Our annual summer vacation began for Owen on Thursday night, when Grappy picked up Owen from school and brought him up to the cottage…he had a blast with Grappy, Grandma, aunt Mary, Dylan and Kenz up there until we headed up on Saturday. Owen had fun playing in the water at the dunes and spent some time doing lots of fishing…
while they were out fishing, Grappy asked Owen what he liked best about the cottage, and Owen thought a minute, then said “the water”, grappy asked why and Owen replied “because you can swim in it, you can fish in it, and you can go to the dunes in it”….so cute
Meanwhile it was so quiet and just different with just one kiddo…we decided to take littles on a walk on the pier on Thursday night. She loved being a spoiled only child for the night!
Friday night, gran watched Syd while Scott and i had a date night…we headed over to the new casino in wayland…we did pretty good too, came out ahead! we headed home around 9 (cuz we’re old)…and decided to stop in Zeeland and try the captain sundae there….mmmm….but it just wasn’t the same as the original!
Saturday we had a membership class at church, as Scott and I were becoming members of Fellowship…and the kiddos are getting baptized there on the 24th! :)
after church, we packed up the car and Greg and al and Henry and Loretta met us at our house and we all headed up to the cottage….gran kept Sydney with her (she was nice enough to offer keeping her for a few nights, and we welcomed the opportunity for some sleep, since she is STILL getting up 1-2 times per night, it sucks ,but it sure beats the 3-4 times she had been getting up)…once we got up to the cottage, we had a fish fry on Saturday night with grandma and grappy…it was soooooo good! :)
then we gave Owen his (very late) birthday present from us…and went on a walk…
I think he liked it!
don’t these two look like they’re just having a great conversation? love it!
All three kiddos on the gator together! this pic was taken moments before owen discovered the accelerator and the whole gator lurched forward and caught EVERYONE completely off guard! Thankfully everyone was ok! :) 
grandma and grappy left later that night and then we put the kiddos all to bed…al and i had wine and dark chocolate and relaxed out on the deck…..
and the boys went grocery shopping…(so fitting and appropriate, love it!)
in the morn we had pancakes for breakfast and just relaxed…
I think Owen missed Sydney, because he was quite the big brother to Loretta, he invited her up on the couch with him in the morning (“hi go-retta” in a high pitched voice, “you wanna come sit with me?") and he even put his frog on her head as a hat! too cute!
‘ uncle Greg’ taught Owen how to shake hands quite a while ago, and every time he sees him, Owen has to shake his hand and say the now-famous-phrase: “Nice to meet you Misser Kind Sir” all the while kind of leaning in with his head all tilted funny…what a little man!
L & H were very interested in checking out Mr Murph….he didn’t know quite what to think with both of them spying on him!
Later that day, we just chilled out until the kiddos got up from their morning nap… then we headed to the dunes…
it was a fun time with the Reifsnyders…
they headed home late that afternoon and after they left, Scott, Owen and I ate dinner together, headed to the park to play on the playground and then to the house of flavors!
totally posing for the camera!
like father, like son!
Owen enjoyed some Superman (aka ‘scooperman’) ice cream….check out the side by side of him from last year along with this year enjoying House of Flavors! he’s changed so much! :)
And, courtesy of ‘uncle Greg’ Owen has learned to ‘salute’ when he sees a flag…and this is his version of a salute, he does a little ‘c’ shape on his forehead….and EVERY time he sees a flag he does it! so cute!
Monday morning, i headed to pick up Sydney in Muskegon….
after we got home, we relaxed at the cottage and the kids took loooong naps, after they got up, we ate dinner together, then went out and picked up some things at the store….
Tuesday, we started the day very early…about 6:15, because a certain little someone didn’t want to sleep the night before and when she doesn’t sleep good at night, she tends to get up early….so we put her in bed with us for awhile to play, until we could gather up the strength to pull ourselves awake for the day…we had pancakes for breakfast again and played a little bit together, then Syd went down for a nap and we packed bags and lunches for the beach…
as soon as Syd got up we packed up in the car and headed to the state park….the kids had a great time in the water!
and maybe an even greater time eating lunch on the beach! Sydney thought it was great fun not to have a plate, and loved that she had free access to the bag of sun chips! and loved her yogurt (and pretty much everything else in sight too) notice the glob of yogurt on her nose?
after naps (if you can sense a theme here, the world revolves around their naps, as tired kids = crazy times, while it was tricky to work around the naps and actually get anything done, it was definitely doable – and gave us good excuse to just really relax!), we ate dinner together and then headed downtown…we took a little walk around and stopped in some stores and syd checked out a hammock which she thought was the coolest!
then we went to the library….When we were there, the kiddos sat at a little table together and read some books and colored :)
The room was decorated with inflatable globes hanging from the ceiling and at one point, Syd got sooo excited, pointing up to them and saying ‘ball, ball!"’ – Owen turned to her and said, “no, Syd, those are planets”
We even managed to get a halfway decent family pic in!
Wednesday started of so lazy! we didn’t get out of bed until 9:30, it was fantastic! the kiddos played together with some toys
The rest of the day was spent fishing and relaxing and enjoying the weather…
Owen built a ‘frog parade’ from the contents of his taco box (tackle box) while fishing on the pontoon! :)
And later that day, in keeping with the lazy theme for the day, we headed into town for dinner. We also made a stop at the House of Flavors again for ice cream (one trip is just never enough!)
Thursday, we decided to hit the dunes for some swimming and were ready to go by 10:30! It was SUPER hot in the upper 90s, so it was a perfect day to go (or so we thought) …the kids had so much fun riding out there…
we even decided to take murph along….well, we got to the dunes and within seconds, we had so many flies swarming us that we decided to turn right back around, and spent the next bit, swatting and killing off what seemed like 100s of flies…poor murph was getting attacked the hardest too! We thought it might be a little bit better if we went to another spot…not so much…it wasn’t nearly as bad, but we only lasted about 10 minutes, before we turned around and headed back….we spend the rest of the trip back to the cottage fending off the flies…by the time we got back the floor was covered in them….Felt like we were in the movie ‘birds’ only we had flies…it was pathetic!
Owen still really wanted to go swimming, so when we got back to to the cottage, he and I hit the paddle boat and paddled across the channel to a shallow spot and did some swimming…when we got back, we had lunch and then naps….
for dinner we had spaghetti, which was quite the favorite for Syd, (but not so much for Owen)….
Friday we had a lazy morn, and Owen and Grandma enjoyed some time reading their Guideposts together….
…then later that morn, grandma offered to watch the kiddos while Scott and I went out garage saleing…we had a great time just getting out together alone
later that afternoon, we went on a pontoon ride and went to Barnhardt’s for dinner…
we were going to try to go swimming at the dunes, but there was too long of a wait for dinner, so we didn’t have time. Instead, when we got back, Owen and I took the paddleboat across the channel again and did some swimming.
Saturday was a lazy day since it was our last day there…
we planned to head home, since the kids were getting baptized on Sunday…plus it would give us some time to unwind and unpack before settling back into reality on Monday! We went on a paddle boat ride, took a walk, and just had some relaxation together….
Sunday was an Awesome day, and such a great way to end our week of vacation… the kiddos were both baptized and Scott and I did a reaffirmation of faith and became members of Fellowship!
Once we got home, the kids headed to bed for naps and Scott and i got some stuff done around the house….when the kids woke up, we ended our day with some swimming together in our little redneck swimming hole (the kiddie pool on our deck), such fun!
…..but, regardless of the things we did over our vacation, the time spent together, is what will be a lasting memory for all of us!
Scott and I had a lot of things put into perspective for us during our time together; we tend to get so wrapped up in the shuffle of everyday life that we don’t focus on the importance of family and time together with loved ones. Not to mention, the role that God plays in our lives, in shaping them and making them what they are meant to be…instead of worrying and stressing over all the little things in life, we need to leave all the worry and stress to God to sort out for us and instead focus our valuable, precious time enjoying each other and the life He has given us to spend together!
Thanks so much to Grandma and Grandpa for letting us stay at the cottage for such an awesome family vacation, which has become an annual tradition for our fam!
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