First Day of School 2019

How do I already have two middle schoolers? How is my baby in fourth grade already!? I can't believe how fast life goes by. I remember posting something when my kids were younger that went something like "the days are long, but the years are short." It was true back then, raising little ones. The days felt so long. Now the days feel short AND the years feel short. We had the girls wait till they were 10 to get into any organized sports. We knew the craziness that would come with that. I'm glad we waited. It gave us lots of family dinners, and relaxing, non-stressful evenings at home. Because now it feels like we are into the craziness of activities! Ava plays a different sport every season! Allie plays volleyball, softball, and is running cross country. Hannah's not even 10 yet and she's doing a great after school program called Girls on the Run! I do love that they love sports, but it can be stressful. I'm thankful to be job-less at this time in my life!

All that to say, we had a great first week of school! Ava started 8th, Allie is now in middle school, in sixth grade, and Hannah started fourth. Hannah has Mrs. Morley, a teacher neither of her sisters had, but we really like her! Allie has Cummings, Chapman, White, Arens, Singlyn, and Laplante. Ava has White, Feld, Ristau, Connel, Hopper, and Stahl. (I figure my family is the only people reading this so they will enjoy looking back and remembering their teachers!).

Ava was very excited for Allie to join her at the bus stop in the morning, and be in her school as well. The intersection at Cooley and Carroll happened to be closed the first week of school because they were putting in a round-about. So we had to drive the girls down to West Grand Traverse for their bus stop!

Hannah has enjoyed having the house and bathroom all to herself in the mornings. It's actually been pretty smooth, as Allie and Hannah don't always see eye to eye on things. Hannah also gets to be in the same school as her cousin this year! Emilia started Kindergarten!

This was also Hannah's temporary bus stop, but now we get on right by our house.

We were sad to see summer end, but we're excited for fall and a new year of school! We shall see if I get a job this year. If not, I'll sub occasionally.

Vascations Part 2: 2019

2019 was such a great year. We were able to do a lot of fun small and large trips. This one isn't in order but that's ok. Mike and I split the CT Ohio trip in June. He went for the first half and I took the second half. We went back to Tiffin University for Velocity. We did a lot of great service projects during the day, and enjoyed the conference. The students did a great job and it was such a wonderful group. Evan's group from Chicago came, as well as Matt's group from Grace Commerce.

The rest of the trips are in order now! In February, we went back down to New Smyrna Beach and stayed in the Varilone's beautiful beach house!

We mostly just relaxed and enjoyed being on the ocean. But we did take a day trip to the oldest city in the US, St. Augustine.

We went back to Universal Studios since Katie, Mitch, and Nikki had never been there! It was so much fun and it wasn't crowded at all!

I went on our annual girls trip with my high school friends. This time we went to Charleston. Wow what a beautiful city full of amazing food! We actually stayed in a condo right on the ocean in Folly Beach. So that was amazing!

I didn't realize this next picture was from Instagram but oh well. Mike and I surprised ava and met the Crossroaders in Cedar Point after their serve and swerve trip. It was a very rainy day but the park was empty and we had a great time!

Mike and Sophany asked if we would like to go on a weekend trip with them some time in the summer so we ended up going to South Haven with them. We stayed in the Whitted's brother's house. It was a lot of fun spending time with everyone and hanging out in South Haven. A highlight was definitely the double decker pontoon with a slide off the top!

We surprised the girls with tickets to the live Dude Perfect show in Grand Rapids. We went out for a night and stayed at a hotel right down the street from the venue! Allie and Mike actually got to meet Coby! The show was really funny and the girls loved it!

The next day, we spontaneously decided to go to Michigan's Adventure. It was fun spending the day there. The weather was beautiful!

And for the final hurrah of the summer, we went back to UPBC. This time we went three days early. We spent two nights with the Bucinski's in Grand Junction. They live off the grid right on this gorgeous lake! We spent some time at Lake Superior, ate Tammy's amazing cooking, and just relaxed and visited! On the way to camp, we stopped at Munising Falls and Black Rocks of course, to jump off the rocks. Everet came with us.

Camp was incredible once again. Mike was a shepherd and I was a teacher. The girls were campers. We stayed in the same cabin as last year, Awsegan. The Westermans were on the opposite side, with Mary Kay in the counselor's room. What a wonderful summer we've had! We are blessed.

Vacations Part 1 2018

It is a pain trying to catch up on this Blog! But I'm getting there. Here's all the fun "out of town" trips we took in the second half of 2018.

In July we went to New Hampshire. We stayed in Seabrook Beach with my parents, Brian, and Emilia. We also had Matt and Kara Mezak come out for a couple nights. And we had Brandon and Katherine Bellanti visit, and we went into Boston and hung out with them. It was a great week! We caught a Red Sox game, spent lots of time at the beach and with family!

Mike went with the guys out to Oakland CA to catch a game and see another stadium. They were barely there for 24 hours. It was a quick trip, but they had fun.

We went back to help at Day Camp at UPBC. That is seriously, one of my favorite trips to take. It's amazing to spend a week with fellow believers at an amazing camp. The girls have a blast and it's an incredible week to see God at work!

In the fall, the leaders all took a retreat together to pray and plan for the year. We stayed at the Trahey's house in Tawas.

We took another trip with our marriage group in September of 2018. We went back to the Outer Banks! We were able to stop and spend a night with Katie and her beautiful family in Virginia on the way.

We had so much fun. We stayed in a three story, huge house, right on the ocean this time! We spent most days at the beach, or in the pool. It was such a fun trip.

And that wraps up our trips for 2018! Slowly catching up to 2019!!