trip

The boys and I just returned from a trip to visit my sister and her family in West Virginia, and we had a wonderful time!  Earlier this summer an invite came for my niece's 16th birthday party on August 9, and at first I was thinking it was too bad we couldn't go (since it's crazy busy time on the farm), but then I started thinking that maybe the boys and I could go.  Even a year ago the possibility wouldn't have even crossed my mind, but they're getting old enough that there are more and more things we can do.  My parents went, too, which worked out great so that my dad and I could take turns driving, and it was SO NICE to have two extra sets of hands at the bathroom/food stops along the way.

We left at 4am last Wednesday morning.  I was hoping leaving early like that that the boys would be tired enough to sleep some in the car, and also that way we wouldn't feel so pressured to rush and get there on time at night - we could take our time and stop often for breaks along the way.  The boys did GREAT on the way out.  They had been so excited and counting down the days (actually the "sleeps") until our departure.  Even though we look at maps and discuss geography quite a bit, they have NO sense of distance and really had no clue how long it was going to take us to get to West Virginia.  The night before we left Mike and I were telling them how it would look different out in WV - so, just a couple miles down the road from picking up my parents Logan said something like, "It still looks the same here, when is it going to look different?"  And then it was around Detroit that we started getting questions about when we would get there, etc.  They did sleep some in the car.  In fact, after lunch Caleb had been asking about when we were going to go through a tunnel, and then about 10 minutes before the tunnel he fell asleep!  I was driving and my mom tried to wake him up, but he was SOUND asleep and missed it.  I quick grabbed my phone and recorded the drive through the tunnel to show him later.  I was worried he was going to be really upset that he missed it, but he handled it fine.  At our lunch stop and afternoon snack stop Levi was not happy and was rather difficult, but in the car the whole day he did great.  During those cranky times he was just acting like a normal two-year-old would who got up before 4am and sat strapped in a car seat all day - the rest of the time he did remarkably well!  :)

The boys loved having so much time to spend with their cousins, especially Micah.  I hope this is the beginning of lifelong friendships.  Caleb and Logan have had a chance to get close with their cousins who live nearby, but this summer is really the first that they're old enough to have a more meaningful relationship with their WV cousins.  I certainly benefited from having nieces that are old enough to supervise my children!  I love my kids, but it was so nice to have a little more freedom.  :)  I was able to relax, help some with the sidewalk project my dad was doing for them, run errands with my sister...

Thursday I headed to Baltimore to meet up with a college friend for lunch.  It was great to have a few hours to catch up with her!

I think it was sometime Thursday Caleb got rather upset out of the blue and I wasn't sure what it was about.  The next day the same thing happened, but then he told me he missed Daddy.  :(  Poor guy!  I didn't even think of the possibility of someone being homesick!  We called Mike right away and Caleb wasn't even able to talk, he was just crying.  But, I think it helped Caleb to at least hear Mike's voice.  There were a couple more incidents throughout the week, but he did okay.  (A couple weeks before we left for the trip we were talking about it at dinner and Mike said something about not going.  I guess Caleb didn't realize Mike wasn't going and when he heard that he got this real devastated look on his face and just put his head down on the table for several minutes.  He may seem rough and tough, but he has a tender heart!)  Logan didn't seemed phased by it, and I think Levi mentioned Mike a few times, but generally as long as he's with me he's okay.  :)  On Sunday at church I tried putting him in nursery, but I guess he was just crying and upset, so I got called out of the service to get him.  After the service my sister was going to be working in his room anyways, and that was good enough for him, so I was still able to go to a class with my parents.

Saturday evening was my niece Katie's big 16th birthday bash!  They figure about 100 people came and it all went so well.  It was a beautiful night.

On Monday I took the boys to Antietam Battlefield.  Can't be in the midst of all the history and not take advantage of it!  I think it was a good first introduction to that type of thing for them.  I gave a very brief explanation of the Civil War, they saw a few photographs, we picked out a souvenier for Mike, saw some cannons, and drove around the battlefield.

Tuesday we headed home!  The boys did very well again in the car.  There was a little more antsy-ness and trouble getting along, but not too bad.  We did witness an accident along the Ohio Turnpike, but thankfully our car wasn't involved and the driver was okay.  It had been raining very hard and two cars up I saw a car flipping over in the air.  After making sure I wasn't going to crash into anyone or that anyone behind was going to crash into us, I pulled to the shoulder.  My dad jumped out and ran up to the car (which at this point we didn't know if it was going to catch on fire or not, and what kind of condition the driver was in), and I grabbed my phone, dialed 911, and ran up there.  Pouring rain, cars and trucks driving by on a busy three-lane turnpike...  It took a couple minutes (I think, I don't know if my sense of time in all this is accurate), but the driver was able to crawl out and thankfully he was the only one in the vehicle.  He came back to sit in our van while he waited for help.  After a bit a turnpike truck came up with flashers to then wait for a state trooper to come - they had a few other accidents to respond to (which we saw after we got going again).  We were wondering how we were going to get back on the turnpike (How do you merge onto a busy highway when you have no room for acceleration??), but the worker told me she'd flag me in.  Phew.

It looked like it was going to work out for us to get home about the same time Mike would get home from work, but then he had a delay, so after dropping off my parent's at their house, I headed over to Schreur's.  We were all happy to see each other again!  Of course, now it seems like we've hardly seen Mike much since he works so late and then goes to bed asap because he has to get up so early.  Ahhhhhh, celery harvest.  :)

K-zoo

On Saturday we went down to Kalamazoo to hang out with some of Mike's cousins.  One cousin (Joe) lives there, two of his siblings drove up from Indiana and Illinois, and another cousin came from Hudsonville.  We decided to go ahead and take the truck down because sometimes it's fun, and Levi especially likes it.  (The other evening Caleb and Logan went out with Mike in his truck and Levi was NOT happy.)  Anyways, it was not fun this time.  It will probably be awhile before we take the truck anywhere as a family.  :)  The kids are not only too close to each other, they are too close to us.  With Mike being full swing in celery harvest, our conversation time is at a minimum, so here we were with a ride to Kalamazoo trying to talk, but the three little boys behind us made that very difficult.  Not to mention the fighting, and the getting out of hand with the pop they earned earlier in the day...

Anyways, first we went to a gravel pit lake to swim and plat for awhile.  There's a rope swing where Mike and Joe could have their manliness competitions, paddle boards, kayaks, and we took the pontoon boat to a mud pit area where the kids could play and then wash off in the water.  Mike and I also took Joe's ATV for a ride to an area with some hills.  I got off for a few minutes so that Mike could tear around a bit without me.  :)  After a few hours there we headed over to Joe's house where we had supper, the kids played in the yard (the boys found a ton of toads), and went next door to see his neighbor's animals (horses, pigs, ducks, chickens, cats).  The boys eventually fell asleep on the way home, but it took awhile!

This year's garden has been going pretty well.  I'm getting zucchini like crazy.  The cucumbers are doing much better this year.  Seems like the peppers aren't doing as well - maybe it's been too wet.  I'm not sure on the tomatoes either.

family

Wow, what a fun, crazy, activity-filled, tiring week we've had!  My sister and her family came into town a week ago, so we've had lots of family activities in order to really soak up having them here.  Mike and I always enjoy the family time, but now Caleb and Logan are old enough to REALLY enjoy playing with their cousins, and that is such a joy for us to see.  We love it that on both sides of the family they have cousins that they just love to play with.

The main focus of the week was my parent's 40th anniversary of being on the farm.  They had a couple events in order to celebrate the occasion.  Tuesday evening was a personal concert for the family and some friends.  A couple from their church has a barn on their property where they host things like this, and they play organ and piano.  Now, this isn't just any organ - it's a theatre pipe organ.  It is really cool to be up close and personal hearing and seeing it.  Unfortunately, Mike had a meeting that night that he couldn't miss, so I took the boys by myself.  They almost made it through the first half, and Caleb was sitting great for the second half (and was very interested and didn't want to leave), but Logan and Levi had had enough, so I had to get out of there.  What I did hear of the concert was really neat.  :)

Wednesday afternoon Caleb and Logan were able to go to the park with a bunch of the cousins while I stayed home with Levi so he could nap (Thank you, Lea Anne!!).  Thursday evening was a trip to the beach.  Perfect beach night other than the water being a little chilly - that didn't stop most of the kids (and big kids...), though!

Two of my beautiful nieces, who, after years of hiding, will finally let me take their photo again!

Friday evening was my nephew, Boden's, birthday party, plus I managed to take in the wedding ceremony of my cousin.

Slip-and-slide at Boden's birthday party.

Saturday morning was breakfast with my parent's, sibs, and their spouses; and then it was prep time for THE party!  My parent's threw a big bash to celebrate the farm's 40th anniversary.  The whole fam plus a couple good friends chipped in, and it really turned out well.  Bounce house, hay rides, ice cream machine, goodies from Casey's Bakery, and on and on...it was a great party!  It was so neat to see all the different people that showed up to celebrate.  I'm sure my children consumed way too much ice cream and pop, but oh well, it was a celebration and now we're getting back to normal this week!  :)

Ready!

The whole fam.

Mom and Dad with us kids.

Mom and Dad with all the grands.

Mom and Dad.

Yesterday Mike, my dad, my brother Mike, Eric, and three of my nephews went to a Tiger's game (couple more years before Caleb and Logan will go...).  I was thoroughly exhausted after the week we'd had, so the boys and I pretty much crashed.  We only made it to Sunday School at church, and then for a bit in the afternoon we went to hang with my mom (since the bounce house was still there, we had to take advantage of it!).

And, since I know everyone (all two of you who read this) is hanging on the edge of their seat to know about this - the crazy week totally threw off Levi's "doing his business" on the potty.  He'll only tell me he has to go when we're at home, so I ended up having to change more dirty diapers than normal (he was off schedule, plus we weren't home much).  I was wondering if we'd have any trouble getting back to him using the potty, but today he did it - thank goodness!  :)

fourth

It worked out so nice this year that the fourth was on a Friday!  Now next year it doesn't work the best that the holiday will be on the weekend instead of extending it, but oh well.  Friday morning we headed up to Harold and Kara's cottage.  We spent the night there in our tent, and stayed most of the day Saturday.  The weather was great, both Caleb and Logan made progress with swimming, we enjoyed the fireworks Friday night, and overall just had fun.

Mike and made a deal with both Caleb and Logan that if they swam out to the raft on their own (with a lifejacket, just not hanging onto one of us), they would get a remote control car.  We really wanted to get them swimming again since two years ago they were doing great, then all last year they decided they were scared of fish.  So, last weekend Logan did it, and then Caleb did it this past weekend.  Of course, Caleb did it the one time to get the reward and didn't want to do it again, but Logan has really warmed up to the water again.  He's even swimming out there just hanging on to a noodle and not wearing a life jacket!  Levi loves riding the waverunner (or the "rogue wave" as he calls it - learned that term from the boys watching something about the Bermuda Triangle).  He asks about it all the time!  It was out of commission on Friday, but then we were able to go on Saturday and he loved it.  Caleb really likes it, too.  Levi also enjoys riding in the boat when Kara's pulling tubers or skiers.  I guess it's no surprise that on Saturday afternoon, after no nap Friday and getting to bed late, he fell asleep in the boat.  :)

Overall the boys did great.  Logan and Levi were starting to show their tiredness as they day went on Saturday, but it wasn't TOO bad.  It's amazing how much difference a year makes - going to the cottage this summer is already a lot easier than it was last summer.

(When we talk about swimming to the raft, that's the yellow thing out there.  And, due to the lake level being way up, it's shallow for quite a ways going out."

washer

Two weeks ago our washer started acting up.  Long story short, we decided it was best to just get a new one.  The new one came last week Wednesday, and so far I am VERY happy with it!  I decided to go "old school" - not just a top load, but one with knobs and dials, NO COMPUTER STUFF TO GO WRONG!  :)  Apparently the durability on this washer is great (mostly due to the lack of computer components...).  It really seems like it's great job washing our very dirty clothes.

anniversary

Last Tuesday Mike and I celebrated our TENTH anniversary!  It has gone fast and A LOT has happened - a lot that we never would have planned on.  :)  House changes, job changes, kids, etc.  Wow!  I've learned (and am still learning) not to set any plans in stone and to trust in the Lord that HIS plan is best.  I don't have time to wax eloquent, and that's not really my forte, so I'll just say that I am incredibly thankful for the husband God gave me, and that through the challenges we've faced we've been able to grow closer together rather than have the trials tear us apart.

Even though we took our anniversary trip in May, we were still able to go out for dinner on our anniversary.  We enjoyed a quiet, delicious meal outdoors at Alpen Rose in Holland, and then walked around downtown for a bit.  Then is was still too early to head home (going out on a date you have to at least wait to go home until the kids are put to bed!!), so we drove out to the lake.

zoom

A couple weeks ago was the Zeeland Zoom 5k.  Nobody in our immediate family was running this year, but we couldn't pass up the chance to go cheer on my dad, my brother, and his whole family!  Right before the race Mike and I were talking to the boys about cheering and that watching their cousin Jason in a race is fun because he really gets into it.  So, when I got this shot when Jason and Dad were running past at the start of the race, I was THRILLED!  :)

We had fun watching the race, and the boys hung in their pretty decent.  Being a smaller race and the way the route is, we're easily able to see the start, catch our runner's at some point in the middle, then see them finish, too.  Caleb seems interested in running the race - we'll see, maybe in a year or two!