Vacation...those were the days

SUNDAY was our first full day of vacation.  We started by having a church service where David shared a message he had prepared on the way over, it was very good.  As soon as our church service was over we packed lunches and headed to the beach.  We stayed there for several hours.  I was hoping that Emily would just peacefully fall asleep in my arms and we'd be able to spend the whole day there but she must have not gotten the memo because she ended up eventually getting cranky and sad and needed to take a nap.  We went in and put the the girls down for late naps.  Mimi made a pasta dish for dinner, it was very good.  We had family devotions again in the evening and talked and played games.

MONDAY was another full beach day.  The girls slept in until around eight or nine and we got dressed and headed right out.  Monday was also Jay's Birthday so we got to spend the whole day with the Birthday boy!  I think Haley must have decided to be nice to him this week as a Birthday present because they did not have very many fights.  They must have made a truce at some point and I missed it or something.  We were at the beach for most of the morning and some of the afternoon.  Then I went in and put the girls to sleep and I think David stayed in with them while I went to the beach.  Something like that, I think I went back out without them but I'm not sure.  We also spent a little bit of time at the pool.  In the evening Carly and Kimberly were in charge of dinner and they made a great Birthday dinner of brats, burgers, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, a fancy salad, and potatoes.  Haley was thrilled to have a hot dog, she ate a bunch.  The dinner was in honor of Jay's 2nd Birthday and Ellie's first which is on the 18th.  Carly made an ice cream cake for dessert and Kimi made a vanilla cake with chocolate icing.  Kimberly had a game up with pictures of Ellie from the past year and we had to put them in order.  I ended up tying with Aunt Rin and Caleb and the tie breaking was whoever could guess the time that Ellie was born which I won.  Just as I was starting to glory in my win, Kelly returned from putting her kids to bed and revealed a better score, I think she may have even gotten them all right!  Ellie is a very clean little baby and she was not super excited about getting herself dirty with her cake.  It was hilarious, I've never seen anything like it because instead of just ignoring it, she was trying to push it off of the high chair tray!  Emy started flailing her arms and legs as soon as she saw dessert so after taking off a slice or two of Ellie's cake (I think Kelsey wanted to eat that particular cake, haha) she let Emy have a go and she put a bit of a dent in it.  I think she just got super dirty though, I'm not sure how much of it she actually ate.  I thanked Kimi because now I don't feel like I have to do one for Emy's Birthday!  Monday evening we had devotions and then played games and went to bed.  I will be writing Jay a Birthday tribute soon!

Birthday dinner.  Haley wasn't wearing a hat because the elastic part got stuck on her and she got snapped in the face with it, oops, haha.

Fun at the beach

From left to right: Haley, Ellie, Kelsey, Calla and Emy.  You can tell it's Emy by the mouthful of sand she is trying to eat

Playing with the boogie boards

These girls all had matching bathing suits.  These are all the cousins minus Jay, Clark, and Maya

TUESDAY we slept in and then headed to the beach.  I think Emy was actually tired this day and I put her down for a morning nap and David stayed in and played games while Haley and I just went.  Then David brought Emy out when she woke up.  This may have also been the day when Haley didn't really sleep for her nap.  One of the days we put Haley down for her nap and she played in her room for almost three hours.  Um, random Haley.  After naps we brought the girls back out to the beach and had some more fun.  It was good we did because this was the last super nice beach day.  Most of the other days were only partially nice or just downright rainy.  The girls have so much fun at the beach.  Emily is a little bit of a problem because she was constantly putting shells in her mouth and seemed to always be eating sand.  They both loved the water and were thrilled whenever anyone took them out into the waves.  They were constantly asking people to take them out, I know Mimi and Rin got suckered into it the most.  Emy made me nervous a lot because she would crawl out into the water and just keep going, she definitely didn't realize it was getting any deeper.

At dinnertime we came in and made rice and salsa for the dinner we were making with the Fentons.  We made pork tacos with Mexican rice and chips and salsa.  We thought it was a pretty big success although Josh Fenton and Pops had diarrhea that night.  I'd like to think they were just dehydrated but I apologized just in case...   We had a bunch of extra people for dinner because Grandma and Grandpa had arrived along with two of Rin's friends from college.  Later that night the pastor's wife also arrived (doubling as the florist) along with the best man and his family.  We stayed up late and played Dutch Blitz.  I won but it was close, I think either Kelly or Kimi were about to win too.

Tomorrow I'll try and write about the wedding festivities!

Aunt Kelly holding Emy, I think Emy got held by almost everybody on this vacation.  Hmm, maybe her mother wasn't being attentive enough or something, oops.

Sitting and waiting for church to start

two weeks ago? who even cares!

Monday July 29 was Daniel's birthday.  Katelyn's going to write a birthday tribute for him later.  We sold a bunch of his stuff online, which is really a bizzare way to spend your birthday.  We went to Cowboy Chicken for dinner at his request and Katelyn made a birthday cake for him.  Random times during the day were probably spent picking lice out of Haley's hair.

Tuesday Rin and Daniel stayed home all day, sold some more stuff and packed up their car.  The contractors were at our house working on the sewer.  I'm sure they were confused to see two white girls, a black guy, and a mexican, along with two little babies messing with a whole bunch of random furniture on the back patio. I left in the afternoon to drive up to Wichita for recurrent training and Corinne and Daniel went to PA about midnight because they had to be in Atlanta at 9am.

Wednesday Katelyn cleaned the house and did laundry.  She thought Haley's lice were gone so they went to the church potluck.  The Watsons wanted haley to spend the night but Katelyn said no because she is not ready.  She said Chloe could sleep at our house since the mattress was still up from rin.  However, she is also not ready and got scared and ended up sleeping with Katelyn.

Thursday morning they went to Bible study and Chloe's mom was there to pick her up.  They took naps in the afternoon.She thinks they just hung out Thursday evening.

Friday they went to the gym. Then they went to DQ to celebrate a friends birthday for lunch.  This particular DQ had a large carpeted play area which Haley loved.  Chloe Liebengood babysat Haley and Emily so Katelyn could go to a MOPs retreat at a hotel in town.  Haley did really well, but Emily woke up after being put down for two hours and was sitting in Chloe's lap when Katelyn got home.  She fed her and put her back to bed.  Meanwhile I had finished training so I drove through the night so Katelyn wouldn't need to get a babysitter in the morning.

Saturday, I stayed with the girls in the morning during Katleyn's deal.  then we went to the splash pad for Kai's bithrday party.  The rest of the day was low key.

I led worship on sunday and Katelyn did nursery.  the kids were good but there was one kid that was bad but it wasnt haley or emily.  i worked sunday afternoon. at night I tried to put new brakes on the van and snapped a lug bolt off to my great frustration.

Monday was my birthday.  I worked.  Katelyn did laundry and cleaned and made super yummy chicken with a basil cream sauce and yummy yeast rolls.  Katelyn had a sweet idea of taking the car in for me since I wouldn't be back till later on monday.  Although it was a good idea, Firestone gave us the run around for a few days and I  hope they go out of business but doubt that they will. I had men's prayer meeting at our house when I got back.

Tuesday I worked and Katelyn got ready for Todd Feenstra to arrive.  They also went to a bunch of consignment shops to look for shoes for the wedding for the girls and some cousins.  They found a few pairs. At night, Katelyn made creme brulee and merengue cookies which were really good.  Amanda also came for dinner because I was gone for dinner.  They stayed till almost bed time. Todd arrived around 11:30pm.

Wednesday I worked all day and got back during missio dei which was at our house.  Not sure what else happened during the day.  Katelyn had a cake for me when I arrived.

Thursday, nobody showed up for Bible study because everyone was out of town so Katelyn took the girls to run some errands.  I worked......Katelyn packed for the trip on friday and did some laundry.  that evening, Katelyhn saw Haley scratching her head and found another louse.  we picked more lice and knits from her hair while she watched Dorah.  Todd ran out and bought some Lice MD stuff that worked really well.  Katelyn washed all the sheets agian.

Friday Katelyn packed the van and cleaned the whole house again.  Haley watched so0mee dora and EMily took two naps.  I worked and broke an airplane and had a whole big mess but ended up getting back to longview around 5pm.  We left straight from the airport and drove to jackson MS where we spent the night.

Saturday we woke up early and drove the rest of the way.  arrived 8:30pm  and ate dinner.  saw our welcome bags.  met paul iya, daniels bro.  we were the first family with kids to arrive.  then I went with merle to the grocery store for the first of several times.  then we waited for fentons, mountz, and brusts to arrive.

Katelyn will cover next week later.

More catch up and lice-published previously on wrong site

Okay I know I'm super behind still so I'm going to try and fill in a bunch at once!

Monday, July 22nd we spent the day doing laundry and recovering from our trip.  We were out of food so we all went grocery shopping together.  Daniel can't remember what he did, I just asked him.  He thinks maybe he went to the bank.

Tuesday we had a great day.  I honestly can't remember what we did.  I think maybe we ran some errands, I probably did some online shopping for wedding shoes for David and I for Rin's wedding.  I have my dress and David has his suit but neither of us have shoes that go with them.

Wednesday David had to work all day.  I ran out while the girls were napping and Daniel kept on eye on things.  When I got back they were both awake and Haley was crying because she had to use the bathroom, sorry Daniel!  In the evening the girls and I went to church for the potluck.  It was at the Liebengoods house.  Everyone was super helpful with the girls, there are always tons of people asking to hold Emy and Haley so I usually doesn't have to do too much with them.  Everyone was so surprised at Emily's crawling skills, I guess she got better while we were gone.

Thursday morning the girls and I ran some errands, David was working.  When we came home the girls took naps while I started cleaning the house for Aunt Rin's arrival.

Friday we spent the day setting up for Aunt Rin.  We put an air mattress in the girl's room and put the linens on and everything.  Corinne flew into Dallas and Daniel went and picked her up. She didn't get in until late so I already had the girls in bed but they got to see her on Saturday morning.

Haley and Emy honestly did not seem fazed when they woke up to Aunt Rin sleeping in their room.  I guess they thought that was normal.  I did tell them that she was coming so I guess they shouldn't have been surprised.  Corinne and Daniel had pre-marital counseling all day on Saturday so we didn't see too much of them.  We had the Mason kids in the morning because Dr. and Mrs. Mason did Rin and Daniel's counseling.  Haley had a great time playing with Caroline, William, and Christopher.  Caroline also spent a lot of time carrying Emily around and playing with her.  We had hot dogs and macaroni and cheese for lunch and then I put the girls down for naps.  I wanted them to be able to play until they had to leave but the girls were just too tired so I put them down for naps.  In the afternoon we cleaned up and made dinner.  We had invited the Mason family to join us for dinner with Rin and Daniel.  David grilled up some chicken and vegetables and I made baked potatoes and mashed potatoes and cookies for dessert.  We all ate and the kids played together for a while and then the Masons headed out.

Haley had been itching her head a lot lately so I decided to give her a bath and use dandruff shampoo.  I had joked about her having lice earlier that day.  She and Emily were sitting in the tub and that was when I saw a little bug on her shoulder.  David looked up what lice look like and it was definitely a louse.  This was confirmed when we saw additional ones frantically crawling around on top of her head.  David immediately ran out and bought a lice killing kit with shampoo and combs while I threw all of the sheets, blankets, and pillows into the wash.  We couldn't find any on Emily so we put her in her pajamas and put her to bed once her sheets were washed and dried.  Then we got a light and David and I took turns combing through Haley's hair and pulling out lice and lice eggs.  We put on Dora the Explorer for Haley to watch and she actually did really well.  We picked out about eight to ten lice and probably at least forty to fifty lice eggs.  I called the Masons to let them know in case any had gotten to their kids but Bonnie said she checked and they were lice free.  Poor Haley stayed up until almost midnight with us picking lice and eggs out of her hair.  Then I coated her hair with olive oil and put a shower cap on her and put her to bed.

Sunday David had to work and I had to decide whether I was going to go take the girls to church or not.  I read online that it was "safe" to take your kids out after a treatment has been completed.  I took a shower and brought Haley in with me and washed the olive oil out of her hair.  Then I thought I should maybe make sure there wasn't any lice in my hair.  I took the lice comb and combed it through my hair a couple times and the third time through there was a louse in the comb!  To say I was horrified is an understatement.  I immediately gave myself a treatment (which consists of having stuff in your hair for ten minutes and then rinsing it out) and then put olive oil in my hair with a shower cap.  I kept that cap on and combed through Haley's hair and picked out eggs for a lot of the morning.  Emily hung out and played with toys and eventually took a nap.  I found about three eggs in my own hair and when David got home he picked through and couldn't find anymore.  We think maybe the louse jumped in my hair sometime yesterday and hopefully that was the only one.  When Corinne and Daniel got home from church they worked on unloading his storage unit that they had emptied in Tyler.  They are working on selling all of the stuff online so that is a pretty good job!  Corinne was selling stuff on there like crazy, at one point she had several people lined up at the door at once!  They had more counseling on Sunday night, we stayed home and ate tacos and picked lice.

More catch up to follow!!

Our Michigan Visit

Okay I am still in catch-up mode so I am writing about our trip in Michigan, what I can remember of it!

Our first day there as a family was Monday morning.  David and I slept in.  We actually slept in longer than Haley who got up, left the room, and hung out with Abuelita!  Abuelita said she came out and sat next to her on the couch and just kind of cuddled for a while.  There's no doubt she remembered her from Christmas!  We got up with Emily a bit after and took showers and visited with everyone.  It was a relaxing day and good for all of us to recover.  In the evening we went to the town over called Zeeland where they have activities held every Monday.  They had free ice cream and a big bounce obstacle course thing that Haley went through over and over.  We went to Captain Sundae afterwards for ice cream, that place is the best.

Tuesday we slept in again and then went with Sarah, Adj, Isa and Bennett to Lake Michigan to swim.  The water was warmer than usual but still pretty cold.  David got in all the way with Haley and Emily but I stayed in the shallow water.  There were a lot of people there but not tons of them were in the water, it really didn't feel that crowded at all.  After the beach we came home and gave the kids naps and then Dave and I made tacos for dinner.  In the evening I think we played Settlers and Jesse won.  Actually I should just say that Jesse won everytime we played so anytime I mention that we played, know that he won!

Wednesday I think we just kind of hung out at Dave's house.  Adj bought a kid's swimming pool so that might have been the day we did that.  Either Wednesday or Thursday we went to Dutch Village which is a park type place nearby that is all setup to look like an old time Dutch Village.  They have a carousel there that Haley rode I think at least three times.  I also tried to get her to put on some wooden shoes but she was super suspicious about them, Emily wore a pair for a while.  Dutch Village is considered to be a city park so Holland residents and their guests get in free.  Adj., Jesse, Bennett, Isa, Sarah, Abuelito, and Abuelita all went with us.  Abuelito actually had a spare week of vacation that he needed to use so he took the whole week off that we were there.  It was so nice to have him around all of the time and I know the girls know him so well now.  Actually, since we've been home Haley has asked for Abuelito multiple times.  Usually around bedtime, haha.  Anyways, I digress.  Wednesday afternoon David and I had gone shopping for patio furniture around Holland during naptime.  We found a couple options but didn't end up buying anything.  In the evening we went to Kohl's and found a great set for 50% off.  Abuelito had a 30% off coupon so we used that and ended up getting the set for a steal!  The set was an anniversary present from Mimi and Pops, Mom said I had better get one before the summer was over.  It actually worked in our favor to wait because patio sets get really marked down towards the middle and end of the summer!

Thursday we spent the day hanging out with family.  Haley and Isa played so nicely together the whole time, it was really sweet to watch.  Bennett and Emy kind of had a love hate in relationship in that Bennett loved to hold and love on Emily and Emily hated it, haha.  Emy just gets so weird about her personal space, she would start squealing anytime Bennett even sat down too close.  Dave and I were able to slip away for a dinner date and then we met Adj and Abuelito downtown.  They had taken all four of the children to downtown Holland to see the street performers.  Every Thursday night a bunch of performers set up at different points around the downtown area and perform their various talents.  There were a lot of people signing and playing instruments but Haley's favorite was definitely the balloon animal guy.  He made her a butterfly.  Dave and I preferred the juggler, he was really good.  After our time downtown we picked up Abuelita and went to Captain Sundae, we really can't get enough of that place!

Friday was another low key day.  The girls played with their cousins and we took some time in the afternoon to visit a family friend named Ardeane.  Ardeane lives in an assisted living place so I was a little worried about how Haley would behave but when we got there Ardeane had tons of toys at her place that other little kids play with when they visit.  Haley had a great time and Ardeane even gave her a Curious George book for her to take home.  Haley called her Nana the whole time that we were there, I think she thought that she was our neighbor.  Friday night we got to bed a little bit earlier because we had a big day planned for Saturday!

SATURDAY the whole family went to the Kalamazoo zoo.  Of course the founders of that zoo do not call it that, it is officially called Binder Zoo.  I felt like that was kind of a waste, they should just call the place The Kalamazoo.  It was almost two hours away but Emily slept almost the whole way there and I don't remember Haley giving us too many problems.  There were lots of animals at this zoo but the definite highlight were the giraffes.  They were in a huge enclosure and we were able to view them from an elevated area so when they came up we were basically eye to eye with the taller ones.  They also had buckets of lettuce that you could buy to feed the giraffes and Jesse bought a whole pail and Haley got to feed a couple of the giraffes, she loved it.  She probably didn't love it as much as Emily though.  Emily was flailing her arms and legs and squealing and basically freaking out the whole time we were with the giraffes.  When it was time to go Emily started crying!  Maybe we'll have to get her a pet giraffe for her Birthday.  We were at the zoo for most of the morning and a good part of the afternoon.  Haley and Emy fell asleep on the car ride home and we called that their naps for the day.  When we got back we ordered pizza for dinner and I can't remember but I think we may have even gone to Captain Sundae again.  I know we went three times in the course of the week we were there!

Sunday was our drive back to Texas.  It was pretty uneventful, no tickets, no major traffic jams and both of the girls did pretty well.  Emily took three naps over the course of the trip and both girls were asleep for the night when we pulled in.  We did it in about fifteen hours and it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  We stopped a total of two times, once for lunch and once for dinner and Haley did her #2 business on one of those stops so that saved us from any additional stops.  It was late when we got back so we put the girls to bed, said 'hi' to Daniel and then went to bed ourselves.  Oh wait, that's right, Daniel was here!  Daniel, Aunt Rin's fiance, arrived at our house just before we did.  Tomorrow (hopefully) I'll write about our week with Daniel and our weekend with Rin!

Playing with Daddy in Lake Michigan

New baby Higgins, Bennett, Isa, and Haley

David got buried so of course Haley wanted to be buried too

On the carousel at Dutch Village

Haley and Isa rode together on the random animals, it was a really old carousel

Even Emy took a spin

She also wore some wooden shoes

Haley playing piano with her cousins, a common pastime

Playing in the pool with Abuelito

The girls found some fancy shoes and were wearing them around for a while

Bennett trying to hold Emy

Waiting for her butterfly balloon downtown

Abuelito and the older cousins

Abuelito holding the younger cousins

Abuelita playing piano with the girls

Tia Sarah with the older cousins

Emy trying to grab the giraffe

Isa feeding a giraffe

Haley was hesitant to pet the goats but she pet this turtle right away

Emy and Abuelita

Older cousins riding an ant

On the trampoline with Uncle Jesse