Holland, MI

August 5-14
Our van was clean, serviced and packed. We were ready for our LONG road trip.  We were excited about our vacation to Holland to visit friends and enjoy some of our favorite spots again as a family.  And we were excited to stay at the lake house in New York with Nathan's parents and sisters.  After an hour on the road, we had eaten our lunch and the boys and myself had literally just fallen asleep when our van broke down.  And after many kind people stopped to offer their help, we found out that the van was going to take at least an entire day in the shop to get fixed.

Thankfully it was a beautiful afternoon and we had packed frisbees, a soccer ball, and a ball and gloves so we played while Nathan made many phone calls.  The boys were excited to see a police car with its lights on, a tow truck, and GRANDPA!  THANK YOU SO MUCH to my dear parents who offered for us to take their car so we could head out on our trip as planned!  I feel so blessed to have such generous and selfless parents who would do anything to help us out.  We were still able to make it to Holland that night, even though it was around 2:00 in the morning.

Monday
At 11:00 we went to visit "Grandpa" Jerry and "Grandma" Shirley.  They had prepared us a delicious fish dinner as they had done many times before when we lived in Holland.  They knew how much the boys loved the fish at their house!  They also had fun playing with her dancing chicken.  :)  After lunch we played baseball outside for a long time.  It was very relaxing and enjoyable to spend time with them again!

At 2:00 we went over to Alex and Leah's house.  Dorian was really excited about being able to play with his old neighbors again!  We enjoyed a relaxing afternoon outside both at their house and then at Prospect Park.

We ate at Crazy Horse for supper before meeting Kristi and Kate Rosema at Craig's Cruisers to play a round of miniature golf.  Ironically, Levi got a hole in one on his first shot and he did the same thing when we were there a year ago!!!  I think we need to sign him up for golf.  :)  The boys were equally excited to feed the fish there.  Nathan got to make his stop at the batting cages.  And for the first time, we rode the go-karts together!  Kate took lots of pictures of us and they are rather entertaining!  I was excited to start out in the lead and maintain that to the end...but it was a tight race!  :)

We went to the Rosema's for homemade malts for dessert and the boys had a blast playing with Dale and Jason!!!  It was a full day, another late night, and a lot of fun!

Tuesday
I was very excited to meet with friends at the park in the morning while Nathan did some work at Hope.  It was wonderful to talk in person with dear friends and it made me miss each of them.

We grabbed lunch at Baja Grill and then packed up for an afternoon/evening on the beach.  We do miss Lake Michigan!  What a beautiful spot!!!  Dave and Kristin and Sarah joined us to eat pizza on the beach.  The waves were pretty big so the boys really loved playing in the water this time!  The weather was perfect.

 

 

Our lives were very blessed when we lived in Holland and our lives continue to be richly blessed in Sioux Center.  I was just talking to Nathan about how comforting it is to have lived somewhere for over a year.  The first year is filled with exploration and a lot of firsts.  Now we can look back and remember what we did here a year ago.  I'm not sure exactly why, but it is comforting.