Saturday: Cheryl's birthday

After dinner to celebrate Cheryl's birthday, we went home for cake and presents.  That was normal - nice to be with family and almost everyone was there.

Then a few boxes of old papers were brought out.  For Ben, it was mostly boring stuff...some transcripts, some awards, some information for entering Hope.  For Travis, it also included a lot of elementary through high school items.  Isaac couldn't stop laughing over one of the books that he had written:

While this isn't quite the correct words, here they are as best we could remember: "The space ship goes up into space.  And all of a sudden.  / Bullets was shooting at the spaceship.  Everybody died. Nobody was controlling./down down down. All of a sudden.  The spaceship crashed."

Friday: pickleball, eggplant

This morning we played, er, tried-to-play, pickleball with Cheryl this morning.  We're not very good, but we were able to hit the ball back and forth several times.  It was also a beautiful morning, so it was nice to be outside.

Yesterday I got all the laundry cleaned and sorted...five baskets full.  I managed to put all my laundry away and the kids have a bit of leeway.

Today I also got the kitchen cleaned...for about thirty minutes.  I started making strawberry jam after it was clean.  Isaac saw me chopping the strawberries in my 4c measuring cup and it ended up with me saying, "I'm trying to chop them more so that I can get shrink the volume to 4c."  He found that hilarious and the next minute or so was just laughter.  We ended up putting the extra strawberries on some extra donuts and it was delicious.

I didn't actually finish making the jam today because it was time to get dinner started.  One of Joshua's goals for the summer is to get more and different vegetables in our diet, so for tonight he chose eggplant.  We ended up with some baked eggplant discs.  They weren't amazing, but for vegetables they were pretty good - they seemed just like crunchy discs.  However, we then found out that eggplant doesn't have a ton of health benefits so it isn't the best vegetable (but any vegetable is better than no vegetable.)

Tuesday: outdoor rock climbing

Isaac got a gift to go outdoor rock climbing for his birthday.  The weather this week has been beautiful and so we ended up doing a last minute trip on Tuesday.  We went to Grand Ledge, which is about 1.5 hours east of Holland.  There is one ledge maybe .25-.5 miles long available to climb, but it's a great option for something close by.

We started on the nose.  It was an interesting spot because you could go up the middle (flake), the left side, or the right side and they all climb differently.

This was my second climb and I really wanted to use the nice step that my left foot is in...so I did.

I like this one because it looks like I have skills - the foot holds aren't very visible.

Then we moved to the corner just to the right.  This was an interesting one because our guide, Chris, had never climbed it before.  It took me three tries, but Isaac got it on the first try.  Chris also got it on the first try and he just sailed right up it.  You can tell that he has climbed just a bit more than we have.

We took a break for lunch and then Chris set up three different ropes.  I only climbed the first one - I got to the top the first time and stalled out the second time.  Isaac climbed all three and then did the first one again.

Isaac wanted to climb one more place with a crack, so we moved over there for the last climb.  It looked hard and we were running out of time, so I didn't climb it.

Take-aways:
*The setting the anchors took a lot more time than we expected.  Perhaps if we had a plan at the beginning this could have been streamlined a bit since I can also belay, but we were there for several hours and had a bunch of good climbs, but not tons of climbs.  (This can be a bit of a positive thing too, as it could be easy to get too tired.)

*We would absolutely need more training (and gear) before rope climbing by ourselves outside, but now that I know where it is we could probably boulder by ourselves with just a bit of instruction.  That went from feeling overwhelming to possible.

*Isaac said he enjoyed it more than he expected.

*The time flew by - it is a lovely location with quite a bit of shade

Thursday: Sandy Pines

 We visited Uncle Lee and Aunt Susan today.  

We started with mini golf.  The kids were a bit crazy, but not too much.  There was one hole where Isaac said he was going to go over the edge, through the wood chips, and then back on the green.  And then he did it!  It was almost a hole in one too, but he didn't quite get that.

Then we went on the ropes course.  We weren't on it for very long, but it's a fun course!

And we ended with lunch, ice cream, and a short drive around in the golf cart.  It was lovely to catch up with them, as normal.

Wednesday: life

While we're slowing getting over our jet lag, it is taking evey one a while.  I, not having a nap yesterday, went to bed at 9:30pm.

We visited a new playground today.  Joshua does love his playgrounds and it was kind of the only time this week it would work.  We snuck there between rain.  The kids enjoyed it, but the overall rating was just ok.  (I thought it was going to be quite a bit higher.)  It was a mix of natural playground and normal playground elements.

I went to get groceries after nap time.  It was a big trip, but we needed a lot of things.

I still haven't finished unpacking or laundry from the trip.  Well, all the laundry is clean and half has been sorted.  The kitchen is..a mess.  I keep trying to catch up, but it's summer time and there are so many fun things to do!  I did get the groceries put away, so I consider that a win.

Monday: strawberries

After all having eye appointments, we went strawberry picking.  The picking was only ok.  Even the end of the rows had a lot of moldy strawberries, so not only did we need to find strawberries but we also needed to make sure they were it decent condition.  Between the three of us we ended up with two buckets, more than I was expecting, but not as much as I was hoping.

 

Saturday: old pictures

It was a pretty normal day, so here are a few pictures from before vacation that didn't make the blog.  I guess they were both from the day before we left.

Black belt ceremony...I made it to the black belt ceremony for Emily and Will.  It made the day really busy, but I was glad that I went.  There aren't many black belts left, so I was the only normal student that represented on the mat.

Then we also had a family picture from Isaac's graduation.