June 22-23

On Monday we went up north with Vic and Mom to check out a cool older cottage on a lake that Vic is renovating for a friend. I wanted it :) After that we swam one last time in Jason and Lois' pool. Tuesday we flew home and arrived in Lynden around mindnight. It is always so hard to leave Michigan!!!

June 21

Sunday was baptism for Brad and Lynn's little Cassidy Joy. I love it when I get to see the nieces and nephews still tiny! Isn't she cute? I wonder if the boys all called eachother to wear khakis...

June 20

Don't fall over dead, but I am actually posting! It's October 2 now and I am determined to catch up. June 20 was Mark and Julie day. They picked us up in their humongo motorhome and drove us to that new waterpark near Jenison where we spent the day getting slightly sunburnt. Suddenly I am enamoured with the idea of travelling by motorhome! The kids got to watch a video on the road back to Borculo to have supper at their house, which John found very cool!

June 19

Friday was the day Daddy was coming home. I spent most of the morning snoozing in between visits from Thomas. I am quite sure I fed him, that's all I remember. After lunch, Lois brought John home, who acted as if the sleepover had been no big deal. Mackenzie and Taylor came over to babysit all the little people (Lindsey had to do more important birthday stuff), and Mom, Lois, Dana and I spent the day shopping at antique stores in Grandville and near downtown GR. We got a lot of neat things (including vintage croquet balls that rolled all over the van floor) and just mostly enjoyed being together without little people. That evening, I drove the girls back out to Brad and Lynn's, who had their own scary stories of the night before, including the frightening smell of burning after a lightning strike...it turned out that a hair straightener had been zapped to death! While we visited, another storm hit, this one even worse. We watched the radar on Brad's computer...we were in the eye of the storm, and it stretched all the way over to Wisconsin. John was terrified of the thunder. The rain came down in sheets. Brad drove the van right up to the door for us, but we were soaked in seconds. We drove about 20 most of the way through washouts and puddles so deep I thought we would get stranded. Thomas slept the whole way. We made it home just in time for Calvin to arrive...his plane had just beat the storm. The next day we heard a lot of stories of cars and even a firetruck stranded in intersections. Some areas got 5-7 inches of rain! Out here in WA I kind of miss thunderstorms, but not that kind!

June 17 & 18

Of these days, my memory begins to fail. This is what happens when one's husband takes one's camera to the nation's capital, as if anything there could be more interesting! I am very grateful that Mom or Lois' camera was usually handy. On Wednesday, Uncle Rod left for home (photo op!) and Dad and Mom played a mad game of Quiddler. I think this is the day when we spent the afternoon hanging out at Lois'. The kids played, Mom and Lois did crafty sewing stuff for the nursery, and Dana and I worked on our laptaps preparing for Sunday School. I made sure no leftover cheese dip went to waste. I'm pretty sure this is also the day Dana and I dumped my boys on Mom right after supper and went Father's Day shopping all evening. Truly all evening...Meijers is open 24 hours! It was a great deal of fun, and our men were rather spiffily outfitted come Sunday. However, I must note, that of the many pairs of plaid shorts flung upon the breakfast table, Calvin's favorites were the ones I gave Dad. Aaaah!

Thursday...hmm, no idea. I think we spent the day at home. I took the boys briefly to Renita's in the afternoon, and then Thomas and I went to the SE church picnic, which I greatly enjoyed. John went over to Evan's, where I later joined him. Initially, he intended to sleep over, but once I came, he got rather shy. Eventually, two little boys were bawling, one because his cousin wasn't sleeping over and one because he felt so bad he was making his cousin cry. I ended up sleeping on the couch so John would stay. This turned out to be less than successful, with John sneaking down around midnight to make sure I had really stayed. Shortly thereafter a thunderstorm to end all thunderstorms started, keeping my room fully lit for many hours. Then little people started running downstairs...John tried to sleep with me firstand then made so much noise on the leather recliner I made him switch; I finally fell asleep at 5, to wake up at 6 to sneak home so Thomas could jump on me at 6:55. I was SOOOOOOOO tired!

June 16 - Mom Enforces Exercise

I kind of thought sleeping in til noon would be the order once Calvin was gone, but alas, 'twas not to be. Before I was thru my first cup of coffee, Mom had packed up a picnic lunch, and off we went on a nature walk. This is a really cool nature preserve along the Grand River hiden just off...Filmore? We started out tiptoeing through the poison ivy while dodging the mosquitoes in the wooded area along the river. Notice Mom dashing away from a particularly big one. Many touching photos of this leg of our journey cannot be published because someone did not appreciate rear shots of her maternity pants. Then Dana led us along the edge of a grassy pheasant meadow before heading up a steep hill into a high range of trees. Note Lois demonstrating to the proper way to use a walking stick to get up a hill. Annika was not all that impressed with hers and later improvised on the steepest hill. John and Evan jabbered the whole way, and Thomas raced down every hill at breakneck speed which freaked me out a little. He only wiped out on the very last one however. We ended back at the playground near a pond where Mom finally let us eat. It was so much fun!!!!! After that we chilled (literally) in Lois' pool before heading home.

June 15 - Calvin leaves for Washington DC

I have little memory of Monday, but it was a HUGE day for Calvin and the guys. I dropped him off around 1 in the afternoon at Kuip's and you have never seen four guys more ready to go than these four. I was pretty excited for them, and even happy to see Calvin leave, since he had already been there in his head for months and months :). This picture was taken by Calvin's boss' sister Sandy when she picked them up at Reagan Airport. They got to stay at her house and she turned out to be an amazing help to them. As you can see, leaving their wives and children behind was very difficult for them, ha ha ha! I promise to dedicate several posts to their trip, once we get all the other guys' pics and I compile them for Calvin. It was a pretty amazing trip. They pretty much saw everything in DC in just four days!!