Family Camping and more...

At the end July we took our first official family vacation- just the 5 of us. We went to Orchard Beach State Campground in Manistee Michigan. It's on Lake Michigan between Ludington and Traverse City. We LOVED it. Sure it had it's tired and cranky moments, but overall we had a great time. We will definitely be a camping family. I only wished we'd gone earlier in the summer so as to have enough time to go again before the busyness of fall begins. Between CMU starting and Trevor working more hours to "welcome" back the students, to ministry getting going in full swing and Austin and Hailey starting school...it's picking up quickly. Anyway, back to our relaxing wonderful time....enjoy the pictures...

Our view of the Lake from our campsite. The wonderful sound of waves lapping against the beach put me to sleep each night...ahhh.

Our quaint little spot that was a little uneven. We made it work though.
We certainly scouted out some better spots for next year.

The beach was by far the most favorite thing we did. The kids loved the waves, the sand and being thrown into water by Trevor. We all enjoyed it. The weather was perfect by the way. It rained the last night- stormed actually. But it stopped raining by about 8:30am. Not too bad.

Hailey was so funny. She was so excited about the waves. She would just get "slammed" by the waves and I would almost be jumping up to go help her and she'd get up and just laugh and smile and do it all again.The kids are really getting used to the water and loving it. They're quite the little fish.

Austin loved jumping off the sand dunes.

The beautiful view.
It was so refreshing and wonderfully peaceful. The sound of the waves, the wonderful breeze off the water, even the sand (although I'm not a huge fan of sand). I often thought of my good friend Tonya who is on a tropical island in the Pacific (Tonga). I'm sure her view is a bit more breath-taking (actually it is, I've seen pictures), but for Michigan, it's awesome and I'm so thankful for it to be so close to enjoy.

Visit to Grandpa & Grandma Herbert's

My beautiful Hailey laying in the grass.

Grandpa and the girls. This was a favorite activity for the weekend. We tented in the yard, played in the water, played soccer, fished, marshmallows, played UNO - a great time.

And here are a few pictures I couldn't resist adding.
Our little Kara plays hard and then sleeps wherever she lands. :)

Enjoy the rest of your summer, I know we will!

Okay, okay, so I'm late again. I'm not sweating it though. It's summer, we've been busy. :)
Here are a few highlights of mostly June, but now into July....

Here we are having a little fun and bonfire at Grandma and Papa Reid's. Papa let us get out the four wheeler for a ride.

Sister fun

For Austin's birthday since it was leading into a REALLY busy weekend and week, we decided to just take a few friends and go to get slurpees and to the spray park for some fun. Here are the boys on top of a slide after dropping the parachute men off.

We took a quick trip to Grandpa & Grandma Herbert's house that week too to celebrate birthdays and spend time together. Fishing at Grandpa's always delivers. (as he has a small pond that the fish are always biting in)

On the way we stopped to have summer fun at the Midland spray park.

Now, for the biggest event of the summer....BAIR LAKE BIBLE CAMP!!

What fun we had....crazy...hectic...draining...but fun.
Here's the first day of camp...emotions ran high with excitment!
The last day was just as great, but a bit sad too because it was ending

Here are our seven little kids (my three plus Katie and Adam's three plus Austin's best buddy Caleb). They ranged in age from 7 to 2 years. They seem harmless...and they were, but the week didn't end up quite as restful and peaceful as I'd hoped. Although I did have some great time with Kara (she wasn't old enough to go yet) and with Katie (whom we gratefully stayed with) and was able to see my brother and his family (since they only live about an hour from there) and finally with a great friend that I don't get to see but once or twice a year. I even did get to have a few hours to myself one morning at a park (thanks Katie!!). So all in all it was a great week. When all seven kids were together it was a bit crazy (as they were excited and tired from great days at camp- with no down time to themselves), but it will be something we will all remember with great joy.

After camp they kids really had a great time catching fireflies, sleeping in tents, around the campfire, making smores and swimming in the lake.Lastly, we had a garage sale with another family in our church to raise money for an organization called "Feed My Starving Children". It's takes 19 cents to feed a child for a day. The kids had a lemonade stand and we (my friend Kim) did a garage sale. We had a great turnout and will be able to help feed about 1896 kids for one day. The kids (and quite frankly) and I were pretty darn excited.

Okay, so maybe this isn't appropriate, but we just thought it was so funny. See, Kara has found this new freedom to pee at Grandma and Papa's house (behind the shed by the wood pile- of course). So, she didn't quite make it all the way behind the wood pile and apparently Hailey had snatched the camera and followed her....she really is a pro at it. Hope this makes you smile. (you can even see her little stream).

Looking forward to a very relaxing rest of the summer....hope you're all enjoying each moment!

Summer's on the way

So, I'm a little late for May, only two days though :) I wasn't really thinking there was a lot to blog about, but then I started looking through some pictures...Hope you enjoy.


Here's our Hailey girl with all (almost all-literally) of her Grandma Rosey's jewelery on playing dress-up with her cousin Haddee on Mother's day.

Here's the kids at a good friend from church's wedding. They had sooo much fun dressing up (well the girls did) and dancing with their friends. It was a Friday night wedding so it started out late and went later. My kids are not used to this. By the end of the night Austin was asking if there was a place on the floor somewhere that he could just lay down for a few minutes. Hailey lost her voice and her eyes were bloodshot. And then there's Kara....she was like the energizer bunny. She couldn't stop moving and running and dancing. I think she knew if she did stop, she'd fall fast asleep. It was a beautiful night, but we were all tired the next day.No rest the next day, though as we were off to baseball first thing in the morning! Austin's actually playing t-ball, which is right for the age bracket they had, but he's been practicing and is a little more familiar with the game than some of the other kids (ranging from 4-6). The coach actually approached me to ask me if I'd call about moving him up to the older age group. He always has been pretty coordinated and athletic.

They have really enjoyed having him though, cause he can actually catch the balls that the kids throw him at first.

Uncle Dan and Aunt Martha were visiting this weekend due to the next part of the blog...

After t-ball, we went to his best buddy Caleb's b-day party at the park. It's amazing the bond God has given these two boys. Even though Caleb now lives 3 (long) hours away, they still love each other and have such a great time together.

We had a surprise 35th Anniversary party for Trevor's parents. Everyone could come and it was soooo nice. They loved it. We all had a great time talking and all the kids had a great time playing at home. What a blessed time to hear stories of their wedding and engagement, etc. It was simple, but beautiful and something we'll all remember.

Here are some great sprinkler pictures. This was kind of like the unofficial first day of summer for us. When we can get out the bathing suits and the sprinlker. What fun. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and Trevor and I just sat and watched the fun. The other kids in the pictures are our great neighbors the Gieglings. They are great friends from church that just moved in three houses away. What a blessing from the Lord! The kids love it!...and so do I.

Austin's long hair before we cut it. He had been wanting longer hair, so we let it grow. It had one kind of funny stage, but I thought it turned out very nice. We actually cut it right after the sprinkler fun because with the warmer weather, it was just too long. At least we know what it looks like now, and that if it gets long enough, it will actually lay down. :) (He didn't usually wear it all spiked up like that, although at times he wanted to)

Before the wet part.

Our last adventure for the month was for our 9th anniversary. We took the kids down to my brother's house (sadly I don't have any pictures from this) to stay and play their girls. Then we went to a bed and breakfast, rode bikes, watched a movie, read books, ate out for dinner and went canoeing on the Portage river. It was AWESOME. We've really been wanting to get outdoors for our anniversary and it's usually too cold and rainy. Well, we had an awesome weekend and we had a great time outdoors. Can't believe it's been 9 years. God is faithful.