Hanging out

Kyle and I both had the Friday of Labor Day weekend off, so we took the kids to Saugatuck for the day.  We went on a Duck ride in town and ni the harbor, climbed mt. Baldhead, walked around town and got ice cream.  We all had a great time.

These 2 are pretty into hot tubs.  so much that they even made their own.  Thankfully they didn't try to add real water.

 

 The Hudsonville fair to check out the animals and big lawn equipment...(I don't know what Josie's doing in her overalls : )

This is a bit scary.

 



Random pictures from the past couple of weeks

we went to watch the "macinac" leave from Grand Haven at Coast Guard Festival.  the kids were very impressed with the big boat and it's very loud horn.

 This one may be of use to us when she's a teenager.  By the way, she doesn't always have the pacifier in her mouth, maybe just for all the pictures of this post?

About how fast do arborvitaes grow again?

 Scooping root beer floats (Caleb's latest favorite treat)

 the ducks that hang out in our sprinklers on occasion.

Congratulations Krysta and Brett

Kyle's youngest sister, Krysta was married last night.  The kids have been calling him "Uncle Brett" for about a year already, but now it is official!

 These 5 kids enjoyed rehearsal so much they were all hot and sweaty afterward.

Yay! We finally chased her down to do her hair!

  Looking pretty with her bracelet in her mouth

This is one of the goofy smiles we got from him when we told him to smile for the camera.

 

 The whole crew (20 of us)

      

This is the other goofy smile we got from him. 

 

 All of the hard work in smiling must have made him tired.

  Re-energized for the dancing

TaDa--No training wheels!

Caleb has learned to do so much this summer already with swimming lessons and getting braver at the cottage.  This afternoon he asked to try going without his training wheels, and did awesome.  He was so determined to do it and, in the end, so proud of himself...we could hardly get him off of the bike to come in for bed!

Some favorite pics from our St. Joseph vacation

   We had a extended family reunion in St. Joe, Michigan.   

  Wanna go for a ride?

 The kids' favorite feature--the lukewarm hot tub. 

 farm animal statues downtown. 

happy 4th of July!

 Stacie, Sydney, Lesley and Rachel riding the dolphin (are they native to St. Joe???)

 

Josie's Birthday

 I think I took a couple hundred pictures of Josie on her birthday and at the celebrations.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Birthday breakfast (with silly hat)

 Birthday cake on her actual B-day (a butterfly).

 Using 2 presents at once...magnifying Dora on her new leapster

to make  "Big Dora"

Waiting patiently for more cake for the cottage celbration of June B-day's

(Happy Birthday to Grandpa, Uncle Kraig and Aunt Katie!)

 such a sweet Face

Her new baby which she loves to take care of.

Officially Summer

 First beach trip of the year.

 They ran in a cirlce for about 20 minutes while I unloaded all of our stuff.

 Strawberry picking was about 20 degrees colder this year than last year, but we still came home with a bunch of red ones.  Caleb was really good at picking the good ones this year and even helped weed out the green ones Josie snuck into our bucket.

exercising her compulsive side

Photo shoot