Thursday, June 21, 2018

April 2018

Fishing Trip Preparations
Nathan, Dorian and Levi went to the cabin overnight and met Paul, Matt and their boys on Saturday to get the rest of the things they needed to take on their fishing trip to Canada.  Dorian and Levi talked Nathan into breakfast with hot chocolate at the Diner!
 Levi bought a tackle box and he's very excited to have his own place to put his fishing tackle!
They arrived back home late on Saturday so this is what our counter looked like on Sunday morning!
Organized
I think Mason must like organization and order!  Love that he helps with folding towels!
 Lately, Mason likes to sort a deck of cards by suit and number!
Gerald Tintle
Grandpa Tintle passed away on March 31 and he will be greatly missed.  Nathan and I were able to fly out for the funeral together.  It was good to be with family.
Flying
Nathan flew to MI for a work trip and happened to capture a really great picture of Spirit Lake!
Mary Poppins
It was fun to watch Emma perform in her school play, Mary Poppins!  Dorian had an invitation to go with his friends to Air Madness so he wasn't with us.  Nathan flew home from his work trip and dropped in as it was ending! Levi and Mason loved it!
Cousins
Mason and Adria love the tire swing at the park!
In Clover
After having a consultation with In Clover, we decided to have our living room, sunroom, bedroom and office painted!  I love how it turned out and I'm thankful we didn't try to tackle it all on our own.
Once I had everything cleaned, In Clover came back and made it look beautiful!  They used many of our things and added some of their own things to pull it all together.  It looks fresh, clean and pretty.  So fun!



Ag Day
I had a lot of fun with Mason at Dordt's Ag Day!  Dorian and Levi were both there with their classes so we got to see them too!  It was a beautiful morning to be outside.




March 2018

SCCS
Dorian had an open house during his Language Arts class at school to share a story that he worked on.  It wasn't a huge surprise that it was about a time he was fishing!  Nice work Dorian!

We were invited to come to Levi's classroom to hear the persuasive speech that he wrote!  Based on how much he loves his big breakfast on Saturday morning, it wasn't a surprise that he wanted to persuade the administrators to provide breakfast at school!  We also got to see the pinball machine that he worked on with Adler and Eli.  Nice work Levi!

We love the opportunities that we have to see what the boys have been learning in school!

Ice Skating
Dorian went ice skating with the 5th-8th graders at Cone Park and had so much fun! It inspired us to go ice skating as a family one Friday night at the ice rink in Sioux Center.  What a fun night!



Moments at home
Nice work boys!  Another puzzle completed!
Yum!  We all love Dad's homemade bagels!
Levi doesn't always love to clean Oreo's cage, but he always loves Oreo!
I love to capture everyday moments like this one.
Spring Instrumental Concert
It was such a blessing that both Dorian and Levi were super excited for the concert and excited to share what they learned!


Skiing
With warmer weather in the forecast, we decided to take the boys skiing one last time for the season.  The Boogerd family was able to join us there!  Dorian and Levi tried out the moguls and spent most of their time there!  They were braver than me!
Pottery Class
There are some things that turned out better than others, but overall I had fun learning something new!
Sunshine
What a blessing to watch the boys playing outside.  I was hopeful that Spring was indeed coming!
Pine Wood Derby
Dorian did a great job designing and painting his pine wood derby car.  After the first race he could tell that he didn't have the fastest car.  It turns out that he won a trophy for the Turtle race because he had the slowest car!  Pretty funny!  He was a good sport!

Awana
Levi really enjoyed another year at Awana!  I went to his final program and had ice cream to celebrate!

Mason is 5!!!
Full of energy, smart, helpful, and so very loved.
We couldn't wait to celebrate with you!  Dorian picked out a 3 in 1 Lego set for you!

Levi picked out a Tacky book and gave him a homemade animal hideout for his stuffed animals!


Daddy made you chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast!
Dad picked out some new fishing lures for you and told you he'd take you fishing at the cabin with him!

Dad and I gave you a bird book and binoculars!
I picked out a Hidden Pictures book since you love to do those lately!

Nice work completing the Lego sea plane all on your own, Mason!
Grandpa and Grandma Bolkema, Great Grandma, Aunt Heidi, Aniah, Eden, Adria, and Ashley came for supper.  Grandma Tintle came too and stayed for the weekend!  It was super fun to watch you break open your #5 piñata!

Happy Birthday to you.  Happy Birthday to you.  Happy Birthday dear Mason.  Happy Birthday to you!
Mason wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting!

Aunt Suzanne likes to send you birthday presents!

With new puzzles, activity books, and toys Mason is happily occupied!  What a blessing to have family to celebrate birthdays with!  We love you Mason Jay.

Easter break
We enjoyed spending Thursday through Saturday with the boys at the cabin!  Big and Little Spirit lakes were still completely frozen over.  We enjoyed spending some time outside by the spillway and Dorian worked at getting a lure he found unhooked so he could take it home!  Crazy how much he talks about fishing!

The boys had fun playing frisbee golf and finding swans.

Nathan had the idea to do a Good Friday activity with our family and we also went to a new church.
We dropped the boys off on the bike path at Templar Bay to burn off some energy and they all made it back to our cabin - a distance of 5K!  Dorian ran, Levi was on his longboard, and Mason biked!  Nice work boys!


We got hooked working on a new puzzle!
We went to the game room at Bridges Bay and the boys had fun spending their quarters!


Even though it was cold, we found some fun things to do with the boys and enjoyed the change of pace from our normal work/school routines.