Fiesta Anyone?

No pictures but a super fun weekend! Dave and Kelly had to go to Cran-hill ranch near Big Rapids for youth group this past weekend. The whole family went up to Big Rapids, dropped off Dave and Kelly and I took the other girls to visit Dave's sister, Lisa who lives about 15 min. away from the ranch.

We had a lot of fun and decided to have a fiesta while we were there. Lisa bought a pinata and I got some streamers and balloons and we had tacos and had our own fiesta! It was fun!!

We did visit Dave and Kelly on Sat.--well, we went to the ranch to see the horses and happened to see Dave and Kelly, too. They were busy working. The Jr. High (Kelly's group) took bunk beds down and moved them and the Sr. High (Dave's group) put them back together in a new location. They even had contests to see who could put the beds together the fastest!! They had a great time!

It was a fun get-away for everyone! Unfortunately, we were up north from here and started seeing some trees changing colors. It's coming...Fall is coming!

Rain Rain Go Away!

We've had rain, non-stop, since Friday afternoon (and it's Sunday afternoon now!) We're all going a little stir crazy! Here's what we've done on our rainy days...
1) Sleep In! We've all had a long week so on Sat. we all slept in
2) Ate a nice breakfast together. I made eggs, sausage and hash browns...better than a Denny's big breakfast
3) A few cartoons...nothing better on a Saturday morning
4) Change from my summer purse to my Fall purse--nothing exciting but had to be done(especially since the other purse broke!)
5) A quick lunch
6) Swimming at the high school
7) A visit to the Humane Society-We're not looking to add to our 2 cats but the ones in the shelter need loving too!
8) Dinner at home
9) Playing cards with the neighbors--normally a winter event but a rainy day works, too! The kids spent about an hour playing in the rain, then changed, came inside and played the neighbors Wii games.
10) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie and then bed

Today we went to church, had lunch and now since it's still raining, we're getting ansy again. We may have to make a trip to the grocery store just to get out of the house!

We are thankful we're not in Houston but the rain can go away anytime!

First Day of School

New shoes $25, New Shirt $15, New Lunchbox $5, sending kids out the door for the first day of the school year...priceless!!!! This is Kelly heading off to 7th grade. She will be taking band again and playing the trombone. She found out her schedule, locker, teachers, etc. this morning when she went to school. Crazy! But she was excited to see her friends again.
This is Abbey going into 5th grade. She is excited to be part of the big kids of the school.
Here's Jenny in the shirt Aunt Gail helped pick out! She's ready for 2nd grade, sequins and all!
This group got on the bus after 7:20a.m. They look pretty happy even at that early hour!
About 7:55 this group got on an empty bus and we watched the bus turn away from the school to go to the country to pick up more kids...oh, if only I ran the school--or at least the bus schedules...we'd be picked up last as we should. Oh well. They still look happy!

Happy 1st Day back at School!!!

I'm off to be a lunch lady!

Spontaneous weekend

We had planned to go to Gun Lake on Saturday with the neighbors so they could try the new "big" tube. A few hours before we left, we got a call from a woman Dave works with who told us she had an empty camp site at Gun Lake so in 2 hrs, we packed and were ready to go to spend the day at the beach and camp for two nights!!!

We had a great day at the beach, the tube was fun but the boys also tried kneeboarding which was also fun! Dave took them to the deep to swim and play and this picture is 7 people on the big tube! They had fun!

So, we said goodbye to the neighbors after dinner and we went over to the camp ground, set up Dave's Aunt's tent and made a fire and had some 'smores! The girls explored the camp ground and we had a fun night. We got up in the morning, had breakfast and went to the campground beach. The girls swam a little but the water was so calm, we put the boat in and Kelly tried water skiing. She almost got up!
Then, we went over the Riekse cottage to see if anyone was there and Amy took Dave kneeboarding behind their jet ski. Then Dave and Jon took turns splashing the girls with the jet ski's--you almost needed ear plugs for all the screaming that went on!


We had a quick lunch and then went out to play in the water again. We got Amy and Jon on the big tube, too, along with more deep water swimming with the big tube which was fun!

We had hobo pies for dinner, got ice cream and went to bed with everyone tired! We left out some food that the racoons got into in the middle of the night. I thought it was teenagers getting into the food but when a bag of chips dropped from the tree, I decided it was probably a 'coon! We cleaned up after our messy guests, packed up and went for a hike, and then went home. It was quite an exciting weekend that we did not plan for!!