It's State Fair Time!

Mom, Dad and Kyle arrived safely on Thursday.  You know we've been having a great time at home, competing in trains, playing with the girls and sharing meals.  I love how excited Ella and Delia are to have their family here.  They bust out of bed early each morning to spend time with them and ask things like, "Uncle Kyle which pillow did you sleep on?" to absorb every single detail about them!

We had time for one outing, so yesterday we took them to one of our favorite summer destinations, the California State Fair.  It was fun to show this off to new visitors and see the girls enjoy it that much more since they're older.

Both Ella and Delia milked the goat!

We posed in the gardens of the homegrown agriculture section.  (Ella is wearing a sunflower outfit and headband, doesn't she blend in well?)

We petted the slimy sturgeon and picked up turtles in the Fish and Game wildlife section.

Our favorite is always the Livestock Nursery.  Yesterday we saw 3 mama pigs with their piglets, some just born goats, a few calves and a  lamb.  Delia sang happy birthday to them all!

In the Insect Pavilion, Ella was brave enough to hold a millipede!

And, cheers to the wine garden! A little wine tasting, some wine slushies, some shade-- bliss.

Farewell, Old Friend

When I was younger, I received cash from every relative I had.  Every birthday, every Christmas brought a check.  As a child, you do not appreciate the value of this, especially when your mom forces you to put each dollar of it into savings.  And having to find a creative way to write "Thank you for the money, I put it into my savings account" on every thank you note you send for 2 decades was tiresome. 

How could I know that when I entered my 20's a healthy savings account would come to mean so much!  I paid college tuition, I paid rent, I planned the wedding I wanted, I even bought a brand new car.  I have grandparents and great aunts to now thank for these HUGE gifts!

I clearly remember the day, my senior year at Calvin, when I wrote the biggest check of my life and drove home in a sparkly new Saturn.  It even had a keychain that automatically unlocked the doors and an alarm system!  It was probably my most exciting purchase ever. 

We have gotten every penny's worth out of that now-12-year-old Saturn-- starting in college when it made the tri-state journey every other weekend to see my fiance in Chicago!  It moved us to Ohio and Indiana and back to Michigan.  It took us to vacation in places like Niagra Falls and Washington DC.  It saw each of the 7 states between Michigan and California.  It has been on countless adventures and has literally made some amazing journeys. 

I'm not sad to say goodbye.  The car is old, requires more work than we can afford and barely meets our needs anymore.  But I have loved my car from the day I saw it in the showroom with the "This Saturn is for Jennifer" sign next to it and thank it for the coast to coast ride and miles of life it gave us!

Our New Ride

It's official: we're a mini-van family!  Though, actually, this 2009 Kia Sedona is going to be primarily Dave's.  He always says he's in the business of "hauling students" as a youth pastor and is constantly making calls to arrange transportation for big groups of people.  The girls and I will continue to roll around town in our Equinox and just enjoy the luxury of more space for day trips, camping, and family vacations to the coast!  

 

Some details on the van:  it's a slate color (kinda grayish blue).  It was formerly a rental and has just 7000 miles on it.  We feel we got an excellent deal.  We've been casually looking for a bigger car for about a year now, when we saw this one, we knew it was too perfect to pass up.

The Boys

As I've mentioned, Dave was gone all last week on a service trip to Kentucky with a team of students from his youth group.  Once again, his team collaborated with a high school team from a Michigan church-- led by youth pastors and good friends, Nick and Amy.  To give the students some time to get to know each other, they met up in Chicago and drove down together.   The whole project and week saw an answer to many prayers, with health, safety, fun, effectiveness and great bonds between the two youth groups.   Among all these blessings, Dave got to spend a little time at home with his family since he took a later flight out of Chicago at the end of the week.  I know he really enjoyed seeing nephews Calvin, Aidan, Theoren and Cole and meeting new nephew Miles for the first time!

Go Ahead...

and ask how hot it is by us.  SO HOT that our patio table spontaneously shattered!  No one was around and we found no evidence of any stray baseballs from the neighbors, so the only thing we can think of is the mid-day, triple-digit heat!

Go ahead and ask again how excited we are to not only see our family in one week, but to also escape to the coast with them for a long getaway.  SO EXCITED!!  Weather forecasts look to be highs in the 60's along the coastline.  BRING IT ON!

The "Thank You for the Presents!" Post

With the big birthday outing yesterday, today we enjoyed a quiet day at home opening gifts, playing with the new toys and eating birthday cake.  On behalf of Delia, I want to thank everyone who sent presents.  She got lots of toys that burn energy or are good for outdoor play-- PERFECT for Delia!

Auntie Heather sent a big, fun sprinkler and this Strawberry Shortcake doll (yes, it smells the way you remember it smelling).  Since the doll has stylable hair and applicable make-up and is really the only girlie present we saw today, Ella is completely obsessed with it!  I think "Strawberry Cake" is even sleeping in Ella's bed tonight after spending the whole day at her beauty salon and in her arms!  

Anna gave Delia a talking badminton set.   A toy that cheers for you when you hit things with it-- obviously tons of fun!

Delia got her own personalized superhero cape from Ella, the dress-up queen.  Ella was so excited to share this present with her sister.  In this picture, you can see Delia is excited to receive it.

I made Delia an ABC book on Snapfish with pictures from her first 3 years of life ("A is for Auntie" or "L is for Lily").

Grandma and Grandpa always give the perfect thing.  The girls have hardly stopped jumping on this little trampoline all day.  Now my couches and beds and pillows can finally have some peace!  As we were telling Delia the story of her birth and what she was like as a baby, I was recalling how she needed to be bounced in my arms to keep from crying.   This love of bouncing never left her!

Dave had the great idea of giving Delia a mini-fish tank, since she loves animals and a stop in the pet store always makes her day.  After opening the pieces this morning, Delia got to pick out the actual fish she wanted from the store this afternoon. Our family is now plus one-- a fancy, blue, betta fish named Anna.

I asked Delia what she wanted to do on her birthday and she replied, "Go to the [town] park."  I told her she should think bigger, maybe a place we could drive to.  She said, "Okay, go to Target."  Along these same lines, I asked what kind of cake she wanted.  "Chocolate, chocolate!" was her answer.  Trying to dig deeper, I told her I could decorate her cake however she wanted.  "A green circle" was all she kept saying she wanted on it.  I used my artistic cake-decorating license to interpret this idea into a color and shape cake.  What a goofball!

One more birthday treat to mention-- the free dinner and serenade and sundae and sombrero at Chevy's.  I think Delia felt pretty special yesterday and today.

Delia's Birthday Outing

Since no party or family visitors were in the plans for Delia's 3rd birthday, we made it special with a family outing.  Yesterday we spent the day at a fantastic water park.  It was Dave's first day home after a long service trip and the time together was so fun!  Also, by going yesterday, we could get Delia in for free, as she was technically still 2! (Laugh at or be impressed with my thrift-- it's your choice!  It was a significant savings!)

How could the girls not love this "park in a pool"?  Raging Waters was a perfect find because it catered to younger kids.  The splash pools and attractions for little ones outnumbered the big slides.  Though, there were some cool big slides, Dave did a few on his own and we even got Ella on the ones that rode a double tube.  Our favorites were the Great White Shark and Barracuda Blaster.

Delia was a hoot to watch in the waterfall pool.  She would race in and out of the waterfalls and must have thrown herself down these little wall slides about 150 times!

There were 3 different splash playgrounds.  At Waterworks the kids could turn on different spouts and sprays.

At the pirate ship they could climb cargo nets while dodging people shooting water and random buckets of water spilling over.  This one was actually the scariest of all because it was unpredictable and made strange pirate sounds.

While Delia cracked us up with her manic glee, Ella made us smile with her insistence on being independent.  She was adamant that she carry the tube, wait in line and go down this Slide Creek Falls water slide all by herself!

One crazy part of the day was how nice and cool we felt throughout it!  The breezes combined with being wet all day had Ella really shivering.  She had to take sun breaks to warm up and turn her lips back to a normal color.  To not be completely melting on a mid-July outdoor day was actually a treat! 

Besides all the playgrounds and water slides, two other things we kept going back to were the Lazy River and Wave Pool.  The girls just loved riding the currents and bobbing around in both.

Thank you, Delia, for having a summer birthday!  In celebrating her 3 years, we made some great memories together as a family!

Dear Delia,

To use your own words, yes, you've "feisty-ed" us with your boundless energy, strong will and mischief.  Yet, you've also totally charmed us with your affection, silliness, constant singing and passion for life.  There is no one else in the world like you, Delia.  And no other person could so perfectly complete our family.  You provide us with laughs and reminders of your love every day.  We know God will use you for great things and we love you!

Happy 3rd birthday, Big Girl!

A Little Help from My Friends

This week Dave has been gone on a mission trip to Kentucky with the youth group.  We missed him, of course, but had a fine time without him!  With Mt. Hermon and camping and VBS, this is actually our first week of summer to just be home and we've had the perfect combination of taking it easy and still enjoying small outings.  Three friends, Jetta, Amy and RaeAnn, were wonderful in opening their homes and sharing their company to help the days go by!

We spent Wednesday afternoon and evening with Jetta, who also lent her husband to Kentucky this week.  You never know what you're going to get at Jetta's house.  This time is was baby bunnies that Phil had rescued from the pasture and a GIANT dirt mountain!

Friday morning was a playdate with Amy, Jonathan and Grace at the fountain park.  We spent 3 lovely hours running in the spray, rolling down the hill, climbing the playground equipment and chowing down on burritos and quesadillas at our favorite taqueria.  These daily outings are designed to keep the kids busy and make the days go by quickly, but it's possible that I am having the most fun with my girlfriends!

Saturday brought a morning at RaeAnn's house.  She and her kids have a love for critters, so they literally have their own backyard petting zoo!  In the enclosure we found chicken eggs, petted bunnies, scared the pot belly pig and fed goats.  Then we shared some apples with the horses and donkeys in the pasture.

Their family also just built a spectacular new pool and it didn't take too much coaxing to get us in for a swim.   RaeAnn's twin girls were having a slumber party, so it was a pool packed with cool high schoolers.  Ella and Delia were lovin' the attention and Ella even scored some free swim lessons!  She was actually putting her head under while paddling and kicking from one end of the hot tub to the other without her life jacket! 

No husband? No problem!  We are well taken care of when Dave is gone!

Anticipation

We planted our simple summer garden late this year.  Baby peaches, zucchinis, cucumbers and tomatoes are just starting to announce their presence.  Right about the time we get our family visitors in 2 weeks, we should be ready to enjoy the bounty!  We're so excited for garden-fresh fruit and veggies AND Grandpa, Grandma and Uncle Kyle!!

Ladylike...Not so Ladylike

These pictures were taken in the same day and I just thought the contrast was kind of funny.

Here the girls are having a tea party, complete with my Grandma's china and fancy new dress up gowns from Mikaela. 

And here they are covered head to toe in sticky watermelon juice and trying to spit seeds at Mommy!