Fun in the sun

Saturday was John's birthday,since it was going to be in the high 70's we decided to go to the beach in Grand Haven on Lake Michigan . We stopped in Grand Rapids to see the Fredrick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Gallery, which had it's butterflies on exhibit. We saw hundreds of butterflies up close! Some of them even landed on people while they were walking around. We chased this blue one around for about 10 minutes until it finally landed with it's wings open so I could get a good pic.

Then it was off to the beach. We had a great time even tho' the water was FREEZING!! The kids loved the sand and they were covered in it by the end of the day.(so was the inside of the van!) We played in the sun all afternoon and when we were getting ready to go to the pier, that's when we realized something was missing! Somehow John's wallet fell out of his pocket, and we think it got burried in about 4 or 5 feet of sand. There was a crew working on taking the snow fence down and the bulldozer made 4 foot ruts in the sand, which we had to climb through to get to the beach and back to the van to leave. We think (we hope) that it fell out there and got dozed over with sand. By the time we got back to the beach to look for it , the sand was all smoothed over and nobody had turned it in. But we weren't about to let that ruin our day, so we went to the baordwalk. While we were walking this huge ship came in the canal and blew it's horn so loud that I think everyone on the boardwalk jumped! We got half way down the pier and Derek had to got potty. And when a 3yr. old little boy needs to go... ya let him go. Luckily there weren't too many people going by right then so he wasn't too embarassed. After that we walked to the end where we sat for a while and looked at the lake while the sun was setting. It was a gorgeous day and hopefully we will get back there again soon.

SPRING BREAK 2007 !!!!!

We really wanted to go home and be with family this past week, but we had a nice time at home finding tax info and catching up on much needed sleep. It has been so nice to sleep in until 9:00 every morning (not that I slept much after 8:00)-the kids were up, but they are getting old enough to get breakfast on their own, so I enjoyed my comfy bed a little longer than usual. (2 1/2 hrs to be exact!)

On Saturday AM Tori had a flute duet for a competition at school and she did great, she even got a metal! At 4pm we went to Ann Arbor with our Malaysian friends to a South East Asian Exhibit, food tasting and performance. The kids enjoyed trying new foods and pictures from the different countries but I think they liked the "show" the best. We had to leave a little early because of the 45 minute drive home, but it was a nice evening with the Cheah family, learning more about their culture.

By Wed. the cold weather had hit and the snow was flying again. Brrrrr! On Thursday we enjoyed a Mexican dinner with one of our Deans and 2 other families. They were missionaries to Mexico and learned how to cook some yummy food while they were there! On Friday we went to Ann Arbor again to visit the Museum of Natrual History. We spent 2 hours looking at dino bones and fossils, checking out how we "really" got here.(ha!) It was interesting, and gave it us an opportunity to reinforce creation! The kids liked it, but not the walk from the parking garage to the museum! It was COLD and blowing snow sideways!! We ate at a Potbellies for lunch which specializes in sandwiches on toasted foccacia bread. Good stuff!! -if you ever get the chance to eat there, do it.

On Saturday for lunch we ate with the Cheah's. It was a potluck, they made Thia curry chicken (red) and another missionary couple from Thialand made yellow curry chicken and potatoes (both over rice of course), and they also made some Thia noodle dish that was very good but very spicy!! Derek has some off the top and must be all the spice went to the bottom, so when he asked for more he got the HOT stuff. It was so hot he shook, but he kept eating it!?!?!? We finally took it off his plate. Then,we went to our neighbors, the Kay's, for dinner and just hung out for a while. The last few days of visiting has wore the kids out and they are tired!! But not too tired for an Easter egg hunt, and one last outing to the Turner's for Easter Dinner. They were gone all week to Virginia so we didn't get to spend any time with them over the break. She made a hash brown casserole, baby carrots, green beans, & cupcakes. I brought turkey breasts done in the crock pot, corn on the cob, rolls and cranberry sauce. It seemed more like Thanksgiving, but it was snowing most of the day so we didn't mind! We had a great break week, we are all so tired going back to our regular routine should bring back some sense normalcy if there is such a thing!!