Way behind on posting....again. October visit to California

Let's see, here it is, almost Christmas, and I have not posted anything for about 3 months!  My goal is to catch up before the end of the year, and then my New Year's Resolution will be.....Do a better job of keeping up with my blog posts!!  We'll see how that goes!

We spent a week in California in October, from the 23rd to the 30th.  We went on a couple of fun outings, and also just enjoyed our time at home with the kids.  I got to walk Josie to school and pick her up again, which was fun.  She goes to school two mornings a week.  One of the days that we were there, it was Cheryl's turn to be the Mom helper for part of the morning.  When Josie and I were walking home that morning, she said, "Well, that was a fun morning!"  After a little discussion about what she had done, she said, " Mommy did a really good job in my class today!" 

On the Friday that we were there, Matt had a short day at school because of conferences, and Cheryl also had a short day of work.  So in the afternoon we took a ride up to Oak Glen to get a taste of fall. 

I took this picture before I saw the sign that said, "Please do not sit on the pumpkins."  Oops!

On Saturday we went to the Children's Discovery Museum in Rancho Mirage (not sure I got the name of the place right).  It was a really fun place with lots of different activities for the kids. 

 Josie painted a Volkswagen Bug.

She was obviously not the first person to do this!

The rope maze

The harpist!

Evan, the builder

Picnic lunch

We were thankful for the covered patio area---it was a hot day!

The dress-up area was a hit---more so with Josie than with Evan.

The big kids got in on the fun, too.

They did some grocery shopping...

I thought that the Pizza Parlor was the cutest thing of all.  We could sit at tables while they prepared and baked our pretend pizzas and then served them to us. So cute!!

One more desert vista.

On Sunday afternoon we took a walk over to Redlands Christian for a little play time on the school playground.  

Evan's hair was a little crazy when he took his hat off. :)

Evan's 2nd birthday was still a few weeks away, but we decided to do some birthday shopping while we were there, and gave him his presents early. He can now help his Daddy with the yard work, with his lawn mower and leaf blower.

I think that Evan thinks that the leaf blower is a hand vac. 

He likes to use the real hand vac to clean up things like spilled cheerios.

When Evan got his early birthday gifts, Josie got some princess paper dolls.

And I'll end with a few random pictures of Evan.

Bath time!

After bath, wrapped up in his special towel.

I love this picture of him! He looks like such a little man, with his hands in his pockets. :)

He is a wild man on that scooter!!

One more post to go to meet my goal.....will I make it???  Stay tuned!

*****A post script here: Now it's April of 2015, and I was going through pictures on my iPad and found a bunch from this trip that never made it on to the computer. So here are a few random pics of the kids just hanging out at home.

Apparently Evan decided not to wear pants that day. :)

That slide was a great investment--they've had so much fun!

Lovin' Grandpa's pancakes!

Pumpkin fun!

More Catch-up---Week-end in Iowa

The last week-end in September we went to visit the Wissinks in Iowa.  Jeremiah's daycare was closed on Friday, so we got to spend the day with him.  He had at least part of our day planned for us, as he had explained to Rachel the day before. He said that we were going to go the the park, and that Grandpa would pull him in the wagon.

He also said that we would bring fruit snacks to eat on the way home, which we did. (no photo to prove it, though.)  And he said that Grandma would bring her camera to take a picture of him on the straight slide.....

 ...and we also got one on the curvy slide.

Mastering the climbing wall, with a little help from Grandpa

And a few other playground shots:

Don't we look like we should be on the cover of  Spark?  :)

Jeremiah was very excited to find that someone had left a bunch of sidewalk chalk at the park.  He had lots of fun drawing on the sidewalk and "coloring" some bricks. 

Friday evening we picked up our dinner at Subway and then went to Jester Park to have a picnic with the elk and the bison. We ate our sandwiches in an area where we could watch the animals. (Apparently it was not really intended to be a picnic area because there were no tables and not even any garbage cans.)

Jeremiah and the "fake" elk

Jeremiah and the "real" elk

We did see bison, too, but they were being rather camera-shy. There were some fun things for Jeremiah to play on.

After such a gorgeous day on Friday, it was kind of disappointing to wake up to a chilly, rainy day on Saturday, especially since Rachel and Adam were having a garage sale that day.  We had been busy Friday night pricing things, and hauling things into the garage, so we opened the garage door and figured we'd see if we'd get any shoppers.  We were pleasantly surprised by how may people came, and they got rid of quite a bit of stuff. These pictures were taken near the end, after the biggest item--a love seat--had been sold.

Jeremiah kept trying to "rescue" things from the sale.

Grandma loves reading bedtime stories to Jeremiah....and Molly.

It's sort of become our tradition to go to Panera for lunch after church on Sunday before we head back to Wisconsin.  Jeremiah pretty much made my day (or maybe my whole week-end?) when he claimed a table for two and announced, "This is for me and Grandma!"  We did allow the others to pull another table over to join us. 

And another tradition....

...posing for a picture just before we head for home.

Playing Catch-up---Waandersfest 2013

Waandersfest 2013 was held at The Shack near White Cloud, Michigan from Sept. 9 to 12.  We left right after church on the 8th and spent Sunday night at the Diekemas. We got there in time for a gorgeous Lake Michigan sunset.
  

We had a relaxing morning with Tony and Jeane, and drove up to The Shack around noon, stopping for lunch at a cherry pie place near Fremont. Jeane rode with us, because Tony had a meeting and joined us at The Shack later.

There are several of these "flower beds" along the driveway as you come in.

For some reason I found them to be quite amusing. 

The accommodations at The Shack are NOT at all shack-like.  There is a definite log cabin/lodge feel to the place.  Our rooms were very spacious and comfortable.  There is a main lodge building with guest rooms and a large dining room, but our rooms were in a separate building, called the Livery.  There were 10 guest rooms in it and also a large gathering room with a full kitchen, tables and chairs, etc.  We pretty much had that room to ourselves, because there was only one other couple staying in our building.

The Shack is on Robinson Lake, a small lake just a few miles north of Crystal Lake and the Wierda cottage. There was no beach for swimming, but there were pedal boats available, and some of us took advantage of those.

Bill and Pat doing some pedaling.

I thought the orange life vests were a nice fashion statement. 

Pedaling the boats was about as strenuous as our activities got.  There was lots of visiting going on in the various gazebos around the grounds and on the big porch of the lodge.  And there was lots of reading going on, as well---couldn't be a Waanders gathering without that. And another activity that some of us enjoyed--jigsaw puzzles!

 

They serve breakfast at The Shack (I wouldn't recommend going there mainly for the breakfast---it wasn't that great.) but we had most of our other meals in restaurants in the surrounding towns---White Cloud, Fremont and Newaygo. We did have one dinner at The Shack--they only do dinners if there is a larger group. One evening there was another group that had requested a meal, so we were included in that, but were given our own room. 

Every evening they serve banana splits---probably the best thing about the place. :) The elderly couple that runs the place are there to serve them---she slices the bananas into the "boat" dish, and he scoops up the ice cream, up to 3 generous scoops---they offer about 6 different flavors and different toppings.

They sell these night shirts--I thought the ladies should all buy them and pose for a picture.  No luck on that.

One afternoon we had a visit from one of our Heynen cousins, Marilyn and her husband Bill Vanden Heuvel.  She had seen my flower bed pictures on facebook, and she commented that they don't live too far from there. So I encouraged them to come over to see us.  It was nice to see them and catch up a bit. 

I think that this was Waandersfest XVIII.  (We missed the first one because we were still living in California.) We've been to a lot of different places in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.  No matter where we go, we always have a good time.  There were 14 of us when we started, now there are 13, and we miss Herk every time we are together.  And as we all get older, each year that we are together our time seems more precious. I'm so thankful for all my siblings!