Smile on my Face

After the whole Dell thing, I knew we all needed a smile on our faces, so I went back a few weeks and found these two pictures of Jilli in Grand Haven. She wanted all kinds of "pretties" in her hair before we left and I wasn't going to choose that as one of my battles. Who cares that your kid has 8 pigtails on her head and everyone gives you weird looks. She had no idea she was asking for something outside the norm. Add the pigtails too bluemoon ice cream and you have a recipe for a great picture! Enjoy my cutie!

I know after looking at these pictures you all want to run out to the closest ice cream store for bluemoon ice cream in a waffle cone with chocolate and sprinkles.

Blessings!

Dell

Do I need to say anything more???
When they wiped my computer clean a few weeks ago and loaded everything back on this lovely computer they didn't upload DELL MEDIA DIRECT. That is the FIRST thing they are supposed to put back on my computer. How could you forget the FIRST step???? So Dell told me that they would have to wipe my computer clean...again and start from the beginning...again. I said "NO, you can send me a new computer". The technician told me that he would check to see if he could send a new hard drive with factory direct software already loaded on it to me, but it needed to go through his managers first. He said he would call me back on Monday between 1-3pm. Guess who NEVER called. Yesterday I called back and left a nice message.....they called me back a few hours later and told me that my new hard drive would be arriving on Friday. That is all fine and good, but I have to....again...load all my software back on my new hard drive, input all my photoshop actions (which takes awhile) install...again...all my files from my external hard drive. Write down all my "favorites" for my websites that I visit often. Set up all my spyware again (or have my brother walk me through it). It's just hours of work for me again, Rrrrr...

Just had to vent...

Finally

This has been a bit longer than I anticipated....sorry for the wait.

I have enjoyed your comments over this past week....Kevin, I think, has been slightly amused:-)

So here is the answer......

A Northern Water Snake. They are not poisonous although they will bite if you try and handle them (Kevin). They get to be over 4ft long so this was a younger snake, he was only about 3ft. Wabasis lake is full of them and their favorite place to hang out is by the swimming area (per the nature lady). We saw this one while fishing (not the swimming area).

Blessings!

What Is He Doing???

I know you are all wondering what in the world Kevin is doing and why would I take a picture of him in this pose. Well you get to guess what he is doing and I took the picture because he has a cute backside (Kevin is going to shoot me when he sees this:-)

So give me your your best guesses (or wild stories) and I will be back in the next day or two to let you all know what he is doing.

On a side note, we were at Micah's Tball game last night and I had jeans and a long sleeve shirt on and froze! We are fast approaching the end of June and I still can't put our winter clothes away! What is up with that???!!! Anyway, Micah did GREAT!!! he had some awesome hits and was playing second base and got a runner out. He had a ball hit to him and beat the runner to the base.

This is quite an accomplishment in Tball. Most of the kids would have just picked up the ball and thrown (maybe) to first base. That is what they are taught at this age. Kevin and I, being the quiet sit back and don't say anything kind of parents, have instructed Micah on the finer things of Tball. He knows that there are more options to get people out than on first base. He loves to get people out.....and of course we are the very quiet parents that do the golf clap to let him know that he did great:-)

Blessings!

don't forget to let me know what you think Kevin is doing...

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

The pictures speak for themselves. It's fun to be a girl! You can get dirty, be silly, laugh and still be the cutest little things all at the same time.

Heidi and I had so much fun watching our daughters play in the sand together. Mawissa (Marissa) and Jiwwi (Jilli) kept each other busy riding bikes, playing on the playground and fishing. Girls fish??? Not this one, but those two did:-)

Blessings!

We're Back

We just got back from a week of camping up at Wabisis Lake with "the cousins". It was a lot of fun for all of us. We had nice weather, thankfully the bad storms went just north of us.

I look forward to posting some stories in the next few days.

Blessings!

We Missed it

Why or Why could we not have been out at the cottage right now?? All these storms coming in must be incredible to see, water spouts and everything! Good thing is we seem to have escaped without any damage in our neighborhood. Another good thing is that I am not camping down at my parents campground right now. It sounds like they got hammered and their power is probably out too... I am liking my nice cool house right now.

The other night while we were at the cottage, I did get some really pretty pictures of some thunderheads. I will share those with you since I have nothing from tonight.

Blessings!

Memories

Do any of you remember taking a bath in your grandparents clawfoot bath tub?? I do. My Grandma Van Dyk had a clawfoot and we LOVED taking baths in it.

She lived in New Jersey, so it was only once a year when we would get that privilege, but it was so much fun! Why, do you ask....because it had this really fun sprayer, that you could use to get your hair wet (or spray your sister when she wasn't looking) and it was really deep, so you could have a lot more water than the tub at home. If you were really lucky, Grandma would let you use her bubbles too!

Well, the cottage has one of these prized possessions too and like me, my kids love to bathe in it also. While we were there this last week, I decided to take a picture of the kids using it, just for nostalgia purposes (and maybe future wedding material).

Blessings!

A Ship is Coming In!

It is such excitement to watch a freighter come into port. We have taken the kids camping up at the Soo Locks, so they love to see all the big freighters coming and going. So when there is one coming into the channel, we don't have a choice but to take the short drive down to the fisherman's pier to watch it go by.

We started off my watching it with the binoculars on the gazebo.
Then we quick hopped in the van and drove to the pier.
Yes, Jilli is in her PJ's still. Somethings are just more important than Jilli being seen in her jammies...like Mommy NOT being seen in hers!
Tyler, looking at the freighter as it passes and Jilli crying because she wants to see with the binoculars too.

The ship was all gone and Jilli was quite upset about that. So, she plopped herself down and had a good cry and I took some pictures:-)

Blessings!

An Ordinary Night Turned Extraordinary

Sitting on the couch at the cottage, working on pictures that will grace the pages of my blog in the near future. Kevin sitting at the table going over a project. The sun was getting ready to set. There was a break in the clouds and the sun was peeking through. While I was looking at the sun breaking through those clouds for the first time today, thinking what a breathtaking picture that would make, God was working on something much more breathtaking. Something that I will never forget.

We had put the kids to bed awhile ago, Jilli had long fallen asleep. The boys although tired, had yet to decide it was their time to rest. Tyler started up a conversation with Micah that we had had earlier in the day. Talking about the fact that he wanted to marry Jillian when he got older. Micah telling him that he had to marry another girl because Jesus said that we can’t marry our sister. The conversation continued and Tyler ended up starting to cry. Kevin over heard this and called me to the bottom of the stairs to listen in on what they were saying.

Micah told Tyler that he didn’t want to have “this conversation anymore”, but then proceeded to tell Tyler that when Mommy and Daddy have bumpy skin like Grandpa and Grandma we would be close to dying. I don’t have any idea what started that whole topic…but Micah ended up crying too. Kevin and I quickly made our way up to their room.

Picking up Micah and Tyler we head off to “our room” at the cottage and started to ask some questions. Tyler was crying because he never wanted to leave our family he wanted to stay in our house forever (I think that is why he wanted to marry Jilli, he was thinking that he wouldn’t have to leave then, because it wasn’t a different girl). He told us that there were “lots of giwls (girls) that aren’t married, but I don’t want to leave Mommy”. (sniff, sniff) I told him that if he did marry another girl that he wouldn’t be leaving me, he would be bringing home someone else for us to love. How do you explain all this to a four year old!

Micah’s whole thing was that he didn’t want Kev and I to die. He didn’t want US to leave HIM. We talked about how it was OK to be sad when someone dies, but that when we have Jesus in our heart, and they have Jesus in their heart we are only sad for a little while because we will see them again in Heaven. I asked Micah if he wanted to pray and ask Jesus in his heart.

This is something that I have talked to Micah about many times, but have never asked him if he wanted to take this step. This was not something that I wanted to rush into, I wanted to make sure that Micah was ready and would be able to remember this monumental day in his life. Tonight God whispered “he’s ready.”

“Micah would you like to ask Jesus into your heart?” “Yes, Mommy.” “Then you can pray this prayer with Mommy and repeat what I say.” “OK.”

“Dear Jesus, I want to live my life for you. Will you please come live in my heart? I love you. Amen”

I was crying and I am sure that Kevin had tears in his eyes too as our oldest son gave his life to our Savior, laying on Great Grandpa and Grandma Koorndyk’s bed at the cottage. Kevin told the boys as we were laying there, that some of his best memories are out here at the cottage, well now some of my best memories are here too. Little did I know that 12 years and 24 days after Kevin asked me to be his wife here at the cottage, our firstborn would be asking God into his heart…at the cottage.

Grandpa Koorndyk told me just yesterday that this cottage was his most favorite place on earth. Well Grandpa, now it’s even more special. You have been faithful to God and now he is blessing you because of it. Your great-grandchild gave his life to our Savior in your most favorite place, Micah will continue your legacy of Walking in the Truth.

I asked Tyler if he would like to pray that same prayer to Jesus and he said he was too shy. Which is fine, he is not ready yet. We will keep teaching and talking about what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and I am confident that in his time, he will be ready too.

How amazing a rainy, windy, cool night turned out to be. Life changing…..my Micah will never be the same, praise God! His name is written in The Book of Life!

June 3, 2008 - Micah Alan Peters

I can honestly say that…….
I have no greater joy than to hear my children are Walking in the Truth. III John 4

Thank You Jesus!