Grandma Ciolek's 75th Birthday

We went to my Grandma's birthday on July 29th. The kids had fun coloring and eating yummy food. They were awesome even though we came straight from sitting at church.

Hudson Mills Metropark

These pictures were taken July 28th. We ate dinner earlier and then headed to the park to enjoy the beautiful weather. We walked to the river, threw in some rocks, waved to all the dogs and swung for a bit.

My boys! Nothing better than throwing rocks.

Look at that over there

Watch out!

The sweet Alex, taking a rest from throwing rocks to watch people coming over the bridge

Luke singing and walking in some sort of goofy way

Blueberry Picking

These pictures were taken July 27th.  Kris had the day off after we returned from Lake Huron.  It was a nice laid back activity to do when we a bit worn out from our trip.

We have gone back an additional two times since then, giving us enough blueberries for each week.  I think we have two more weeks for the season.  We need to start going to begin picking some for freezing.  We've picked about 14 pounds so far, but have managed to eat them all before they got to the freezer.

Serious blueberry eating!

Still looking for more!

Holding onto our pickings

Alex helping making blueberry crumble

Alex has been helping with cooking and baking since the time he could stand on a chair.  He is now getting to a level that I can hand him the ingredients and give him the instruction.  I have to watch if he really put in three like I asked.  But he is great at accurately measuring and carrying out each step with minimal mess.  The other day he assembled a veggie pizza with even layers of toppings after I cut up and laid out the ingredients next to him.  Today he filled in all the muffin papers with next to no spilling when we made banana muffins.  He has some great precision.  Oh boy, I think this boy will be making me dinner in the not so far future!

Lake Huron

We took a trip to Lake Huron, as we did last year and stayed at the house of one of Kris' dad's friends. He is super generous to share his house with us! We stayed for a day longer this year. By the fourth day the weather was not so great and the kids were getting tired, especially Luke who didn't nap for the past three days.

The first day, the water was amazingly calm. So beautiful.

Self-timer on the dock, but I think when I pushed the button, it focused on my face, bummer

We can imagine we were without kids, in a tropical place

The next day we went to one of the local parks in the morning.  Alex LOVED feeding the seagulls.  If you ask, that was his highlight of the vacation.

So fitting for Alex, in love with the seagulls, he called "eagles"

After lunch and a rest, we went back to the beach.  

Alex is about to have sand clapped onto the top of his hat

The following day it was a bit overcast and chillier, so we went to the state park.

                                     We were camped out at the beach, in the picture ready to eat our picnic lunch, but it started raining, so we moved to the indoor pavilion

In response to "dad, take a silly picture of me."

It cleared up after rest time, so we went back out to the beach.  It seemed cool when we left, so the plan was just to play in the sand, but the sun came out and it got warmer.  I didn't feel like getting their sandy bodies changed, so they went swimming in their clothes.

We built a landscape for our dinosaurs

Also made a "bathtub" as they called it

It was very raining the next morning and the kids seemed like they had enough.  So, we packed up and ate lunch.  After lunch it cleared up so we took a last walk along the beach to stretch our legs before the car ride.  They both were complaining they were tired and wanted to go.  Luke even sat down in the middle of the beach and asked to be picked up.  So back home we headed.

They ate a snack and were out, for nearly the whole car trip. 

The kids definitely enjoyed themselves (we all did).  Alex was crying while he was trying to go to sleep that he wanted to go back to the cabin right now.  What could be better than sand, water and seagulls?