February 22, 2009
Three Down - One to Go...

We don't put much pressure on our kids to be potty trained at night. We figure they will eventually out grow it. However, once they start to have occasional dry nights we have a traditional goal that we set with them. When they wake up with a dry pull-up for 7 nights in a row then they get to spend the cost of a package of pull-ups on a toy of their choice. Then, they start going to bed in underwear and we don't buy pull-ups anymore.

Allison achieved success....and as promised, we took her to Toys R Us to pick her toy. My girls are into Snap N Style dolls - which are similar to a Polly Pocket but are made for little girls (bigger parts and pieces). My girls were both thrilled to find that they now have Snap N Style Pets. So... Allison picked Co-Co the dog, complete with doggy dish, doggy bed, hair brush and two outfits.

Way to Go Allison!
(only one left in diapers, and we're working on that one)

February 19, 2009 - Beach Day and Luau Family Night!

Each year at the kids' school they fill the winter with special days, like beach day, pajama day, pirate day, etc. This was beach day at school, following by Luau Family Night at the school. They have carnival games for the kids and pizza and pop for the families to have dinner. The kids had a great time wearing summer clothes during the day and playing the games at night.

Throw the golf ball in the bucket.

Waiting in line for the bean bag toss

Fish Pond

The kids also got entered in the door prize raffle. They announce the winners the following day at school when all the kids are there. Unbelievably - both Nicholas and Gabrielle came home with door prizes the next day. I couldn't believe it and they were very excited to have their names drawn out of all those kids.

February 18, 2009 Crazy Croc Kid

A couple of weeks ago the girls got new crocs for next summer that Grandma found on clearance. Well - Sam the boy who wouldn't go anywhere last summer without his crocs got a "tad bit" upset, if you can call it that. Trying to figure out how to resolve this issue, I remembered that he is wearing about the same size shoe as Allison wore last summer. Allison had both a pink pair and a red, white and blue pair last year. Being that red, white and blue can be gender neutral I headed to garage to look for them. When found, Sam was thrilled.
A little too thrilled shall we say, this is how he goes to bed now...

He wears his crocs all the time....including to bed!!!

February 13-14, 2009 Trip to Chicago

The long awaited time finally arrived and we were off to Legoland. We rigged up a way for the kids to watch movies on my laptop on the way down and that pacified them for a while - but the last hour or so was still getting to be a bit much. They are not used to be in the car that long and we were trying to put off lunch until we got there.

Once we arrived in Schaumburg, IL we stopped for lunch and Wendy's - only to have our mini-vacation begin with Allison getting sick in the restaurant. It's one thing to clean up after a sick child at home, but having it happen in a public place where others were trying to eat doesn't bode well. Paul took her out to the car and we weren't quite sure what to do next. However, she quickly recovered and we feel she was just suffering from a bit of motion sickness.

We arrived at Legoland to find that the Dragon Ride that the kids had been talking about for weeks was closed for "remodeling". BUMMER! They quickly got over it and we ventured into MiniLand. We had a great time at Legoland. It wasn't quite what we were expecting - a few disappointments here and there but we had a lot of fun.

After spending about 3 hours at Legoland we headed to the hotel and check in. Then we let the kids go swimming and headed off to dinner before the Friday night crowds on Valentine's weekend began. Our hotel was only 5 minutes from Legoland and we could see Woodfield Mall from our window.

Once we got back to the hotel and settled in for the night - the real adventure began. Sam refused to go to sleep and I was quickly wishing for a dose of Benadryl. Every time he started to nod off, he would pop up and say he wanted to sleep with Papa. (Papa was sleeping with Nicholas -closest to the door, the girls were together and I was with Sam). He would walk over there, say 'Hi' to Paul and come back to my bed. We watched Baby Einstein's about 3 times hoping he would finally nod off, but the more tired he got, he started asking to go home. Over and over again -- "home". He wanted nothing to do with this hotel room that had seemed so fun in the afternoon. I finally got him to fall asleep around 11pm (our time) after Paul came and layed in our bed with us. However, Sam woke up around 1:30am and got out of bed, walked over to the window and started repeating "home, home". Thankfully, when I brought him back to bed he did fall back to sleep and slept until 6:30am. Needless to say, he was pretty cranky the rest of the day. We did beat the crowds for breakfast downstairs, but we had to keep distracting Sam until the mall opened at 10:00am - as he was still fixated on going home and not wanting to be in this hotel room anymore.

Once we finally made it to the mall, we waiting a few minutes for Build-A-Bear to open. The kids had a great time building their stuffed animals, picking out clothes, and printing out their birth certificates.

We made a quick stop at the Disney Store and then headed to the Lego store in the mall. This Lego store had a lot more inventory than Legoland and we finally found the girl lego the girls had been hoping for.

After some more Lego purchases, we headed to Rainforest Cafe' for lunch - only to be disappointed as the wait was already more than 30 minutes and these kids were not going to make it. So, we got snacks, loaded up and headed home - stopping for lunch in Michigan City.

We had a great time in Legoland and at Build A Bear and the kids will be talking about it for quite some time.

Click To Play
This video clip is a bit lengthy, as there was so much to include and the video I'm posting also serves as our "home video" for the kids to remember their trip by.

February 11, 2009 From Fits to Fun!

Wednesday morning started out normal. I got Nicholas off to school in the morning and watched him walk to the bus stop as I always do. Well, before he got all the way down there one of the neighbors let us know there was a 2 hour delay due to fog. (I normally do not have the news on in the morning and had no idea it was foggy). So, Nicholas came home - perfectly content to wait the 2 hours to go to school. It was a big day for him at school they were having special celebrations in the morning to celebrate the 100th day of school and then Valentine's Parties in the afternoon AND Grandma was going to babysit so I could be in his class ALL DAY long.

However, the joy did not last long as we found out about an hour later than school was CLOSED for the day. Someone had punctured all the tires on all the buses and they would not be able to get them up on running on time.

Several minutes of true crocodile tears were to follow by both Nicholas and Gabrielle. They had been waiting for this special day for a long time.

The day was redeemed however by a trip to the book fair at school before they closed it up followed by a visit from Grandma (even though she didn't need to babysit). We made it a special day with heart shaped homemade pizzas and heart shaped rice krispie treats. They ended up having a great day.

Sam had to use the teddy cookie cutter for his pizza.
He continued to go into the drawer for his "teddy" even a day later.

Grandma helps them cut and shape the dough. Gabrielle spreads the pizza sauce.

Nicholas made a dinosaur and a rocket - and Allison made a bell.

One of the finished products.

Enjoying their creations.

Heart Shaped Rice Krispie treats - they used baggies to keep
their hands from sticking.

Adding Sprinkles

After using the baggies to make their special treat -
Sam walked around with his baggie for about 30 minutes.
He had to carry his Rice Krispy treat in his bag.

What a great day it turned out to be - we are yet to find out if their Valentine Parties will be rescheduled. Thanks for coming out Grandma - you really saved the day!

February 10, 2009 Great Conferences!

Tonight I had conferences for Nicholas and Gabrielle. I was a proud mama.

Gabrielle is "mastering" all of the skills expected of her and I have been told that she is going have no trouble at all transitioning into Kindergarten. She helps her fellow students and is not afraid to try anything. The "not afraid to try anything" is a change from the beginning of the year and show me that she is maturing. It also affirms to me that we made the right decision in sending her to Young 5's this year rather than jumping straight into Kindergarten.

On a sad note, her teacher indicated that right now it looks like funding may be lost to support a Young 5's program in the future. We had planned on sending Allison to this program in 2 years. If I had known the program might not exist we would have made a different decision and sent her to 3 year old preschool this year. We'll have to see how this plays out.

Nicholas is also doing very well. He is particularly excelling in both math and reading and his teacher asked my permission to put him in a GIFTED program for these two subjects. They have about 6 kids in the first grade that they would like to spend in this program. The program involves being pulled out of class 2 days a week for math and 2 days a week for reading. He will be enrolled in both programs. (where some of the students will only be pulled out for one or the other). I was very proud of him, but also glad to hear that the teachers and school are sensitive to the needs of each child and realize when some of the kids need to be a little more challenged. It is important to me that he stay challenged because I believe his study habits are forming now and if everything comes too easily right now, I am afraid he will not have formed the study habits he needs when things start to get more difficult.

I love both of their teachers and had an excellent time hearing that both of our children are doing well.

February 9, 2008 - "A Terror in the middle of the night!"

No I'm not talking about a scary event, or even a child's nightmare. Anyone who knows Sam realizes why he can be referred to as a little terror....

(O.K> rewind >Sam got a great big Tonka dump truck from his aunts and uncles for his birthday. He LOVES to put things in it and tear around the house pushing it. )

Now fast forward>> Sam has been fighting a bad cold and cough and has been sleeping ALOT. Yesterday he took a 4 1/2 hour nap but still went to bed without a problem at night. However, he apparently woke up at 1:30 in the morning, and came downstairs. Paul and I are sound asleep and all of the sudden you hear the pitter patter of little feet and whir of dump truck wheels...

Sam had come downstairs, lovingly placed his blankets in the bed of the dump truck and came tearing into our room pushing it. What a rude awakening!

Thankfully, he was very cooperative about going back to bed and we didn't hear from him the rest of the night.

I obviously did not have my camera out at 1:30am, but here is some footage of Sam when he first got his dump truck at his birthday party.

February 7, 2009 - Sickness, Sickness go away ----

So this week has been full of colds and fevers in the Van Wesep house. The kids have been struggling with colds for the most part, but up and down fevers have been thrown into the mix to make things unpredictable and very difficult to plan what was going on.

In the middle of the night, Sam coughed so hard that he threw up. Well, I think it was about 2 am. So I picked him up, changed his clothes and brought him downstairs and put him in our bed with Paul. I then went up, stripped the bed and brought it into the basement and started a load of laundry. At this point, I just wanted to go back to bed and did not really wish to put the clean sheets on so we just left Sam sleep in our bed.

Once the other kids started to get up, Paul got out of bed and Allison climbed in. This is the sight I saw when I got out of bed as well.



So on that note..... how many parents out there have had that moment when you wish your child/children could just put themselves to bed??


Well, tonight we had that such event. Since Sam has been feeling under the weather the past few days he has actually been asking to take a "napper". To which we willingly obliged. However, tonight we were watching a movie as a family and all of the sudden he just picked up his blankie and teddy and left the room. After a couple of minutes I asked Paul where Sam went, and he thought he may have mumbled "napper" as he left the room. So upon investigating I found my 2 year old son having put himself to bed. Apparently, he was tired....

Speaking of tired....

The other day, I went to tuck the kids in before we went to bed. I couldn't find Sam, but I could hear him breathing. After about 30 seconds or so of investigating I found him.... sound asleep UNDER Nicholas's bed. Silly kid!

January 24-25, 2009

Sam turned 2 on January 25. Can you believe it? I can't! We had his birthday party on Saturday, but unfortunately Uncle Cory, Aunt Catherine and Joshua couldn't make it because Joshua was sick. We had a small crowd but had a good time anyway.

Here is Sam helping to bake his birthday cake.

The finished product

I don't know what it was about it - but Sam was totally convinced that he had to open the big gift from Grandma first. When we told him it was time to open gifts he jumped to the bottom of the pile to get that one. He didn't want anything to do with anything else until after that one.

Happy Birthday Sam!

Punching balloons for all the kids! They are always a hit!

The next day was Sam's actual birthday - so he got to open more presents that we gave him.

The biggest hit was the new Car Wash Lightning McQueen Tent that Paul bought him

Complete with Lightning McQueen sleeping bag that Grandma gave him the night before and every home needs a phone right? So we have a new Elmo Cell Phone to talk on.

I have been watching for new beds for the girls for quite some time. Allison was outgrowing her toddler bed. I finally found some I liked that matched their dressers. So, Sunday afternoon we began the huge tasks of switching all the beds around. Gabrielle had been sleeping on the other portion of Nicholas's bunk beds....so we needed to move that back into the boys room to put up her new bed. We didn't want to put the bunk beds back together because I didn't want Sam crawling up their all the time. So on his 2nd birthday Sam also got his first BIG BOY bed (he's been in a toddler bed for 6 months or so) He adjusted to it very well and didn't give us a hard time about it at all. For the first time, in 6 1/2 years we don't have any cribs OR toddler beds in our house.

Sam's new Big Boy Bed

Nicholas got new bedding for his bed.
Everyone else was getting a new bed, so we wanted him to feel included too.
Wall-E
(I surprised him with it so he was super excited and could hardly
wait for me to finish washing the sheets and put them on).

Gabrielle's new bed. There are 3 storage drawers underneath.
She had gotten the comforter for her birthday.

Allison's new bed and new comforter set.

And of course, the car wash had to go into the boys room.

December 24, 2008 Christmas Eve 2008

After a very snowy trip to the grocery store in the morning, I returned to find some very anxious children. They know we usually open their stockings a little bit at a time throughout the day and they had been waiting patiently.

Their first present was one I hadn't wrapped - GIANT COLORING BOOKS and crayons. What I didn't realize when I bought them was they were actually GIANT MURALS. What a perfect gift to have given them - it kept the older two occupied for 2-3 hours. WOW!.

They also each got a book, a small toy (Nicholas got a small lego set, the girls got mini my little ponies, and Sam got matchbox cars), and a few pieces of candy and candy canes.

After dinner, they exchanged the gifts they had purchased for each other (they drew names).

Christmas is getting more fun every year, as the kids get older and more understanding of what is going on.

December 20, 2008 - Hager Christmas 2008

As is tradition, the Hager family celebrated Christmas together the Saturday before Christmas. It seems to work well this way, as no one has other commitments that day and come ready for our traditional feast of ham, Christmas Bread, and mom's infamous Pretzel Dessert - a hit for many.

After dinner, we opened gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. Everyone had a lot of fun and enjoyed their gifts as well as each other's company.

Dec 6-7, 2008 Winter and Holiday Fun
I decided to take a break from re-living our summer time memories to post a few more current, festive and timely adventures of the season. I figure there will be plenty of blah, cold days this winter when remembering summer activities will be a welcome escape.

Here are some pictures of the kids playing in the snow, decorating the Van Wesep Christmas Tree and our attempts at getting some good Christmas Portraits. Put it this way - the picture below is the best "group" picture we were able to get. To put it bluntly - you won't be seeing a group picture on our Christmas Card this year.

Click To Play

See Sam Sit! ....OR NOT!
August 15 and 20, 2008

Sam kept stealing Allison's saucer chair and making her quite angry. He apparently liked having "a seat of his own". So, I thought I would bring up Nicholas' old rocking chair. (This rocking chair used to be his cousin Micah's and maybe even a generation before that and was recovered by his Grandpa and Grandma Van Wesep and given to Nicholas as a gift when he was younger.) Initially, Sam thought this was great as he loves to "rock, rock". Well, apparently this old rocking chair is not equipped to handle Sam's rocking as you can see below.



A couple of days later, I went to get something out of the freezer and Sam refused to let me close the door. This is why.... he needed a place to sit to drink his juice. The desire to drink his juice in the freezer lasted for about a week, before he moved onto something else.

August 8-11, 2008
River Farm Campground

We thought it would be fun to camp near Pentwater. We could visit Uncle Bruce and Aunt Judy, take a day trip down to Silver Lake and another possible day trip up to Ludington. Because these were both locations we wanted to spend time at and camping sites are either hard to find or expensive in the actual areas themselves- we found this nice little campground just outside Pentwater.

What we didn't anticipate happening was the breakdown of our vehicle in route. Thankfully, mom and dad had arrived earlier in the afternoon and were completely set up. I was able to call them to come retrieve myself, the kids and the trailer from the side of the freeway. Paul stayed with the vehicle. Graciously, Aunt Judy (and a visiting Aunt Nancy) rode over the Hart to pick him up at the garage and bring him back to the campground.

The loss of our vehicle - also meant the loss of our ability to do the day trips we had planned. Our suburban was an 8 passenger, where the Durango is only a 7 passenger. We did manage to squeeze an adult between two car seats a couple of times to drive as far as Pentwater for some shopping and some mini-golf at Hill and Hollow.

We were pleasantly surprised and how busy we were able to stay at the campground. It was very small and the main part of the playground was the swings. I don't think my kids have spent that much time on a swingset their entire life. (thankfully there were 4 swings). They had several games available for campers to use free of charge so we played the washer game, etc. We hiked. Paul and Nicholas did some mountain biking at a nearby trail, and the catch and release fishing pond was a great opportunity for the kids to catch their first fish EVER.

We will most likely make a return visit to River Farm next year - and hopefully get our day trips in as well.

August 3, 2008
A Day At the Beach

We decided that with all of the camping we had been doing, we hadn't had the opportunity to do very many "day" trips during the summer. We were home for this particular weekend and the weather was supposed to be gorgeous. We decided to head to the beach after church. Given the fact, that the kids would be all dressed up I thought it would be fun to get some pictures of the kids on the beach.

Unfortunately, the sun was bright and hot. The kids were doing a lot of squinting in the sun, and they were unhappy with how hot the sand was, so the photo session didn't last long. I did manage to get some good, some interesting, and some crazy shots.

After changing our clothes, we had a picnic lunch and headed back to the beach for some swimming fun.

Click To Play

July 25 - 27, 2008
Cran Hill Ranch Park II

Well, after much searching for our next family/extended family adventure we decided that CranHill was the place to be. Lots to do, and a great cottage for Aunt Barb's crew to be able to join the festivities. As usual, we had a great time together.

This time, we purchased an Buckaroo Package (at least that is what my memory recalls it being called). The package included a pony ride, 2 ice cream cones, free water activity rentals, and a tie-dyed t-shirt. The kids loved the experience and it was great to have the additional activites to make things different than when we were here over the 4th of July.

Gabrielle and Allison really enjoyed having "the girls": Tori and Lexi there to play with. (the twins are only 2 days older than Gabrielle).

We went on a hike with all the kids, rented row boats and kayaks (which I didn't get any pictures of) and all of the kids rode a pony. Nicholas wasn't all that interested in the pony ride, so he did the first lap and generously let Sam take the other, as Sam LOVED THE HORSES.

It was also Christmas in July - so the Grandma's all got together and spoiled the kids with little presents each day.

Click To Play

July 23, 2008 First Haircuts

Despite my affinity for Sam's super cute baby curls, he was starting to look a bit more "surfer dude" than needed. So it was decided that he needed his first haircut. All of the other kids have needed to have their bangs cut by his age, but Sam's hair seemed to be growing much more in the back than in the front. I had yet to take a scissors to his hair at all.

Allison has had her bangs trimmed many times, but the bulk of her hair has never been touched.

So...it was 2 first haircuts in one.

My neighbor cuts hair at a beauty salon here in Ravenna, so I gave her a call and she graciously agreed to come by one morning and give Sam, Allison and Gabrielle all a haircut right here at the house. It was so convenient to have them in their own surroundings and be able to keep them busy while they waited for their turn.

July 12, 2008 - Allison's Birthday Party
July 14, 2008 - Allison's Birthday

Allison had a great birthday. The theme was Little Einsteins and she was very excited about her party.

To explain part of the footage in the video below - we kept hearing this weird noise the night before. We thought that there was something wrong with our air conditioner - it actually sounded like there was a bird inside it (which we knew could not be true). Once people started to arrive for the party, the concensus was that it sounded like a frog. Lo, and behold - Uncle Cory and Aunt Catherine found a frog trapped between the sill and the air conditioner. They used something to coak the frog out and everybody had fun checking out the frog for a while.
(The weirdest thing is - the same thing happened a week later, except it was in the boys room on the 2nd floor! In the process of trying to coax the frog out that time, Paul watched the frog squeeze itself INTO the air conditioner itself. So at 9:00 at night, Paul was taking the air conditioner out of the window because he was afraid the frog would get into the house. ).

Click To Play

OUCH!

I realize that this will make my posts "out of order" because I am so far behind in my posts. However, this was the easiest way to share my experience this morning. (I'll probably re-post later when I get back in chronological order).

So.... Sam is at this phase in life where he knows what he wants but can't communicate it. All those of us with kids have been there. He had one of those moments this morning and proceeded to go into one of those "terrible two" tantrums because of it. He headed from the kitchen into the living room on a mission of misery (as far as he was concerned). I was in the kitchen so I have no idea what happened next, but the next thing I know he was screaming on his stomach on the floor and all I can see is his hand covered in blood.

Sam seems to get nosebleeds fairly easy when bumping his nose, so I thought it was another nosebleed. So, I went over to pick him up and when I turned him around I realized it was definately NOT his nose. His forehead was covered in blood and his head and hands were dripping everywhere (especially all over his pants). So, I rushed him into the kitchen to start cleaning up and am afraid to look at what is underneath. I finally, get up the nerve and take a peek and notice it is not a very large cut at all. It was probably about the size of a pencil eraser but it was shaped like an upside down 'v'. The more I cleaned it up the more I realized that it might not lay very well to heal on it's own, and the longer I waited the deeper it looked. So now I need to make that dreaded decision - does this need stitches or am I just "throwing the panic button".

Not wanting to make a wrong decision, I called ahead and headed with Gabrielle, Allison and Sam to my office. (One of the perks of working in a dermatologists office right?). All the way there, I am praying that he doesn't need stitches, but at the same time hoping that they don't think I'm foolish for thinking that he might.

The minute I took the band-aid off for the nurse, she knew instantly that he needed stitches. So the false alarm aspect of the trip is now gone, but now I have to deal with the process of having my 20 month old get stitches.

He handled the numbing procedure quite well, the nurses were actually quite impressed. He fought the fact that he needed to lay down, but really only grunted during the injection process and I think they gave him 4 or 5 shots. The suturing process was a whole other story. They had to put a drape over his face which he didn't like at all. My friend Paulita, had to hold his head in place while I held his arms. I practically had to lay across him body to hold him still. He fought, and cried and screamed almost the whole time. Then, to top it off, the edges were jagged and wouldn't make a good scar - so they had to surgically modify the cut to make the edges more even and get a better looking result. They took a 'v' shaped cut and turned into a longer cut, shaped like a crescent moon.

So...when all was said and done he had 6 stitches on his forehead and nice bandage as a battle scar. The minute he was able to sit up, he settled right down without even a whimper. He got 2 suckers as a reward, as well as a "Chicken Little" balloon (as the girls have been calling it), made by dear sweet Paulita by blowing up a surgical glove like a balloon and drawing a face on it.

I guess we can be grateful that we have been parents for 6 1/2 years and this is the first instance of stitches in any of the kids.

July 3 - 6, 2008 Fourth of July at CranHill Ranch

For years Mom and Dad's church has had their campout at CranHill Ranch every year, but we have never camped their as a family. What a blast we had!
Mom and Dad went out with us on Thursday night. So....we spent all day on the 4th of July at the campground. They kids got to decorate their bikes and ride in a parade behind a big fire truck that was spraying water everywhere. The staff had painted some of the horses to look like "My Little Ponies" which the girls loved.

Friday afternoon, after holiday activities in town, Cory, Catherine, Joshua, Shawn, Erin, and Owen all came out in their trailers. This is first extended period of time that the kids have been able to play together. Normally, it is just the few hours here and there when we get together for birthdays and holidays. The boys formed their own little "Boys Club". They would tell secrets on the playground, built their own pretend campfires and just plain ran and chased each other. They really melded together and had a great time "being boys".

The kids got to go on pony rides, pet rabbits, see the horses, go swimming, and many other things. The campground was full of things to do, including a hike into the back woods to get water from a fresh water spring.

Thanks CranHill for a great weekend of family fun.
Click to Play

June 27 - 28, 2008
Stony Haven Campground

Again, in our quest to find new places to camp, we tried a new campground. We found it on-line and in the Campground Directory. The campground was small and basic. They had a few seasonals and some very nice cabins that you can rent. However, for us - it was just not our style. We sort of felt like we were camping in someone's backyard. The lake access was not within walking distance - we had to drive. The playground was fun, but there just wasn't a lot to occupy our time.

The weekend, however, was a complete success. Since the campground didn't have a lot to offer, we used it as "home base" and headed up to Silver Lake for a day. That was a GREAT time. We will definately return to that area in the future - but will probably try to find a different place to camp.

June 23, 2008 - Fun In the Sun

It was supposed to be a warm day, so I went out first thing in the morning and filled both of the pools with water. I figured it wouldn't take long for the water to warm up enough for the kids to have fun in the afternoon. I had set up the small pool for Sam because he still has a little trouble getting in and out of the big pool. What I didn't expect was that the baby pool was going to be the star of the show that day.

(In case you're wondering as you watch, Nicholas was grounded from swimming that day - can't remember why, but that is why he is not involved and can be seen fully clothed in a few of the shots)

June 12 - 15, 2008
Diamond Lake Campground

Well, we set out this year to try some new campgrounds. We wanted to experience more things and see what else was out there. Our first try at White River was a success, so the next new campground on our agenda was Diamond Lake Campground.

Diamond Lake was formerly owned by Steelcase and was run as a private campground for their employees for many years. Newaygo County recently took it over and it is open to the public. It looked like a nice little campground on a small lake where the kids could swim.

Well, needless to say we had a great time, but we probably won't return. The playground was very old and we weren't really comfortable letting the kids play on it. The roads were paved but quite hilly so it wasn't great for the kids to ride their bikes. If you camped in the back section I think you would get carries away by the mosquitos. We were in the middle section which was basically a small field with campsites on both outside edges and a bathhouse on the back edge. The one nice thing was that we were alone the first day and the kids basically had free reign of the entire field area, to play, ride bikes down the hill behind our trailer, catch butterflies etc.

The kids enjoyed the swimming and were able to build a few sandcastles in the sand. We took an afternoon to drive over to Newaygo State Park for some hiking along the river and to see the Croton Hardy Dam. We stopped at another Newaygo County Park called Sandy Beach to check it out, as some friends of ours recommended it. We had lunch there along the river, and then the kids played on the playground for a little while.

I must admit, that even though the accomodations of the campground weren't that grand, we had a great time together.

May 30, 2008 - June 3, 2008 White River Campground

We had so much fun at our last trip to White River, that we went back a couple of weeks later with Grandma and Grandpa. The pool was open this time and we discovered a nature preserve just down the road. It was a great place. There were several different trails and they were open to both hiking and bicycling. The first time we went with Grandma and Grandpa and took a nice hike. Then after Grandma and Grandpa left on Monday we went back. The girls, Sam and myself went hiking and Paul and Nicholas headed off on their bikes. We had such a great time.

We also saw lots of animals. We saw many large turtles that came up out of the river to lay their eggs, and we found a baby turtle waking along the road one morning. We also saw a snake in the water, several frogs, some baby birds up in their nest in the tree, a raccoon running into the woods and got the oppourtunity to catch many moths and butterflies.

White River Campground will definately be on our list for spring camping again next year.

May 31, 2008 - A movie producer in our midst???

I just couldn't resist posting this. I am currently working on a slide show presentation of our recent camping trip with Grandma and Grandpa. Because of all the camping we have been doing and add that to the fact that both Paul and I work from home every night it takes me a while to get things together and actually post. Anyway, I downloaded the pictures off the memory card of our camera several weeks ago, but I hadn't really looked at the pictures we ended up with until last night.

Nicholas and Gabrielle have started to show some interest in using our camera. We have been letting them use our very first digital camera to fool around with. However, Nicholas has been allowed to use our good one a few times. So, while going through the pictures and videos last night to pick the ones I wanted to use for the slide show I ran across this video that Nicholas took. I had no idea he had done this. I laughed so hard, I had tears running down my face. Perhaps you will not find the video as humorous as I did - but I had to share it anyway.
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May 26, 2008 - Memorial Day
Trip to Hoffmaster State Park
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Believe it or not - we actually did NOT go camping over the Holiday weekend. We stayed home and had a successful garage sale. Enough money to pay for next weekend's camping.

Since we stayed home we decided to have a picnic supper on Monday night, to add a little fun to the weekend. We drove over to Hoffmaster State Park and took the kids into the Visitor Center there, went on a hike and then found a quiet spot for supper.