Port Huron, Saginaw and the Tooth Fairy

The last two weeks have been busy! On the first day the kids were back at the house after spending a week at their mom's, we decided to take off to the beach at Port Huron. (For you non-Michiganders, look at the palm of your right hand. Port Huron is right where your thumb hits the bottom of your index finger. Macomb is a little to the southwest of that.) Carter, Emma and I packed a picnic lunch and some cold CapriSuns and hit the smooth stone beach right by the Fort Gratiot lighthouse and the Bluewater Bridge.

A year ago, Carter would have rather walked through fire (or a house full of "BIG DOGS"), than to let his tender little feet touch the sand. As you can see, he has clearly gotten over that phobia. We stayed for about three hours, watching the massive tankers leave the port and holding our breath at every passing sailboat as they seemed to speed past what nearly always seemed certain doom. Emma found a friend for them both to play with and they seemed to have a great time!

Over the next few days we followed our normal summer routine: Carter at Merrill Palmer on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday while Emma spent the day with Kate on Tuesday and Thursday while enjoying a day of fun a the Sequoyah Day Camp on Wednesday. Family dinners every night followed by a little desert and maybe a walk to the pond or around the block.

On Friday, we drove up to Saginaw (about an inch under your middle finger non-Michiganders) to spend the weekend with Kate's parents, Tom and Terry. We got to spend time with Aunts Gina and Beth! On Saturday, we attended the 10th Annual Dubay Family Reunion in Gladwin. Tom, Kate, Kevin (Beth's fiance) and myself played in a golf scramble that morning and then met up with the rest of the family for lunch and the rest of the day. It was unseasonably chilly all day with the hi temps only reaching into the low 60's. Thank God for Tom's Spicy Bloody Mary's on the front 9 and then a couple of brewskis on the back 9.

As we moved into this week Kate and I kept talking to Emma about her loose front tooth that REALLY needed to get pulled as it had been loose for what seemed like a month. On Wednesday night, Emma finally built up the courage to pull it...by herself! It took about an hour for her to finally get it out. Most of the time was spent in the bathroom watching the tricks she could do with her dangling tooth with her tongue. At one point, the tooth was sticking at almost a right angle to her other teeth! The Tooth Fairy visited at some point that night and left Emma $5 for a perfect incisor to add to her collection.

Welcome to our Story

Well this is new. Never thought that I'd think about blogging. Interesting concept though - as the "Original Southern Six" from New Bern, NC all spread out, it allows us all to stay in contact with each other in perhaps a little different way than what we are used to. I'm game and ready to give this a try for a while.

For those of you who don't know the Michigan Southerns...I'll try to catch you up to speed. I'm married to the most beautiful, brilliant and loving mother in the whole world, Kate (Dubay) Southern. We have two kids: Emma, who is six and heading to 1st grade this fall, and Carter, who is almost four and enjoying preschool.

Kate and I are both graduate students in the Speech-Language Pathology program within the Communication Sciences and Disorders Department at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

Kate is originally from Saginaw, Michigan and is a graduate of Michigan State University with a B.A. in Psychology. She is now a full-time student in the SLP program at Wayne. She LOVES to work with kids in therapy and is truly an amazing clinician to watch. She engages on a level that they "get" and has made true progress with the kids that she has worked with so far. Next January, she will start an internship working with the Bloomfield Hills schools. I am very excited for her. At home, she is an engaging mother who we are all lucky to have in our lives. Much like at school, she handles motherhood at a level that the kids understand. They simply adore her.

I am part-time in the SLP program and presently work as a manager for CVS Pharmacy. My passion in SLP is with fluency disorders and their neurological basis. Kate and I are working on a research project right now that looks at neurological trends in people who stutter who also use the Speech Easy Fluency Device (of which I am also a user).

Kate and I met about two years ago at school. We both were married before but forged a tight friendship at a time when both of our marriages were disintegrating. In our darkest hours, we found a solace in each other that led us to fall in love. We were married this past March 14.

Emma and Carter are our truest passions. We are truly blessed to have a daughter and son who are so resilient, so brave and so loving. The past year was tough for them, but they have handled it well.

Emma's kindergarten year at Sequoyah Elementary was fantastic. She loved her teacher, Mrs. Hagel and made great strides in reading and basic math. She absolutely loves to read and learn everything that she can. 1st grade will be fun for her. We're on a summer reading and writing plan right now so that she can leap right in feet first this fall. Its so cool to see how excited she gets about doing her "homework". Emma likes to play board games like CandyLand and Pretty Pretty Princess. Lately, we've been transitioning into games like Memory --mine must be going because she whips up on me pretty bad rather consistently.

Carter attends the Child Development Lab at the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute on Wayne State's campus. ( http://mpsi.wayne.edu/education/child-development.php ) His class is very neat - the enrollment is truly diverse with many ethnicities and nationalities represented. He attends Tuesday through Thursday each week for about 6-7 hours each day. In a way, it is like watching a mini-kindergarten class. Kate and I will sometimes sneak over there when we can and watch some of his class from an observation room that sits above the classroom. Having him down there in such a rich environment is something that we are truly lucky to have.

Just since the March wedding, we've been busy! Weekend trips to Saginaw, visits to the Science Center and Zoo, visits by the Nanas....lots of stuff to keep us busy...but most importantly...doing things as a family.

Stay posted for updates about once a month!