Family Vacation to Michigan!

After having an awesome week at church camp, we had 2 days to do laundry and pack up again to head out for our family vacation to Michigan! Whew...busy but so fun! G'ma and G'pa made the trip with us so we had an extra fun time! : ) We headed to Mackinaw City, MI the first day and then ventured over to Mackinac Island after that. If you have never been there, we highly recommend it...tons of fun and a special place to visit. The island is not very big but does not allow motor vehicles on it so the only means of transportation are walking, biking (rental places everywhere!) and horse/buggies....it's so neat! The girls loved it! We ended up renting bikes for all of us (except Gma and Gpa who have biked around the island when I was a kid so they decided to opt out this time around!).....Allie had her own bike, Lauren and Daddy rode tandem bikes together (cute pics to come soon!) and Mama pulled Katie in a bike buggy. We didn't make it all the way around the island but ended up doing 6 miles as a family, which we thought was pretty good w/ little ones! It was a great day! After spending a couple days around that area, we headed southwest to the area of Harbor Springs/Petoskey/Charlevoix and stayed at a friends' house on Crooked Lake....and when I say "lakehouse", I mean ON THE LAKE....gorgeous! They had jetskis, canoes, and everything at our disposal....wonderful time! Lauren wasn't too crazy about riding the jet ski as she thought it went "WAY TOO FAST!" but Allie and Katie enjoyed riding it w/ Daddy! : ) After a few days there, it was time to head home....all in all, another wonderful family vacation to keep in our memories...now back home for some more summer fun!

Graduation Open House for Niece, Kindergarten Camp for L, VBS, Church Camp and lots of summer fun!

Whew, we have had a very busy summer so far and it's just beginning!

The first two weeks of the summer, Lauren had what is called "Kindergarten Camp" at her school. It's a great program to get them ready for kindergarten in the fall. She was in the same classroom with the same teacher that she will have starting in August. She loved it. They only went 1/2 days so it was just enough to get her excited for school not too much that she was ready to come home when it was done!

After that, we helped our niece, Morgan Renee, celebrate her high school graduation down in Louisville, KY. That next week, we had VBS at our church...well actually this year, we called it BOBS (Big Ol' Bible Study!)...it was so much fun. We had it setup like a museum where the kids got to visit many different and really neat exhibits. I helped out by running the dramas in the theater exhibit area. Even Jason joined in on the fun as he helped me out by playing the part of "Adam" on the first day. We modeled our dramas and daily skits after the "Night at the Museum" movies so I think the kids really enjoyed it. BOBS ended on Friday, 6/11 and then on last Monday, the 14th, I left for church camp at Versailles State Park. Then Allie came down on the church bus w/ the other kiddos on Tuesday. This is the 2nd year that I have gone as a counselor and Allie has been as a camper. This particular camp is for those kids that are going to be in the 4th, 5th or 6th grade in the fall. It is, no joke, one of my all-time favorite weeks of the year. I cannot even begin to describe how much fun it is. The kids are amazing and of course, God always shows up in BIG ways so we LOVE it! There are several photos from our week at camp. Even one of our childrens' pastor dresssed up like a lady.....the girl cabins did this as a prank to him since he forgot to wear his nametag all week and that is a camp rule for EVERYONE! Of course, the kids loved seeing him do this! : ) As a camp, we all also learn memory 'work' each year....this year, we all memorized the 10 commandments, the 6 days of creation and 1 John 3:16-18. So incredible to see all of those kids put forth so much time and effort to make sure they got all of that down!

As for the rest of our summer so far.....we've been trying to keep cool with the use of the baby pool in our baby pool. You'll have to notice in one of the photos, Katelyn has a bit bigger "caboose" than normal....I had been busy and didn't realize that I put a 'regular' diaper on her instead of a swimmie diaper and we ended up with a baby with a booty! ; ) Made for some afternoon laughs! Now, I am busy unpacking and repacking as we are heading out tomorrow for our family vacation with us and G'ma and G'pa to Mackinac Island, MI for a week. Whew, busy times but so full of fun and some awesome memories being made too.....summer is wonderful and life is good!