Little Eden

The kids and I got to spend a week with my parents at one of our favorite places in the world, Little Eden, in Onekama, MI. Since we live in the city, I really appreciate the times the kids get to just live in their swimsuits, going from one water activity to the next!

 Good times for bonding with Grandma Jan!

Emma took good care of this sweet birdie one day.  She literally held him all day long and looked for worms to feed him.  She's a nurturer!

Here are the makers of the wooden boats for the Friday afternoon boat competition.  Dad assisted them on their projects, made from scrap wood from his woodshop.

Clayton and my cousin Wyatt laughed so hard together as they tried to tip this boogie board in the water.  They were whooping and hollering. 

 Hudson jumps off his sand hill while Clay and Emma walk the Lake Michigan shore.

 Emma and Cousin Mattie perform "synchronized" cartwheels off the blue water mat.

Love, love this place! Thanks, Dad and Mom, for all your help this week. Some of the words we came up with to describe our week: Fire. Marshmallows. Kayak. Snack Shop. Canoe. Cabin. Sand. Waves. Sunset. Boat Race. Tubing. Greased Watermelon Contest. Frog Race. Laughter. Family. Story telling late at night.

A New Blog

You can now find our family's blog at: www.the6racks.blogspot.com

Elizabeth's Shower

We had a shower in my home for my cousin, Elizabeth, last weekend.  It was quite the family reunion, with many people traveling hours from other states to be here. There were cousins, aunts, friends--so good to be together again!

(Thank you, Audra, for capturing this day with photos!)

 Here's Mommy-to-be, Elizabeth.

We had fun playing games, telling stories, remembering funny family moments, laughing, eating, and praying for Elizabeth and baby boy, Ezekiel.

 There were actually three of us expecting babies in January and February, 2013!

We love you, Elizabeth, and we celebrate the life growing inside you.  God is so good!

Trick or Treat

 We had a lot of fun going trick-or-treating in our neighborhood with our backpacker, cowgirl, and fireman. Hudson really got into the action and loved getting his bag full of goodies...

 We also made a stop at the Governor's Mansion, where the kids met Governor Mitch Daniels and his wife.  As you can see, Hudson was too interested in his bag of candy to realize the famous people he could be meeting...

Beach Day

Our final day in California was spent at our favorite beach spot...Leo Carillo in Malibu.  We love the variety on this quiet beach-sand, rocks, tidal pools, surfers, big waves, and all kinds of little places to explore.

 Playing in the waves

 Beach Buddies

 My favorite quote from Emma was: "I have so many memories from this trip, I can't store them all!"

This trip did have so many memories for us, going to all of these places from our past, telling lots of stories, and remembering the goodness of God.

Pasadena

We went back to Fuller and walked around campus, checking out our old apartment, and remembering little things that had happened when we lived there.

We stayed across the street from campus at the Westin Hotel, which has an amazing view of the city hall.  The kids loved swimming in the pool and exercising in the workout room!

One sidenote--remember how we had to pack up our wet tent in Yosemite?  Jeff knew we had to dry it out somehow so it wouldn't get moldy.  So, I called the front desk and said, "I'm sure you've never been asked this question before, but could we dry out our tent by the pool for a few hours?"  The lady responded, "I don't know what our policy is on that." But eventually, they let us dry it out near the pool! :)

 We also had fun reconnecting with our friends, Clayton and Michelle. They were so sweet to put us up for a night.

 It was wonderful to be back in Pasadena again.  In a way, it seemed like nothing had changed.  But I was reminded at the passage of time as we now had Hudson with us and a fourth on the way!

Camping Out

 This was our campsite the first night at Yosemite.  It was right along a little creek so the kids could explore and play.  We had very sweet neighbors who gave us firewood and even built our fire for us since we got there at dusk and had to set up our tent.  I told the kids maybe they were angels.  However, during the night the man snored and I asked Jeff, "Is that a bear?" I decided he wasn't an angel after all.

 

 The view from our tent

 Jeff and the kids were brave and went bouldering along a dry waterfall bed.  He had Hudson in the backpack and climbed all over the slippery rocks. There was also a big sign that said: "Danger...many injuries and fatalities have occured," so I thought I better be careful, being 7 months pregnant and all! I just stayed back and took pictures.

 Our last night of sleeping in the tent, we woke up to rain. In the morning we packed up our dry things, Jeff carried the kids to the van, and we took down the tent in the rain and 40 degrees. Jeff said the good thing about the rain though was that there would be snow on the mountains on our drive out.  Sure enough, we drove through areas that looked like winter!  The kids got out and threw snowballs.

Then we drove through "fall" again on down the mountain, back to sunny Pasadena, where our next segment of the adventure would begin!