August 20, 2010 Cran Hill Ranch continued

Today, the kids were signed up for riflery. Nicholas, Gabrielle and Allison were set to participate. We thought Sam was a little young. However, we should have known better than that given the fact that Sam is Sam. The kids were to shoot 2 rounds of 6 shots each. After the first shot of round 1, Nicholas decided he didn't like it and let Sam finish the round. Nicholas tried again for round 2, but again after the first shot let Sam finish.

Sam loved it.

Nicholas gives it another try.

Paul helps Allison.

After finishing her turn Allison put up her left hand and said "Target".
Puts up her right hand and says "gun".
Then moves the gun hand into the target hand and says "Pow"
It was so cute.

Gabrielle and mom tried together.

If I recall correctly Gabrielle and I hit the target
3 or 4 times and she was proud as punch.

Allison and her target.

Later that day, Pony rides were on the agenda.
Nicholas chose not to ride - but the other 3 had a great time.

After a busy morning of activity, we hit the beach.
The floating dock is one of the kids favorite parts of CranHill.
This year, every single one of the kids were jumping off.

Allison jumps toward Dad.

Sam jumped over and over again. At one point he was yelling
"Yippee, Yi, Ki Yeah Mama Sita!" everytime he would jump.
Don't know where he got that from, but it was really funny.

Gabrielle's cannonball.

In addition, to swmming and jumping off the dock.
Uncle Shawn got the boat out and let the kids all do some
EZ Ski Trainer.

The evening was topped off with the annual creation of our
Cran Hill Ranch Tie-Dyed shirts.

After a little help with the folding portion of the shirt,
Nicholas did most of his shirt completely independently this year.

Grandma helped Sam with his shirt this year.
When they were showing the sample shirts,
he knew exactly which one he wanted to copy.

Gabrielle worked with Dad,
but did most of it herself as well.

Allison's masterpiece was created with the
assistance of Aunt Shinny.

August 19, 2010
Cran Hill Ranch

Wow, what an adventure. We had 8 campsites full of extended family on my mom's side. At one point in the weekend we had 16 kids (I think) and I am pretty sure the oldest one was Nicholas who is 8 years old. It was 3 full days of jam packed fun. I will admit that this isn't one of our cheapest vacations of the year, but we plan ahead in anticipation of all the extra activities they have available. I am fully committed to let the kids experience as many new activities as they feel they want to try. I love to see their sense of accomplishment when completing it - or even just their determination to try. It is such a great opportunity to help them gain self confidence, or at least teach them that trying is half the battle - a lesson we all need to learn throughout our lives.

The first day was not so heavily packed with organized activities so we took the opportunity to take all of the kids on our traditional hike up to the fresh water spring to fill our water bottles with cool refreshing water right from the ground.

McKenna and Matea are wagon mates.

Matthew commandeered our bike trailer for the trip.
Even though he wasn't walking like the big kids - he still needed a walking stick like them.

Off on our hike.

Cute in her hiking hat.

That water takes so good after hiking up the big hill.

Mother and Daughter
My cousin Stacy and her daughter McKenna heading back to our campsites.

On the way back to camp we stopped to check out some of the animals.

The afternoon was spent at the beach. The kids found that someone before them had begun to dig a big ditch in the sand - so there mission was to try to block it off to make a great big puddle.

Then cousin Steve started burying a few kids in the sand.

Our campsites were right across the street from a fort playground, which is where the kids spent most of their time. However, on this particular evening we walked over to the playground at the other campground loop. Many of the kids loved climbing on the old tractor they have there.

Aiden enjoying some freedom from his stroller - it's great to crawl around a while when you've been cooped up.

August 15, 2010
A Mini Trip To Gun Lake

As it would happen, as it did a lot of times this summer, we came home from camping on an absolutely beautiful summer day. It was so hard to get all unpacked and then have nothing to do for the rest of the nice day. Today, however, I teasingly called my mom and asked her where we were going for a picnic. Little did I know that they were actually talking about taking the boat out for the evening. Paul really had to build some bike wheels, but it was just too gorgeous of a night for me to make the kids sit home when an opportunity for summer fun was in the works. So - even though we had just driven north on 131 from the Battle Creek area - I loaded the kids in the car and headed back south on 131 to Gun Lake to meet my parents and brothers & families for a night of fun on the boat.

Aiden checking out the water.

Cory and Catherine had recently gotten a great deal on a EZ Ski Trainer. It has a ski skimmer type of bottom with water ski bindings attached. It has a seat, if needed, and a tow rope attached to the tube. It is very stable even when it is not moving, as you can see by Matthew trying it out in the swimming area before we attached it to the boat.

Joshua had tried the ski trainer the weekend before at a relatives cottage - so he went first to show the other kids how it was done.

Owen went next.

Then Nicholas -

- he was bound and determined to go backwards like Joshua had done.
What a trickster.

Gabrielle stood up before the boat even started moving and was bound and determined to stay standing the entire time. She never sat down, not even once.

Allison and her little princess type, one handed move.

...and then there is Sam the 3 year old boy wonder. It was very important to him to have his hand up in the air like the big kids. He rode much of the way around the lake like this.

This was one particular purchase that was definitely worth every penny they paid for it. I foresee a lot of ski trainer hours in our future. It was actually kind of funny - other boaters kept watching the kids, and there was a group of teenagers in the swimming area that kept cheering the kids on. I think it was the uniqueness of the ski trainer that put every one in awe of their achievements.

August 12-15, 2010
Fort Custer State Park

In the words of my husband, "this may very well be my favorite state park yet".
Fort Custer is made up of 2 large loops of camp sites that for the most part are large and spread apart allowing for privacy. The lake was beautiful. It is a no wake lake surrounded by beautiful trees, the water was warm, clean and clear. The park also contains over 25 miles of mountain bike trails to explore.

The downfall of the weekend was the mosquitoes. They had a lot of rain in the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek area over the past weeks and apparently the mosquito population absolutely loved the situation. We had a very relaxing weekend, even though we hung out in the trailer several times just to get away from the bugs. We never even had a campfire. However, despite the bugs it will most likely be a campground we will return to for years to come.

Although, the other kids did a lot of activities indoors because of the mosquitoes - nothing can keep Sam down. We got out the bug spray and he spent lots of time playing with his trucks and cars. That's my Sam!

We also took the opportunity to visit Fort Custer National Cemetery.
What a site to drive into the campground and see the entire long drive lined with our nation's flag. Beautiful and inspirational.

Throughout most of the cemetery the gravestones are dropped below the ground surface.

We chose to walk through an area where the gravestones were upright and the kids enjoyed walking around looking at all the names and dates. It allowed for much conversation, but was difficult to get the children to understand that most of these people had not actually been killed while fighting to defend our nation. They earned the right to be buried at Fort Custer because they had served in the military at some point during their life. In addition, their spouses and sometimes children were buried there also. It was a real learning experience and a great reminder of all of those people out there that we have to thank for our freedom.

Dr. Martha H. Felton, a captain in the US army. Never married, a disciplined person who always commanded respect, maybe not verbally but just in her very presence. Her title of Dr was a requirement when addressing her. Through her I learned that it wasn't about her ego, it was about treating people with the respect that they have earned. Respect will get you a long way in this world. She was stern and proper at all times. She had served her country and served it well. The memory of her presence in the 2nd row of the our church will remain in my memory forever. In our church, both the American Flag and the Christian Flag were always displayed on the left and right sides of the stage. Dr. Felton was the one who always made sure that they had not been pushed aside for other props. When she arrived at the church service, if the flags were not in their proper place she would climb the stairs and fix them. It wasn't about the flags, it was what the flags represented. The 2 most important things in her life: her God first and then her country.

We spent hours every day at the lake. Like I said it was beautiful, warm, clean and clear.
The kids had so much fun swimming and
we had a hard time getting them out at the end of the day.

As we discovered earlier in the summer, Gabrielle has found a new love - being thrown into the air and splashing down into the water. She was getting some serious air this weekend.

She wore her goggles this weekend. After being thrown into the water she would stay under water and use her goggles to swim all the way back to Paul. She would come up when she reached him.

The also enjoyed sitting on the beach, it was nice sand to walk on and play in.

A running start.

Paul was excited to hit the mountain biking trail. However, it didn't last long. The mosquitoes were just so bad. He took Nicholas out onto the trails - but it didn't last long because every time they would stop to check out the map, the mosquitoes would invade. The other kids and I took a walk up the trail to try to get a picture of them along the trail, but we weren't able to stay back in the woods long enough to see them. Saturday afternoon, Nicholas and I tried a different trail hoping to find less bugs. There weren't any fewer bugs, but we did find a creek that needed to be crossed. I instructed Nicholas to start pedaling on the one side of the creek and just keep pedaling all the way through. Nicholas, however, didn't make it all the way to the other side and proceeded to put his foot down right in the middle. Of course, he then had to push his bike out of the water and ended up getting both of his tennis shoes and socks soaking wet.
We are hoping to do some more exploring on another trip back there.

As I mentioned before, the kids actually played in the trailer quite a bit because of the combination of intense heat and humidity and mosquitoes gone wild. They got quite creative with the toys they had to play with and played very well together.

Sam takes a minute to relax in the sun.

We woke up Sunday morning, to find that a mosquito had found Gabrielle during the night. Her right eye was almost swollen shut and remained that way for several days.