Joyfully Weary

Early this summer we were blessed enough to enjoy a week at a  lake house in Benton Harbor . The place was beautiful, but the thing that really set the week over the top was the company. The only way it could of been better is if Jeremy's youngest sister and her husband would have also been able to join us. Lucky, for us we got to visit them in Colorado a few weeks later - don't worry, there will be a blog post ;). I already have three sisters who I consider friends, so I don't understand how I got so lucky to also have three sister-in-laws who I think the world of. All of them are smart, considerate, and generous. We planned this get together to celebrate Heidi being done with her surgical vet residence. Vet school plus surgical residence means sacrifice, and sadly one result was that we didn't get to see her nearly as much as we'd like.  Above she's showing the kids some of the operations she's done - they are pretty impressive and some th...

Big Buddy turned nine this month! Every time another birthday of his rolls around my emotions are so mixed . My heart could burst with pride when I think about the young man he is growing in to; but I also wish motherhood came with a pause button.  This year to celebrate he wanted to have some of his favorite friends over at a  local forest preservse  so they could shoot each other with Nerf guns. 

A couple Sundays back we drove up to Lance Park Beach after church. I was really excited to check out this beach because the reviews looked pretty positive. With a large family, full of younger kids, I keep my eye out for beaches with close parking, nearby restrooms, and a bit of shade. This beach had all of those things. It's also small and a bit closed off so you don't have to worry about loosing kids.  It was so close to perfect that I'm sad to admit it had one huge negative - there was a crazy amount of dog poop in the sand. Therefore, I can't recommend you go check it out. We might venture back some day; there is a part of me that hopes that maybe the messiness was just a one day fluke.  We still made the best of our afternoon, just making sure to steer the kids toward cleaner areas. All my kiddos love water and with their eager earnest hearts they do a good job of overlooking most negatives.

About a month ago we finally decided to check out our local drive-in . We saw The Secret Life of Pets and  BFG. The older kids were on cloud nine! This was their first drive-in and they were so impressed with the large screen, the little radios, sitting on top of the car, and getting to stay out past midnight? Baby Z was pretty happy too...it doesn't matter where you are as long as mommy is holding and nursing you. 

Early in the summer we had a family day and went to the Crabtree Nature Center in Barrington. If you have elementary school kids in your family this is a perfect forest preserve to visit. Less then half-a-mile up the trail is a nature play area with a plethora of actives to engage young learners.