Summer so far....

The weather has been beautiful so far this summer. Highs in the upper 60s and low 70s. We've been riding bikes, the girls did a week of Starbase camp, we have five monarch caterpillars and within the next week we're supposed to be having a splash park open! We've been having fun and staying busy. The soccer season ends on Tuesday and then next week will be the 4th of July! Craziness. I think our summer will slow down after VBS in mid July, but until then it's pretty hoping.

If you're wondering how life really looks in between all the fun (or not so fun bike trips because the kids complain the entire time)......yesterday I was taking the boys to a garage sale and Wal-mart. They were arguing in the back of the car and talking about a friend in a not kind way. I told them to stop talking like that, that it wasn't treating others like they were made in the image of God. They said the person they were talking about was not made in the image of God and I started talking to them (again) about how we are ALL made in God's image and reflect him......one of their responses? "Mom, you don't have to preach to us! We go to church on Sundays!" Wow, I'm not even the pastor :-) Obviously they haven't been listening very well at church? Anyway, lots of people have enjoyed the story, so I figured I'd share it here as well.

Happy National Donut Day!

Since there is no way I can trust any stores to have corn free donuts we decided to make our own. And let me tell you, they were amazing!!!!! We tried something new and did filled donuts! Evie as she was eating them kept saying we should open a bakery.

Starting to fry them

Flipped and cooking on the second side. 

Isn't it beautiful?

Topped with chocolate and ready to fill!

Damen really was enjoying it :-)

Doesn't it look wonderful?

We ended up making 18, why? Because we're crazy. Nathan brought a few into work, and we actually made them yesterday so the kids had them after dinner and then again for breakfast. They were much better fresh, but not bad this morning. The white chocolate covered ones we were going to fill with homemade strawberry jam I had made, but no one ended up being interested in that. So I've added some chocolate to the vanilla fill and we'll put that inside instead :-) 

Glass Bottom Boat Tour

This past Wednesday we were invited to go on a glass bottom boat tour with folks from Habitat. It was a little chilly and I had forgotten sweatshirts, one of my children listened when I told them they would need them and I had gotten them out of the drawer for the other two and meant to grab one for myself and failed. But we survived and had fun!

Heading out to the big lake from the river

There are some smiles!

Looking down at the shipwreck

What are they looking at?

There are six glass windows to look at the shipwrecks in. They are looking down into them and you see something like this:

It was pretty neat. They said the water was green from the limestone. 

Here is Thunder Bay Island light house

After seeing two shipwrecks we headed back to shore

And we got to go through the drawbridge! It was fun going through it instead of having to sit and wait for it in our car :-) 

Once we were docked again the captain let the boys come and take a look at the control panel 

And pretend to steer. The captain is a twin an identical twin as well so we got to hear some fun story about the trouble he got into as a kid :-)

Memorial Day

Memorial Day was beautiful here so we took the kids and headed over to church to use the canoes on the river! It was the first time the girls has paddled and they both did pretty well. We took some sandwiches with us and headed to an island about a mile from where we pushed off.

I had Kaleb and Hannah with me

And Nathan had Damen and Evie

At the island there were lots of crawdads. 

Evie, Hannah and Kaleb had a great time catch and playing with them. 

Damen was so found of the idea of being pinched (only Evie and Nathan were, although Damen thought he was on his leg and that's why he was staying away)

If you held them by the tails like this you were pretty safe. 

After everyone had their fun catching crawdads (I was told they are not crayfish up here, regional names get confusing when you have lived in multiple regions!) They went for rides in the current, you can see the line of bubble here and Nathan standing at the end. It was a fun  ride!

Kaleb and Hannah enjoying the ride

Damen having fun!

And Evie drifting along. 

Besides a couple break downs from one child it was a good day and everyone is looking forward to an opportunity to do it again!

Beach Day!

Last week there were some pretty warm days. We made it into the 80s, so I took the kids to the beach and they went swimming in lake Huron. Just to clarify, as when people around here hear that you actually swam in the "big lake" in May they think you're crazy. Remember it only really thawed in April :-)

Here are the girls running in

Kaleb had fun building a sand castle

And yes, all the kids went in the water, I put my feet in, but that was it. 

Having a fun time!

Spring Critters

Spring is here and the kids have been loving being outside as much as possible. They have "Mayer Camp" in the woods by our house and have been catching all kinds of frogs, toads, salamanders and fish (yes, we had fish in the drainage ditch in front of our house, how? I don't know).

Here are the salamanders Hannah caught at Mayer Camp

Here are some toads the boys caught and the house they made for them. 

It's made out of sod and wood and the boys had so much fun playing with them at it yesterday. 

Soccer

Three of the four kids are playing soccer this spring, Hannah, Damen and Kaleb. They are all enjoying it and it is keeping us busy on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Here is Damen kicking the ball during the game last night

Listening to their coach and getting into position for the throw in

I don't have any pictures from Hannah's games yet, since they all play on the same nights and all but one game has been at the same time I haven't been able to watch much of her playing. 

Ditch and Garden

We spent several days in May working on a ditch to drain our backyard of the Spring melt and rains. After that was done we started working on a garden in the open field next to our house. We got permission from the owner to have a garden there in exchange for mowing the lot. Hannah mowed most of it the first week and I did the second week, we'll see how that works out this summer, it's quite a big lot when you have a small mower.

Here is the ditch, it works really well and our yard dried quickly. We were finally able to get the trampoline up for the kids last weekend as well. 

Here's the garden, it's about 10x15. We have some spouts at this point, but not many. We'll see how it does.