planes flying into buildings. (The issue was moot for us in the end -- we were actually in D.C. that week for a work conference.)

Cooper doesn't watch the news, though he does pick up the newspaper every day, usually bypassing the news for the comics (also my first destination section). And I'm sure some of his friends know something of Sept. 11. So the time will come soon, I think, that we'll need to have a very basic discussion. What I find most troubling is explaining to him how people could be so evil and yet how we shouldn't be scared on a daily basis. How New York City, a city he loves for what it is now, was altogether different on Sept. 10, 2001.