Iowa and a minivan

We drove out to Iowa on Saturday, the day after Nathan's summer reseach had ended. After a long ride, we decided to join mom and dad at Inspiration Hills where they were having the VandenBosch reunion which added another hour of driving time. But what's another hour after you've driven about 11 already. :) We arrived just in time to eat supper with everyone. It was good to be where the party was! Sunday morning we went to church, had lunch outside with the Bolkema's at mom and dad's house and then shortly after Nathan had to drive up to Sioux Falls so that he could fly out to Vancouver for his conference. He was gone until Thursday. Sunday night, Holli came over and it was so good to talk with her!

Monday we went to Marigolds and out to eat at the bakery. Tuesday, hmmmm, we just played at grandma and grandpa's house I think. Oh, we babysat Aniah and Eden and then later I took the boys to the new outdoor pool in Sheldon. Great place! And ironically Lisa VanBeek was there so we were able to catch up a little bit. :) Gotta love small towns.

Wednesday was our big shopping day. :) We drove up to Sioux Falls and I was able to see Kerry and Rodney's backyard for the first time since River of Hope remodeled it. It was Kerry's idea to get sitters for the kids and go out with mom, Kerry, Heidi and myself. We enjoyed ourselves and found out when we returned the the kids enjoyed themselves as well...so it worked out well. In fact Dorian and Levi were so involved in their game of golf with Uncle Rodney they didn't notice or care that I was back. :)

While we were shopping, Nathan was hiking for the morning on Grouse Mt. He couldn't be so close to the mountains without climbing on them. :)

Thursday, Nathan and dad both got home around 6:00 and we decided that it was going to be our best opportunity to enjoy a boatride at the Lakes. Oh, I love boating at the Lakes! Dorian and Levi really enjoyed it as well.

Friday was Rodney's birthday!!! Yeah, thank you God for giving him another year. The Lamfers arrived for the weekened that morning. We went to the outdoor pool in the afternoon in Sheldon. Grandpa and Grandma came over at night to watch all of the little ones and all of the adults went out for supper together. What a great time to talk and laugh together and celebrate all the blessings we've been given! Then we had grandma's excellent angel food cake for dessert!

The bad news about Friday was that Levi came down with a fever. Oh, it sure seems like he has been sick everytime we are in Iowa this past year and it makes it so much more stressful knowing that Rodney has a compromised immune system. We ended up taking him to the dr. and there was nothing we could do for him except keep him away from the Lamfers family. The next day we discovered spots on the bottom of his feet and self diagnosed him with hand, foot and mouth disease. :( Forunately, I guess, the only other person who got it was Dorian, a few days later. It was no fun for either of them. I have no idea where they picked that up from.

Saturday morning Rodney and Nathan took the kids golfing. Kerry and I helped mom unpack boxes of craft stuff that she had ordered, and helped with pricing some of it. I used to do that all of the time, but since moving away, that hasn't really happened too much anymore. In the afternoon Dad, Nathan, Dorian and Levi went to Poppema's shop to look at all of the trucks at grandpa's work. They detoured on the way home to look at Grandstra's cows! The boys had a blast with that!

Later that day we were finally able to spend some time outside without getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. They were so terrible previous days, that we couldn't really be outside. So it was especially fun to play softball, go on tire swing rides, have a campfire, etc.

Sunday morning, mom volunteerd to stay home with Levi while the rest of us went to church and to grandpa and grandma's house for lunch. :) They made my favorite peach dessert. :) They treat me well! Then it was home for dinner to eat a great homemade meal of steaks on the grill, etc. Mmmm! That evening mom and dad went to church, the Lamfers and DeKruyfs had gone home, and our family all stayed back together to get the boys to bed at a reasonable time.

On Monday, we decided at the last minute to head to Rock Valley to do a little shopping for something fun to do. Well, the first store we went into I fell in love with a table and chairs that was on sale. After much debate, I decided not to get it because I knew there were other expenses coming up that we should be saving our money for. Well, later that day, Nathan came home with it. :) He surprised me and purchased it because he knew I really did want it, even though I didn't need it. What a great husband!!! I was thinking that I'd put it in the basement, but after coming home, we decided to try it out in our kitchen.

Nathan had also looked at vehicles in Rock Valley and was very excited about the options at Kristin's dad's car lot. We had been looking a little over the summer about getting a second vehicle and were debating about getting a cheap car for Nathan to take back and forth to work but concluded that it was better to get a better, more reliable minivan for our family. So we were planning on leaving bright and early Tue. morning to head back to MI, but changed our minds and drove over the Rock Valley while mom watched the boys. After driving the one we were most excited about after looking online the night before, I wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't super excited and didn't feel right about making a quick purchase, and immediately driving home later that day. So mid-morning, we changed our plans again and asked mom if she could watch the boys for the day while we looked up in Sioux Falls at vehicles. After driving many different minivans, we concluded that we really wanted a Honda Odyssey and there wasn't exactly what we wanted in Sioux Falls. It wasn't a wasted day however, we made a lot of decisions and knew now exactly what we wanted. :)
Wed. we spent the day driving back to MI. Nathan was totally absorbed in the vehicle search, so we left the next morning to check out what was available here. It was a very interesting day. We test drove a number of vehicles, decided that we were going to purchase one that we had driven earlier in the day, made the phone call only to find out that it was on a test drive and that family would get it if they decided they wanted it...well about a half an hour later, we heard that they did indeed want to purchase it and we both were so bummed and ready to be done thinking about vehicles. After hearing that, we drove to one more car lot and weren't happy with what they had and it was getting very late and the boys were VERY sick of it and SO was I. Then guess what happened! A couple of hours yet from home, 9:00 at night, the boys both still awake, and our van starts having transimission issues and I start crying in the front seat hoping not to upset the boys. We continued to drive home at 40 mph and arrived to a very messy house and no working transportation. :( I know Nathan was up until about 2:30 picking up the kitchen enough so that the table was cleared for breakfast in the morning, renting a vehicle for us to drive around the next couple of days and searching online for other vehicles to possibly purchase.
Another interesting day to prove that God provides. Nathan found on Craig's List a couple of very similar Honda Odysseys to the one we had wanted to purchase the day before. Nathan drove them and another one north of Grand Rapids earlier in the day and I drove the 2 that came to the top of our list that evening. A short while later, we made the phone call to purchase the vehicle that we have now, a 2007 silver Honda Odyssey with nearly 86,000 miles on it. I absolutely love everything about it!!! I can now listen to CD's in the van (a 6 CD changer!) and it even has a DVD player for our many long van trips! Also a sun roof, leather seats, etc. It's very nice and we think that we got a pretty good deal for it! Hopefully it will last us many more years and many more miles!