July Week-end in Michigan

The second week-end of July we went to Michigan for a long week-end.  This was the week-end that Matt was there for his class at Calvin.  We stayed with him at his mother-in-law's condo.  Abby also came to MI for the week-end, because Neil was away at his class in Lookout Mountain.  She stayed with the Wissinks.  We got there Thursday afternoon and were able to have dinner with all the Michigan Waanders siblings at the new Pizza Ranch in Grand Rapids.  We even had three members of the younger generation with us---Matt, Mark and Betsy.

On Friday we went to Meijer Gardens with Abby, Rachel and the kids. It was a beautiful day to be there!

  The "Mad Mom" pose

We took the boardwalk path by the pond and saw lots of interesting things. Many, many, many frogs!! Also some turtles and ducks.

Ringing the bell by the farm house

                                Pumping some water. the old-fashioned way

The old folks were lagging behind a bit.

I think Hope wanted to get into the water!

It's a great water-play area!

Aren't they cute??

Lunch at Culver's to top off the outing

Friday evening we went to Grand Haven and joined some Diekema and Waanders relatives for pizza at Fricano's (no picture) and then ice cream at Temptations.

Saturday's outing was to Sinkes for train rides.  I think this has become one of Jeremiah's very favorite things to do!  And really, riding that train never gets old. Even the big kids like to ride! 

 Thumbs up! Ready to go!

Hope liked the Sinkes' swing, too.

Jeremiah helped Chuck with some repairs.

Sunday, after church and lunch at Panera, we went blueberry picking in Fennville. That was really fun and we got lots of berries!  I've decided that blueberries are the easiest berries to pick, because you don't have to bend down to pick them. I'd like to do it again next year. 

Jeremiah was very interested in this

berry-picking machine. He was disappointed

that we didn't get to see it in operation.

After we had LOTS of blueberries in our buckets, and a smaller amount of raspberries, we went to Crane's for dinner.  

                                   Jeremiah's taking Aunt Abby for a ride!

One last picture of Jeremiah in his Karate outfit.  He was going to go for a free trial session at a Karate place that next week.  He was very excited to model his outfit for us. :)

It was a great week-end---another fun time with the family!