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!

Happy Birthday Brandon!

donuts for breakfast

Our little man is 11. Each birthday the kids choose the menu for the day, have streamers on their door, and a happy birthday sign. We had a fun day starting with donuts for breakfast followed by some time on the computer while mom quick went to work.  We had lunch at Taco Bell - a first for the E kiddos and a request from Brandon, with Wesco slushies!  We went to the park to play with some friends for a few hours in the afternoon and the boys hiked the dunes and saw some deer- including a fawn with a doe.  For supper we had baked potatoes with BACON.  The older two went to the free movie - Wizard of Oz, while the younger two had swim lessons, but we all met up for the end of the movie and came home for the scavenger hunt and ice cream bars.  Brandon has been begging for the computer game Minecraft - which we finally downloaded and he has been happily playing - although I can't figure out how to get him on the same server as his buddy back in MN. We'll see what I can figure out.  Anyway, he had a good day.

Snickers ice cream bars for bedtime snack

On Friday, he met a few boys from his soccer team and from school and they played at the Y.  They played dodge ball, basketball and went swimming. And of course had a few more ice cream treats.  He had fun playing with BOYS for once!

Brandon loves to tell jokes, especially ones he makes up.  He is excited to learn how to play the drums.  He loves screens - far too much as far as his mom will tell you - but the neighbor did beat him in one game of Mario Kart!  His brain works very quickly and he remembers everything. He is a very special and precious part of our family! Happy Birthday Buddy!

Midge

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, while we were on vacation we picked up a dog!  Meet Midge.

We've gone through all the questions, all the emotions, all the woulda shoulda coulda, and after three weeks, we are all in love with this four legged furry little thing.

In MN, we didn't have the house or the space for a dog.  We loved dog sitting.  We loved loving other people's dogs.  

We came up with a few things the kids would want if we lived somewhere else, and while 'things' don't provide happiness, there are a few that have brought many smiles.

Matt had a dog growing up and I had a cat.  I think if we had gotten a cat, Matt may have moved out - maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but not too much of a stretch.  

I had been looking on Craigslist for a dog for months. I knew we needed something hypo-allergenic for Brandon and something that didn't shed for my sanity. How my family put up with cat hair is beyond me - and yet, as a child, I don't even remember it.  Craigslist isn't a huge hit here in Muskegon, but I knew there was a Schnoodle breeder in Sioux Center, so I tried Sioux City's craigslist, and that's where I found Midge. She's not a pure bred - from what we were told her dad was a schnoodle and her mom was a schnauzer. She has been to the vet - and we've already treated her for an ear infection.  Good grief, a kid without health insurance - what have we done!  She has to get more shots in a few weeks and then a few weeks after that she can get spayed. Then we can license her.  She had 6 different houses to stay in her first 9 nights with us, but we feel she has settled in pretty well.  She ran away once at each house, including ours when we got home, but each time some wonderful person has stopped her and we got her back.  Her curiosity has subsided a bit - maybe because she is settling in, maybe because she has been around our circle so many times she knows all the smells, maybe she's not in heat anymore.... maybe its all of the above.  Anyway, its nice to not have a dog constantly trying to sneak out - she still tries from time to time, but for the most part is a mellow dog.  I still need to get up my guts and groom her - maybe this weekend!

This is one of the reasons we decided to get a dog.  On days when no one else wants to play, or no one else understands, Midge will.