weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's

Right after our camping trip I headed out for Midland while Derek stayed home to work! (He was also going camping with the youth from church, so I didn't feel like being home alone all weekend. ) It took us over 6 hours with the border wait and WAY too much construction. The girls did pretty good, considering they'd been in the car 5 hours the day before! What troopers. Oh, wait, maybe I'm the trooper. :)
Anyway , it was Dave's birthday (29!) on Friday, so we celebrated it along with Geneva's 3rd bday too. (plus Brian and Rob and myself all have summer birthdays..). I think we were just excited that we were actually all together ON someone's birthday that we went all out. Ok, not really, but "all out" Mulder-style. We actually did SOMETHING for Dave. We made a newspaper for him... I wish I would of taken a pic of it, we were quite proud of it. And we got him a subscription to the Midland Daily Snooze Oops, i mean News. We even hid the "made" newspaper inside of my parents newspaper so that when Dave opened it up, he saw a pic of himself with the birthday headline, and an "article" about how his siblings got him a subscription to the paper. How creative we are, hey dorks?
A great weekend as always. It was nice and hot, and once again, we took full advantage of Dave and Christel's pool!

Love you, mi familia!!!!

Uncle Bobby and Brooke

I love my Grandpa!

Cleaning up the mess she made.

Christel, who had a job interview while we were there! She got it! Teaching jobs in Michigan are rather hard to find, but who could turn down our Christel!?!?

Eagerly awaiting the (frozen) cake.

Happy Birthday to YOUUUUUU

Note the frost on the cake.... (it was rather a last minute, "oh ya" let's eat the leftover cake from Dave and Christel's wedding!)

I think we have a lot of pictures of Geneva with her Uncles....

Brooke really loves her Grandma A LOT. She basically wants nothing to do with me when Grams is around. You'd think this might make me sad? Nope. :)

Brookie looking none too happy. But at least Uncle Brian is having fun in the kiddie pool!

Let's go Grandpa!

Bailey put up with SOOOO much "petting"

Camping with the VanderNiets

Our first camping adventure! (as a family of 4) On the August long weekend we went camping with friends from church (Rob and Kim and their 3 kids near Belleville, where they have trailer. We ended up hanging out at their site for a day before they came (they had a bit of a rough week before heading out on vacation including a death in the family and a broken foot for Rob!) They were able to make it up on Saturday. It was a very relaxing, slightly lazy weekend. :) The kids had a lot of fun together and got along very well. (aside from Brookie being a little rough with her buddy Reuben!) It was a lot of fun! Thanks for sharing your site and your vacation with us guys!!!

Bathing beauty

Kim and Kaelyn

the Huisman girls

This is the life

OOOOH, nice picture Jacob! (Check out the bedhead hair!)

Bedhead#3

Good friends!

Rob and Reuben
(notice the crutches under the swing, poor guy)

Moms and babes out for a bike

Slowest bikeride I've ever been on!

Wheee!

She was drenched with sweat so I managed to pull her bed out of the tent to catch a breeze.

This 3 year old definitely still needs an occasional nap.

She'd usually only nap if we took her for a drive, this little stinker.

mmmmm, beer (don't worry, it was empty!)

verrrrrrry flattering.

The parents needed a kid break, so while the babies were napping the big kids "watched" a movie. Mostly, they were just playing and Geneva doing baaaad things like finding pens to draw on the seat. SOOOOOOOO sorry Rob and Kim! Most of it came off!!??! BIG TIME OUT!

Geneva was a bit scared of the horses at first, but Brookie was rather excited. She kept saying "dah, dah" (her word for dog which she pretty much uses for ALL animals)

She warmed up to them later on and actually fed them some grass.

Bathtime

The girls certainly love their baths. Bubbles are a big hit lately.