Elk Lake vacation Part 2

Continuing the photo collection....

View of Elk Lake from their cottage.  Stunning views and colors!

Saturday, we went into the town of Elk Rapids for ditty shopping and to play on the beach.  The town beach is on a protected section of Lake Michigan, and you can see Old Mission Peninsula across the bay.  It also has Elk River running through it, so the kids waded upstream, then floated downstream to Lake Michigan.  Over, and over, and over!

Floating kids

Burying Megan in the sand

She looks like a sugar cookie, she's so covered in sand!

Burying Danny, Jessica,and Katie

Jessica and Danny playing in the Lake Michigan waves

Family pic on the point

Beautiful sunset back on Elk Lake

 Sunday was our last day of vacation, and it was bittersweet.  The kids got in as much swimming, kayaking, and tubing as they could!  We're so thankful to our friends for inviting us up to their cottage.  The week was amazing - we all got along so well and had a great time together.  And the weather and views couldn't have been nicer!

Katie's in the tube

Today we laid low at home.  Katie had tutoring and allergy shots, otherwise, we stayed home and vegged out.  We watched a movie this afternoon, and I painted all of the girls' nails.  Also this afternoon, Megan pulled out another tooth!  This time on the top left.  She has a lot of holes now!  She wanted to walk to DQ to celebrate, so of course we went!  She and I shared an Oreo blizzard, and Katie and Jessica shared the brand new Candy Shop blizzard - yum!

Elk Lake vacation Part 1

Last week we went on a vacation "up north" and visited our friends at their cottage on Elk Lake.  It's between Grand Traverse Bay and Torch Lake.  The kids had a BLAST and loved life on a lake.  We stayed at the cottage all day Tuesday and Wednesday, playing in the water:

Jessi holding a crayfish.  She liked to be extra floaty with two swim rings AND her life jacket.  She was brave and jumped off the dock and swam around everywhere, though!

Katie with crayfish.  Chris caught them all under rocks near the dock.  The kids made a habitat for their crayfish collection (see orange bucket).

 We went to the Torch Lake fireworks on Wed night.  On Thursday, we went cherry picking!

we got cool buckets for our cherries

Kids stripping a tree of all fruit

Katie and Megan under a bigger tree.  We picked dark red, yellow, and bright red varieties.  All were yummy!

All six kids with their haul!

 We enjoyed cherry milkshakes and fresh cherries for days.  And the kids practiced their cherry spitting enough to get pretty good at it!

The kids went tubing several times.  Here are a few pics:

Abby and Megan standing up in the tube

Katie was the bravest/craziest.

This is as crazy as Jessica got, but she was brave to go in the tube!

After one of the tubing adventures, the kids jumped off the boat and asked if they could swim in to the cottage.  We let them, even though we were quite a ways out.  Chris went with them, and it took quite a while, but they made it!

On Friday, we drove to the Leelenau Peninsula.  We stopped at two wineries for a quick wine tasting, including the Ciccone winery (Madonna's family).  The kids loved wandering through the vineyards, and we got some nice family pics.

We drove up to Leland and enjoyed lunch, fudge, and wandering through Fishtown (aka fish shanties along the river).  There were lots of ditty shops (as Mary would say), and the kids loved the Dam Candy Store, which was right under the dam.

Most nights, we had a campfire with s'mores and sparklers:

Memorial Day weekend part 1

Hi family, I know I'm terribly behind in blogging.  :(  We've been so incredibly busy lately that I haven't had time to get the pics off my camera, much less blog about them!  I hope to post some pics in the coming days.  Here's a little taste of what we've been up to:

Jessica graduated from preschool this past Wednesday!  That means she's on summer vacation!  Megan and Katie are done with school on June 8th, so they only have 9 days of school left.  (not that they're counting)  Ballet for all three girls will end next weekend with a long rehearsal on Sat, and the recital on Sunday.  Soccer will end on the June 9/10 weekend.  Then we'll ALL be on summer break!

Yesterday we walked in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure in downtown Detroit.  We woke up early, put on our cute Fiat 500 t-shirts (provided by Chrysler for the team), and made it to Comerica Park.  It's always amazing to see 30k people in one place for such a cool event!  Chris ran the 5k, then walked back to meet us.  The girls and I walked the 5k, and I didn't bring the stroller, so they walked the whole thing on their own!  I was so proud of them.  There were very few complaints about being tired.

After the race, we went to Belle Isle to see the preparations for the Grand Prix race next weekend.  We picked up lunch at Happy's (mmm) and had a picnic lunch on the island.  We went to the conservatory and the Great Lakes shipping museum.  Then we stopped by REI on the way home to pick up Jessi's new bike (a pull-behind).  We've been working this week to make sure everyone's bikes/helmets/etc are in good shape.  Jessi's too big for the seat behind my seat, so we got her her very own bike!

Last night, we went out just the two of us, to our friends' 40th birthday party.  Steve & Robin both turned 40 last week, and their parents orchestrated a surprise dinner party at their country club.  They were surprised, and we had a GREAT time with their family and friends.

Today we went on a long bike ride (12 miles) along the Paint Creek Trail to the cider mill for donut and ice cream treats.  On our ride back, we stopped at the Krazy Greek in downtown Rochester for some coneys and greek salads.  This afternoon, we went to Bordines to pick out our annuals and some tomatoes, peppers, and herbs.  Tonight, Chris grilled sockeye salmon, tons of veggies, and two heads of garlic.  Along with salads from our garden, we had a delicious feast!  We plan to walk to the park this evening, and then devour some watermelon for dessert.

So as you can see, we are having a great weekend.  Hopefully tomorrow we'll make it to the pool or beach if the weather cooperates.  And I have lots of flowers to plant!  I hope you're having a great weekend, too.  Please share what you've been up to!

April happenings

Random pics and events in April:

Sarah's daffodils and grape hyacinths were beautiful this spring!

Our annual family pic in front of our crabapple tree.  It bloomed about 3 weeks early due to the warm spring!

Megan was in the school talent show.  She and about ten friends from kindergarten sang and danced to "15 Animals" by the Philadelphia Chickens (based on a Sandra Boynton book).  They were so cute!  This is from the dress rehearsal.

Katie dutifully cleaned and twisted her starter earrings for six weeks, and then I took her to Justice so she could use her birthday gift card to buy fun earrings!  Now she wears a new pair every day!

Chris with the girls before the school's Daddy Daughter dance.  Notice Jessi and the welcome home signs in the front door...Chris got back from a trip to Italy just a few hours before the dance started.  What a guy!

Another shot of the cute people.  Chris took them out to dinner to Chili's (their request) before the dance.

Katie and her friend at the dance.

Crazy Megan with a beach ball at the dance.  They enjoyed a chocolate fountain, a portrait, a photo booth for funny pictures, and, of course, LOTS of dancing and running around the gym!

Jessica's preschool took a field trip to a nature center last week.  At first she was apprehensive about touching the snake, but then...

...she was brave enough to wear it as a a necklace!!  We enjoyed a very interesting presentation, followed by a great nature walk.  The Easter hat is her gardening hat, and she thought it would be a good idea to wear it to the nature center.  I agreed!  She was so cute!

Katie and Jessica sang in the church's choir concert last Friday night.  It was a CRAZY night - with two ballet practices, a talent show, AND a choir concert.  We made it to every event, believe it or not, though we had to split up a few times.

I'm almost caught up...but Easter pics will come another night...I'm off to bed!

Megan is 7!!

Last Saturday was Megan's 7th Birthday!  We had a day jam-packed with fun for her!

We started with gymnastics class.

 Then she had a soccer game (no pics) where she scored FIVE GOALS!!  She was a superstar - she was on fire!  She was on a mission to score, and she kept stealing the ball and taking it alllll the way down the field and firing shots.  It was amazing!  We brought pink cupcakes for the after-game snack, and the team sang to her.  Then it was home for presents:

American Girl goodies from Katie

A gnome from me and Chris

The movie Hop, too!

A beautiful butterfly garden ornament from Jessica.

I love this pic - Megan is seven!

Shrinky dinks from Auntie Erin & Uncle Chad

Thanks for the card-making kit, too!

Origami set and beer labels from the C-C family

Uncle Joe's card cracked her up!!

 After presents, I took her to JC Penneys for birthday portraits.  She was GORGEOUS and it was really hard to pick a favorite pose!  Then home for birthday dinner:



Megan wanted to make homemade pizzas, so we let her roll out the dough, and helped her cut out a number seven.  Pesto pizza is her favorite!  She did all of the "decorating"

Birthday girl with her dinner

After dinner, we sang to her again.  Happy birthday to my sweet little Megan!

After dessert, we started up the movie Hop, and of course I made popcorn.  What a special day for a special girl!

Megan's party

The girls had a day off school on Friday, so we decided to hold Megan's birthday party during the day for something fun to do!  Thirteen of her 14 girl classmates were able to make it! 

Party decor.

 The party was mostly outside in the front yard.  Katie & Megan set up ladder ball, bean bag toss, hula hoops, jump ropes, sidewalk chalk, soccer, baseball, & more all around the yard.  The girls had a blast trying everything out.  Then we came inside to decorate (and eat) cupcakes!

Cupcake decorating in progress.



The birthday girl in mid-bite.

Then we shooed the girls back outside to eat their ice cream bars and play some more.

Everyone came back in to play a game of Freeze Dance to "Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night", and then Megan opened presents.

All of Megan's friends!  What a fun party!  (Katie's friend came to help out with crowd control)

And of course some of the kids wound up in the back yard, catching frogs and toads.  We have a LOT of big ones this year!

It was a great party, but between the cleaning/decorating/setup, the party itself, and two ballet practices that night, we were pooped.  We were all in bed VERY early last night!