May 7-9, 2010
CranHill Ranch

The weather was not looking good for the weekend, but we had reservations and we were going to be with some great friends and the fellowship is all we really needed to make a great weekend out of it. We had wind, rain, cold temperatures and a few little snow flakes in the air ~ but we also had great company, good movies, arts & crafts, scheduled activities and a great attitude.

Oh-- and did I mention it was FREE! We got 2 free sites for the weekend because we brought friends who had never camped at the campground before.

For Mother's Day weekend, the ranch hosted a free (oh - there's that free word again)
pancake breakfast up at the lodge.
Paul does not like sausage, not a bit, so the girls were having a ton of fun teasing him to take a bite of theirs. Oh the giggles of little girls - priceless.

The ranch had many activities scheduled for the weekend -
the older 4 kids participated in archery.
They had a great time and I wouldn't be surprised if they want to try it again this summer.

What's a trip to CranHill Ranch without a "pony" ride?

For some reason, Sam is convinced that he rode a horse named 'Lucky' last year.
The ranch employees insist that they don't have a horse by that name ~ but we can't seem to convince Sam of that fact. Actually, as I write this it is almost an entire month after this trip and Sam still tells me that the next time we go to CranHill 'Lucky' will be there.

No camping trip with the Peters is complete without some great lightsaber duals.
Even Sam is learning to get in on the action.

The only thing the girls need lately is each other, but a couple of swings never hurts.

Given the state of the weather, Lyn planned ahead and brought some crafts for the kids.
One of them that was definately a hit was their pirate hats, swords and eye patches.
(The girls made necklaces, but I didn't find any good pictures of those)

Friday night, was quite windy. The wind was even worse for the Peters, they kind of blocked some of it for us. Heavy wind in a travel trailer can lead to little and interrupted sleep. We had spent a lot of time in their trailer so we called a couple of hour quiet time in the afternoon. They hung out in their trailer and we hung out in ours.

Nicholas' birthday was on Monday - so we brought one of his presents. Our self imposed quiet time was great time for him to open one of his gifts that we brought with us.
We played his new game for a while.

A hayride in the summer's sweltering heat, sitting on haystacks in your shorts isn't the same as a beautiful spring night cuddled together under some wool blankets watching a beautiful sunset.
Not to say I don't prefer the summer weather - but this hayride had a feeling of it's own.

Our attempt at a group picture to commemorate our weekend together.

Sometimes it's just NOT about the perfect shot -
it's about kids being kids and loving every minute of it.

Lyn caught this shot of Allison and I absolutely fell in love with it when she e-mailed it to me.

The kids say hello to the donkey.
Note: Tyler doesn't want the donkey to get his pop-tart.

Lyn spent several summers attending summer camp at Cran-Hill when she was young.
So - one of the things we did was climb up the steep hill to find the cabins she stayed in.
I'm glad I don't have to climb this hill every day.

Gabrielle and Sam loved walking Romeo.

The kids theme for the weekend, which we saw repeated many, many times.

All for one.....

....and one for all!

We pray they can grow up together, sharing those same sentiments along the way.
All for one, and one for all.

May 5, 2010
Preschool Field Trip

Allison's field trip was at the Grand Rapids Children's Museum. This is the first time Allison has been there since she was less than a year old. The other kids got to go on their Kindergarden field trips so we haven't made a point to go their as a family.

Allison had a great time exploring.
She loved the barn area that is currently on display.

She made a meal at the restaurant for one of her teachers, Mrs. Housler.
Mrs. Housler was being very silly as she acted like a very demanding and dissatified customer. She had Allison giggling almost the entire time.

Allison gives a puppy a bath in the vet clinic area.

Allison's favorite color is yellow, so of course,
we had to get a picture of her in the yellow bug convertible.

Allison had a great time.

**The part of the day that I found so incredibly interesting was that before she would leave an area to go explore somewhere else - she always put everything away that she had played with. She put all the crops back on the trees for others to pick, she put all the animal props away, emptied her grocery cart and put it all back on the shelves, etc. Wish she would be this way at home~ but I was happy to see that she took responsibility for her own things when she was away from home and that is an even more important lesson.

May 4, 2010
Preschool Graduation for Allison

The afternoon started off with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa. While at her school for Grandparents day a few weeks ago - Grandpa talked to Allison's teacher about doing a tool safety day through Home Depot. She was excited about the idea and they ended up scheduling it the same day as Allison's Preschool Spring Program/Graduation. Perfect - it is quite a long drive to come out for just the program but this way they hit 2 birds with one stone. The kids really enjoyed Grandpa's presentation, in fact, one of the kids wore his Home Depot apron to the program that evening.

Allison had to meet her classmates in the library before the program began.
(Note: I would not have done her hair up with her fancy headband Grandma made for Gabrielle last year, had I known they would be wearing caps for the program - so this is the only picture of have of her pretty flowers in her hair).

Lining up for the program. They sang about 6 or 7 short and cute songs and they all behaved very well.

After the program, they dismissed the class to line up against the wall for pictures and to greet their families. This is Allison and her friend Haleigh.

After greeting their families, everyone went into the cafeteria. They had a small section of the wall dedicated to each child and displayed a variety of their artwork from throughout the school year. We also were treated to ice cream sandwiches. Afterward, we were able to remove all of her artwork from the wall and take it home.

April 30-May 2, 2010
Duck Creek RV Resort

A couple of years ago they built a brand new RV park/resort right across from Michigan's Adventure. You can tell that they are catering to the people going to the amusement park but what an ideal location to be able to do that. Normally, this would be out of our price range (or at least our acceptable price range for a night of camping) but this particular weekend they had a Buy 1 Get 1 Free Special so it was actually a very cheap weekend.
The park has paved trailer pads and patios, cement fire pits, electric, water, sewer, cable TV and free WIFI. It felt sort of weird to be able to check my e-mail while sitting in my trailer , but I wasn't complaining.

From the minute we arrived at the park and started to set up the only thing the kids could talk about was going to play on the playground. We made them wait until we were all set up and then Paul got them all set and let them all run over there together.

The playground and climbing wall were definately the hit of the weekend.

It was a nice morning, so the kids got their squirt guns out and
all ended up chasing Papa around the park

It kept threatening to rain throughout the afternoon. But really never did, except for right before dinner. We had visitors at dinner time too - Kevin and Lyn Peters brought their kids up to visit which was a huge hit with our kids. However, now that I look over my pictures I realized I never got my camera out while they were there. The story of their visit ended up being quite a story to tell. They drove to the park and registered at the office. Then they were told that the visitor's fee was $3..... per person! Needless to say, they were not prepared for that. $15 for their family to visit us for dinner (it wasn't even all day). Then, to top it off they didn't even let them drop their stuff off at our trailer - they had to park in the visitor lot at the front of the park and walk all of their stuff all the way to the back of the park to our site. It became a topic of many laughs throughout the evening and we had a great time of fellowship together, complete with a campfire and s'mores. At one point during the evening we saw a gorgeous double rainbow.

It rained quite a bit during the night - so in the morning we got out some games.
The hit of the year, when we are stuck inside, is Papa's new collection of lego games.
Gabrielle is a great one to help Sam be able to play along.

April 28, 2010
St. Jude's Children's Hospital Trike-A-Thon

Allison's Preschool did a fundraiser for St Jude's Children's Hospital. The program combines bike safety rules such a wearing your helmet, watching for cars, etc with a culmination of a Trike-A-Thon. The kids got pledges to raise money for the Children's Hospital and then they rode there bike around the circle track at school for 30 minutes.

About 15-20 minutes into the ride, I asked Allison if she wanted to rest (she is usually the whiny one who is "sooooooo tired"), her teacher said it was OK for them to rest~ the didn't have to ride the entire time. But Allison, just smiled at me and said "Nope, I'm OK, I want to keep pedalling", and so she did for 30 minutes without stopping. I'm so proud of her.

Listening to Ms. Dobbs after the trike-a-thon was completed.

What a big girl, she raised enough money for a t-shirt. We just hope they arrive before school gets out for the summer - otherwise she will have to wait until fall.

April 24, 2010
Birthday Party Time
Double Trouble

We had the opportunity to celebrate 2 wonderful boys at one time. Matthew and Joshua's birthdays are so close together that a big double party was planned.
We had a great time celebrating their birthdays with them.

I couldn't resist sharing this great picture of caught of Aiden.

The traditional group picture attempt. It was a little bit easier without the littlest two boys -
but regardless of their absence getting multiple children to all look at the camera at the same time proves quite difficult.

Gabrielle and Allison loved some cuddle time with Grandma while the boys opened their gifts.

Sam, not being afraid of anyone, decided that Joshua's Uncle Phil had a very comfortable lap.
Thanks for being great with the kids "Uncle Phil".

Joshua got a new sleeping bag from Grandma and Grandpa and of course, he needed to try it out right away. He was a very happy guy checking out his new digs for the upcoming camping season in their new trailer.

Joshua opens our gift - a personalized messenger bag filled with goodies to help him stay busy en-route to their camping adventures.

Apparently, Sam decided to play musical laps today. From Uncle Phil to Grandpa.
Don't they look striking in their orange outfits today?

Matthew got a new car from Grandma and Grandpa.
Hope he has as much fun in it as Sam had in his.

Matthew checks out the gift from us.
Hearing that Matthew didn't really need any more toys for this age, we headed to the book store and picked out some books that our kids enjoyed to ad to his own library collection.

This is one little boy, who was loving his cake.

April 22, 2010
Father/Daughter Dance

Allison was so excited to be able to go to the father/daughter dance this year.
It was a beautiful evening and we were able to take pictures outside.
The girls got all dressed up in the Easter dresses and they got to wear make-up and lip gloss for the special occasion.

Papa and his girls

To make things extra special for her first ever father/daughter dance - Allison won the first door prize of the evening. Of course, she didn't know it right away. Part way through the evening I got a call from the school secretary telling me that Allison won a prize, did we want to come get it tonight or tomorrow? I said "just send it home with Paul" - and she replied that they weren't there anymore. I was quite surprised that they had left already. But they didn't come home after 10 minutes. Then the phone rang again, and it was the secretary letting me know that she found them, they had been getting cake in the cafeteria and apparently didn't hear her name called.
Allison won this wonderful balloon bouquet.

April 21, 2010

Grandparents Day at Preschool

Allison couldn't wait for Grandparents Day.
She was so excited for them to come see her school
and her friends and meet her teacher.

Sam had to get in on the picture taking too.