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!

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!