life in a nutshell - a large nutshell

They say a picture is worth a thousand words..... well.... this post is going to be very wordy on the picture end of things.

What have we been up to since Labor Day?  We have played soccer, lots of soccer, many many days of soccer.  Matt coached the 7th grade boys and reffed soccer, all four kids and both parents play on teams. Good grief.  There are no pictures of my 3rd poor middle child.  Sorry Jessica.

We had a carnival at church. Matt, Carla, Anika and Brandon all helped. Jessica and Maria played games and brought home way too many stuffed animals.

Carla took Jessica and Maria to a neighboring church carnival and they both got some cool face paint.

Anika played softball

And she was Bartolome de las casas for a class period

Side note: he was a very cool explorer and there is a small movement of people that believe we should celebrate Bartolome Day instead of Christopher Columbus Day. I read these chapters with Anika, and I have to say, Chris is not someone to celebrate - but Bartolome is.

Did I mention we played (and are still playing) soccer?

We dog sat for our dear Maize for 3 weeks.

We danced on grandpa's feet and helped grandma celebrate her birthday a few days early.

We attended Art Prize - essentially they turn down town Grand Rapids into an art museum.  There is art on the streets, in buildings, even in the river.  We walked (much to the chagrin of a few of our kids) and saw lots of neat things, including a panda made from old tires and a guy doing spray paint art.

Playing all that soccer makes one so tired you can fall asleep in the strangest of places

Anika had a band concert

And a choir concert

We dog sat again for a day

Maria turned 7, lost her first ever tooth, had a party that was decorated by her adoring oldest sister, and Papa and Mimi came to help celebrate.

All that partying makes one tired and we fall asleep in the strangest of places... again.  Could she possibly be growing?

Brandon went to his cousins in Illinois for a few days to play.

Carla and the girls went to a corn maze - yes we walked through corn that was grown in dinosaur formation!

We ate donuts and played with the kitties on the farm afterwards.

The fall colors here were GORGEOUS  - and now we've had snow.

There was time for a little dress up with friends.

Anika and Brandon both played in a 3 on 3 basketball tournament - each on their own team

We spent an afternoon at Camp Pendalouan. Its the local YMCA camp and they opened up all the activities for one last hurrah before the weather broke. We did kayaks, paddle board, rifle, wall climb, gaga ball, volleyball, and football. It was a full afternoon.

that's Brandon at the top

We carved HUGE pumpkins.  Grandpa grows them for us and when they are small, he etches each grandkids' name in them.  They scar over and each pumpkin bears the child's name.

Yes, her pumpkin was almost bigger than her

Anika's won in the church competition

Then, of course, you have to light them and see what they look like.

We went trick or treating..... in the pouring rain... many mud puddles.... VERY WET

We practice piano with grandma, and grandpa and papa help Matt get Anika's basement room almost ready for habitation.  

Carla is coaching Anika's 7th grade basketball team

Life has been busy. Almost too busy most days. I have been edgy, almost too edgy most days. I miss my village that surrounded me and supported me and helped me haul kids from point A to point B and home again.

But, in the end, this is where we are called to be. I need to choose joy and praise God within the moments each day. And there is much to be thankful for. We know so many people that don't have jobs or have pain or loss, and we are healthy and BUSY. I LOVE my job, it is the one place that I feel sanity, even when I am so behind. Its crazy how rewarding the YMCA can be!

And, there are always the sunsets over Lake Michigan, Seriously good medicine for the soul.

And a crazy bunch of girls

Walking the Bridge

Guess what I did on Labor Day? I walked across Mackinaw Bridge of course!  Every Labor Day many people make the walk across the 5 mile span of a bridge. It was chilly but not miserable cold and we had many fun excursions along the way.  A lady in a huge birthday hat was ahead of us most of the trip, but we conquered her and won in the end!

At parts of the bridge you can see the water below - very fun to walk there and there were people standing at the VERY top of the span watching down on us! We parked on the south side and took a bus across, then walked back. It was a fun adventure and we made some great memories!

First day of school, and beach day, and soccer, and softball......

The three lower school kids ready for day 1

After a half first day of school, a beach day is a necessary thing!

The upper school is calling

The three smallest started school on the Tuesday before Labor Day with a half day. It was a cloudy questionable morning but the afternoon was GORGEOUS and several families met up at the beach near our house for a few last hours of summer.

The next day, the upper school needed students to beckon the hallways, so off went our 7th grader.  The first day was chapel and service projects so she brought work gloves and old tennies to school and brought her school stuff the next day!

These last few weeks have been crazy with practices and getting back into a routine.  All four are playing soccer, Anika is playing softball, the older three are all in piano, Maria is in Spanish Immersion school - which means her teacher only speaks in Spanish, Anika is in the upper school which begins at 7:50 and she moves from room to room, Anika plays soccer on the boys team because there weren't enough boys or girls to make a team, so they made a co-ed team, Matt is reffing soccer, Matt is coaching the 7 - 8th grade boys soccer team.  Did I mention life is a bit crazy?!?

Another night with the Whitecaps

The kids read a bunch more this summer and got us to the Whitecaps game for free.  We went the night before school started.  I don't win any mom of the year awards for putting my kids to bed at 11 PM the night before the first day of school, but we had a great time. Aunt Kathy joined us and we had plenty of entertainment between innings. We decided next year we want to try to get there REALLY early one game and see if we can get the kids in one of the between inning games. Who knows.  It ended in a Whitecaps walk off home run which was rather exciting!

We stopped at the Dollar Store before going and bought all of our game snacks there - good times!

Cousin time

We took the trolley around town and by the beach

If you come to visit, we will take you to the beach, its glorious!

We had some more cousin time! We had a full day of fun starting with a parade, YMCA family day, trolley rides, beach, and ice cream.  Of course we ate and had fun and played games, but that is the high lights.

Thanks for coming guys!

Sailing

heading out to sea

and back to Muskegon

our 36 feet of entertainment

We have some reverse snow birds at our church.  They live in South Carolina but summer on Lake Michigan in this beauty called Blessed.  It has two queen size beds below, a kitchen, a bathroom and provides oh so much fun.  

It was plenty windy for sailing and we had a great time. Matt, Anika and Brandon all took turns steering and found it wasn't as easy as it looks!  The kids were quite sure we were going to tip - the response from the captain - 'the rail isn't even in the water yet!'  See the silver rail by the kids' knees?  On the way back to Muskegon, they did get wet up to their waists, but the rail never was in the water - but you do tip quite a bit. 

We grilled chicken and enjoyed some fruit and salad together once back on land.

It was quite the experience!

Neighborhood Party

We haven't met everyone on our circle yet. If you count the houses on the roads in and out, there are 30. We decided early in the year that we wanted to have a neighborhood party.  We didn't know what it would look like, we didn't know what would happen, but we wanted something!  We decided to have root beer floats in our driveway.  So, we delivered the fliers - and met quite a few more neighbors just doing that - and had the party Saturday night.
Not everyone came, but it was fun.  There are three neighbors that we have gotten to know well, and they were all there, and five other neighbors came as well. It was great to put some faces to names and figure out who lived where. I have a little map of our neighborhood and its almost all filled up!  We are getting closer! Its nice to know your neighbors and we have really enjoyed getting to know ours!