May 24, 2009 - Family Day of Fun in Greenville

If you haven't figured it out by now we absolutely LOVE camping and biking. However,we are unable to camp EVERY weekend - so we have been trying to find fun things to do on the weekends we are home.

This particular weekend we decided to head out to find the Heartland Bike Trail near Greenville for a nice bike ride. We packed a lunch and found a cute neighborhood park in the city of Greenville to eat and play a little before finding the bike trail.

Veteran's Memorial Park
Greenville, MI

Well, we had trouble locating the trailhead for the Heartland Trail, so we stopped at a gas station and asked for directions. She gave us directions - but to the wrong trail. She sent us to the trail head of the Flat River Trail. We were not disappointed however, because it was beautiful. The entire trail ran right alongside the river. We saw many flowers and trees, and were even able to see people kayaking and canoeing down the river. It was an absolutely perfect day. (After our ride, we did drive around and finally found the Heartland Trail and hope to go back there sometime)

May 22, 2009 - Tandem, Child Style

When we first got married, Paul and I had a tandem bike and we loved to head out together for a ride. However, the kids came around and we sold it. However, lately Gabrielle has started to express interest in getting out of the bike trailer when we go for family bike rides but can't keep up with us on her own bike. Paul and I had just recently started talking about looking into a Tag-A-Along bike for her. Low and behold, our neighbor across the street was selling one at her garage sale and we picked it up. Gabrielle loves the bike and we are looking forward to using it for several years to come.

May 18, 2009 Kindergarten Visitation Day

Even though, Gabrielle's Young 5's class was considered a Kindergarten class in many ways (like field trips, etc) she will actually go to Kindergarten next year. Ravenna has an All Day Every Day Kindergarten program that was part of our decision to send her to Young 5's this year.

Each year, the school cancels class for the current Kindergarteners for a day - and next year's Kindergarteners visit their class rooms. It gives the kids a chance to see the class rooms and meet the teachers, interact with other kids and they do some activities that help the teachers assess the children's readiness for Kindergarten and make recommendations to parents if needed.

Cutting out and coloring an elephant after reading a book about the elephant with Mrs. DeBoer.

Musical numbers in Mrs. Oleson's class

Playing a name game and a shape game with Ms. Doane

May 21, 2009 - Young 5's Class Picnic

Gabrielle's class had their class picnic on a beautiful day. I had a meeting at work that evening and needed a babysitter for a few hours in the afternoon, as well as help setting up a garage sale that afternoon, so.... Grandma happy obliged to help with the babysitting and garage sale and since she was already heading out to Ravenna, she was able to join us for Gabrielle's fun day.

Gabrielle and her friend Emily having lunch

Sam and Allison thought they were pretty cool getting t have lunch with the big kids too.

One of the parents arranged for each of the kids to make a Creative Memories scrapbook page for Mrs. Carroll, their teacher. She then bound the pages into a book and they gave it to her at the picnic. They had a starter sentence on each page that the kids finished including memories they had of their school year and of their teacher. It turned out really cute and Mrs. Carroll loved her gift.

Mrs. Wagner has a double role. She not only volunteers in the library at school and did their story time each week - but she is also the grandmother of one of Gabrielle's classmates. She gladly joined the celebration and brought a few books about picnics to read to the kids on the lawn.

Sam and Allison did not want story time to end. They didn't want to leave - so Mrs. Wagner happily reached into her bag and read the 2 of them another book.

May 15-17, 2009 White River Campground
Montague, Michigan

One of the kids' favorite parts of White River is the great playground. They have a great play gym, a wooden train set, swings, and monkey bars. Then in another part of the campground, they have a few slides and a wooden bus they love to play on. In addition, they have a Noah's Ark playset near the store and pool.

I distinctly remember that last year, we were so impressed with Sam being able to climb up the gangplank walkway (lower right of the photo below). This year, that wasn't enough of a challenge for him - he needed to climb the rock wall.

A trip to the store for some ice cream and candy.

Our annual hike around the little island at the campground.

This year, we drove into Whitehall/Montague to check out the Hart-Montague Bike Trail. We were also able to check out the world's largest weathervane.

Sunday morning before we went home, Paul and Nicholas left the campground to go mountain biking at a nearby township nature center. The girls and Sam and I went for a walk/hike through the campground. We met some people who had brand new collie puppies.

A short stop for a photo op.

**In case you didn't happen to notice - Sam was on a hat kick over the weekend. His Bob the Builder hat happened to catch his eye at home that afternoon before we left, and he basically wore it the entire weekend. It was quite comical.

May 15, 2009 First Grade Spring Celebration

Every year the 1st grade class puts on an end of the year program. They make tie-dye shirts to wear and share many songs that they learned throughout the year. They have a "pledge" song that includes The Pledge of Allegiance, a song about learning to read, a song about friends and even one about imaginary friends. They were really cute.

In addition, they review many of the events of the year - and many of the students read a narrative of what they remember of that activity. Nicholas was chosen to be one of those students and shared what he wrote about "100's day" - their celebration of the 100th day of school.

May 11, 2009 - Snap Circuits Jr

As some of you know, as your children get older they start to make birthday and Christmas lists of all the things they want. Of course, we as parents realize that if we only purchase the items on our children's wish list there are many things that they may not experience. Nicholas received one such gift for his birthday this year - called Snap Circuits Jr. Upon opening the gift, Nicholas had no idea what it was - but the next day he had the opportunity to experiment.

Basically, the kit contains many different types of circuits, switches, light bulbs, speakers, motors etc. The manual gives instructions on how to build over 100 different projects such a light, a fan, a flying saucer, a speaker system and many more. It uses different types of switches to open and close the circuits. Some of the switches are sound activated or air movement activated.

Nicholas loves his new gift - and already has hopes of receiving additional Snap Circuit Kits in the future which get more complicated and teach more concepts as they go.

May 10, 2009 Nicholas Birthday, Grandpa's Birthday and Mother's Day

Well, it's hard to believe but Nicholas is has turned 7 years old. I can't believe how time flies and how things change. Sometimes I look at him and realize that he really isn't a little boy anymore and I barely realized it was happening. He is turning into a very intelligent boy. He enjoys reading, science and sometimes math. He loves to draw and write his own stories which he loves to pass on to other people especially his younger nephews. He loves to play the computer so we have to closely monitor the time he is allotted for that activity. He also loves Lego and his new birthday toy called Snap Circuits in which he can follow a blueprint to build his own working "machines". His special interest is outer space and it looks like he will have the opportunity to attend a Galaxy class this summer at the Muskegon Intermediate School District summer program called Wings.

Nicholas chose to go camping on his birthday weekend so we actually spread the activities out through the entire weekend. One of his gifts was a new scooter so we gave it to him at the beginning of the weekend so he could use it as much as possible. Then some presents at the trailer Sunday morning, followed by a few after we got home.






Because Nicholas shares his birthday with Grandpa Hager and it is usually shared by Mother's Day as well. Grandma and Grandpa graciously hosted his party this year as we would be returning from camping that afternoon. All the grandkids bought new stepping stone kits for Grandma's Mother's day gifts and because we know Grandma loves to do things with her grandkids we made the stones themselves WITH her after she opened them.

May 8-10, 2009 - Channel Park and Nicholas' Birthday

We knew we were going to have a busy weekend with Nicholas' Birthday, my dad's birthday and Mother's Day all falling on the same day. However, given the choice Nicholas still wanted to go camping. We spent a wonderful weekend at Channel Campground at Muskegon State Park. Friday night was beautiful weather - we were wearing shorts and t-shirts, however the rest of the weekend we were once again donning our winter coats and hats. What can I say other than that's May in Michigan for you.

(the following video is a bit lengthy - just to warn you up front. It was a very busy weekend at the campground and my blog posts double as my home videos for the years ahead, so I didn't want to leave anything out.)

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May 3, 2009 - Lake Side Trail in Spring Lake

There was an article in the newspaper on this morning - describing different things to do in West Michigan. A bike trail in Spring Lake caught Paul's eye. The article initially stated it was 12 miles long but when we googled the trail name to find out how to get there we found out it was only 2 miles long - but it started and stopped a local parks. We decided it was a beautiful day and too nice to stay home. We packed a picnic supper, loaded up the bikes and headed out to find the trail. The kids loved the playground, then we grilled some hot dogs for supper and headed out for a short bike ride. As expected, the trail ended at another park. On the way back, Paul spotted a small dirt bike trail which Nicholas was more than happy do a test ride on.

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May 2, 2009 - Crazy Croc Kid --Part II

Back in February I talked about Sam and his crocs. He wore them all the time including to bed.
Well, lately Sam has been into changing his clothes. He will just randomly come downstairs throughout the day with a different shirt on. He is very particular about what he will or will not wear. If he doesn't like it he will take it off. I have put him to bed for a nap wearing his clothes and he will get up wearing pajama pants.

Well - this was Sam's choice of wardrobe on this beautiful spring day....

042409-042609 - Silver Lake (JellyStone)

Our second camping trip of the season was not all we had hoped for, but nonetheless quality family time. The forecast called for scattered/isolated rain showers - not the day and a half of rain that we actually received.

We headed up to Silver Lake and stayed at Jellystone Campground - normal price is more than we would normally spend - but during the month of April they only charge $15/night. So we could hardly pass it up. Being early in the season, none of the amenities like go-carting or mini-golf are open, but we wanted to spend some time at the sand dunes anyway.

We had a beautiful evening on Friday night, spent some time checking out the dune riders and got some ice cream and went to check out the sunset on Lake Michigan. The wind had started to pick up by then, and by the time we got back to the trailer to make a fire it had started to rain. It basically rained almost the entire time until we went home on Sunday. We did take a ride Saturday afternoon up to Ludington State Park and just drove around a little and did a little shopping at Walmart.

Given the fact that we were inside most of the time: Nicholas taught Gabrielle how to play checkers, and I taught both of the kids how to play boggle. Here's a note: when you play Boggle with a 5 and 7 year old 2 letter words and phoneticly spelled words count (for them, but not you).

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041709-041909 Hoffmaster State Park

Our first camping trip of the year was a great success. We had so much fun! Some warm sun in the afternoon that allowed us to take our coats off - and no rain until after we packed up to go home on Sunday.

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April 23, 2009 - Daddy Daughter Dance

In addition to Mother/Son Bowling - it is also an annual tradition for the Daddy Daughter Dance. It is so cute seeing all the girls in the neighborhood head out to the front yard to get pictures with their dad's with everybody all dressed up. Gabrielle talked about her evening for over a month and was so excited for her night out. She was so excited to get dressed up and wear her flower headband that Grandma made especially for the event. Of course, once she got to the dance she was too shy to do any dancing. She had her punch and cake with Papa and just kind of watched from the sidelines - but she came home tickled pink about her evening away and the carnation flower she got to take home with her.