Lorelei Bailey

I know that I haven't been blogging..... again.... and I fully intent to finish blogging about the day at the airport (life just has been VERY busy), but I just had to break in and announce that I became an Aunt again yesterday. Kevin's sister Kelli, had a baby girl and she is just perfect! I will share more pictures of her when I get a chance, but for now....

Introducing: Lorelei Bailey.... 8# 9oz

...and because this is my blog and I am the Aunt I will include a picture of me holding my niece.

Praising God for a healthy baby girl and for her mother that didn't give up the fight as the hours ticked on and on and on.... thinking that Kelli could run a marathon now and not even be out of breath at the end!

Blessings!!

His Last Ride

Imagine, if you will, 69 yrs ago. A young man, by the worlds standards, but a man that held more responsibility than most people do in their life time. Capt. Bud Koorndyk was 20 years old when he started to pilot combat missions in a B-24 Liberator, a 20 year old that was responsible for the lives of 9 other young men...

When asked about being only 20 years old and being on the other side of the world, flying missions that you were never sure you were going to come back from, Grandpa said "Oh well, we never thought about that, it was just what we were doing." I wonder how some of these men did it. How they stared death in the face with each mission, how they overcame the fear of dying. Amazing... Grandpa flew 32 missions before his final mission on D-Day.

He went through 3 B-24's, his first plane was named Lucky Tiger #1. He flew 4 missions with that plane. After the fourth mission he had a day off. Another crew took his plane up for a mission, they never came back. Grandpa said that they where shot down in Germany. The whole crew was killed. His second plane was Lucky Tiger #2. He flew about 10 missions in that plane before....

The plane "got all shot up." There was over 200 holes in the plane and engines. Grandpa knew that they wouldn't make it back home. They crossed the channel and started looking for the first English airfield that they saw. They found an airfield, Grandpa told his crew to "brace themselves." He was going to be landing the plane on it's belly...there was no landing gear. Grandpa chose the grass next to the runway because it was softer than the runway. He described it like this... "I told my crew to brace themselves, I brought the plane in on it's belly, it spun around and around the bottom of the plane was ripped apart the propellers hit the ground and were torn off, it sounded like the world was coming to an end. But then we all climbed out OK... I didn't lose one crew member. We stayed one day in England, the next day we were flown back to our home base and started flying missions again."

The crew of the Lucky Tiger received their 3rd and final plane. This is the plane they flew on D-Day. Over 300 bombers flew that day dropping 13,000 bombs. As I type this I am listening to the radio report by George Hicks giving a play by play of what happened that day. This was a pre-television era, the radio is how Americans got all their breaking news. I am not ashamed to say that I have tears falling down my face as I listen. Over 9,000 allied troops were either killed or wounded on D-Day. If you would like to listen to the radio broadcast click here.

You know there are times that I am driving and a young "man" flies by me with his music up, his seat laying all the way down, he can hardly see over the steering wheel. I am sure his pants are around his knees, usually bopping his head to the beat of the music and I think, what a punk. I know that I am stereotyping, but not so nice thoughts go through my head, and I think that if by chance we would need that young man to defend our county, our country would be lost. He can barley drive a car safely, let alone be responsible for an aircraft with 9 other men in it... amazing really, that there was so many of these young men, that acted well beyond their years. They risked their lives (and lost their lives) for the safety of this country.

As Grandpa walked his way to the B-25, a plane so much like the one he flew many years ago on all his missions, I wonder what is going through his mind... does he think about his missions... does he remember his crew that have all passed on but one... What is he thinking... what is he feeling... or is he excited to be going up for his last ride??

To Know the Thoughts...

There are times that I would love to get into the head of the elderly. To hear their thoughts, see the things that they have seen in their life time. I love hearing their stories, listening to their tales of adventure. Some stories are heart wrenching, some are beautiful...

Oh, to know what Grandpa was thinking right here... as he gazes upon a B-25, a plane that he flew back in the day when he could still run and jump, before he knew any of his children's names, before he was even married. A time when life seemed to stretch out before you as a clean canvas, just waiting for the artist to add life and color to the blank screen.

December 7, 1941 changed the life for many people in this country. It changed the life of this man.. E. Bud Koorndyk. Two weeks after the attack, he enlisted in the USAAF... his life would never be the same....

Memory Walk

Well, here we are, the last post about Cran-Hill. It was great to walk down memory lane here and also make some new memories. Ones that include the most important people in my life...my family.

With this last post, we are going to go on a memory walk together. Just for a few minutes, the actual walk took much longer, and was quite emotional for me (I know there is a shocker). I tried to hide it from those that I was walking with because really, this place has meaning to me beyond the fact that I had fun here, that I lived a little piece of Heaven for a few short weeks of my life. And honestly, who wants to hear about all that...

Sunday dawned a beautiful day. Sun was shining, the wind had calmed down and the temperatures made it out of the 40's. Perfect camping weather for a nice walk to show my children the places Mommy stayed when I camped here.

First we went up to Pine Slope. Cran-Hill has two different camp sections, Pine Slope and Swamp Hollow. My first year as a camper I stayed on the Slope. You have to walk up about 100 steps to get to the top of the "slope" (hill) to get to where the cabins are. My cabin that year was Trails End. It was (obviously) the very last cabin, at the end of the trail.

The cabins are A-framed. The roof, front and back are all wood. The sides are chicken wire with canvas hanging over top. The inside is just a wood floor. When I camped there we had to take cots or you slept on the floor. The cabins had 6-8 girls (or boys) and one counselor. Now there are bunks in the cabins and a sign on the door that the occupancy is 6. Things have changed... although the smell in the cabin hasn't, it is hard to explain, a smell of wood/musty/canvas. But it brings back memories of all things wonderful. It smelled so good.

The next year I stayed in Swamp Hollow. The cabin I stayed in.... Bonanza (and yes we sang the song every time we headed back to our cabin). I was singing the song in my head as I was walking to it 20 years later. Some things just never change...

The kids had fun looking in the cabins and playing around the camp, but no one really got how much this hike meant to me. How do you put into words all that you are feeling without crying? I have issues with crying... How do you explain what this time in your life was like and who wants to listen? Someday I hope to share with my kids some of the things that happened here, some of my experiences, but they are too young for those conversations right now and they wouldn't really mean anything to them. But my mind is just swimming with the stories that I could tell, the special relationships I formed and how this place helped shape the person that I am today.

We continued on our walk, some of the kids were running around, some were being carried. All having a good time.

During our walk all the kids ended up finding sticks and they kept standing in a circle, putting their sticks in the middle, and saying...........

"ALL FOR ONE"

"AND ONE FOR ALL"

Memories... ones that the kids are now making. Ones that we are making with them. Ones that this Momma will always remember because.. I am that sentimental.. emotional.. weird.. different.. "something else".. I can wear all those names and more :-)

I will leave you with one last picture from our weekend. Our new tradition when camping with our friends is to take a group picture of the kids at every campground we go to together. Here is Cran-Hills picture.

I don't think this picture needs any explanation.

Blessings!!

Hayride...

I love hayrides. Especially ones that are pulled by horses. Tractor hayrides, just aren't the same. They are loud, they stink (not to say the horses can't hold there own in that department), and they usually move too fast for my liking.

Saturday night, the sky finally cleared from all the rain. The brilliant blue was spotted with white puffy clouds. It was still very cold, but when you are on a hayride, that doesn't really matter, you take blankets and bundle up. Very Cozy!

The girls on the wagon are the ones that took Kev and I on our trail ride earlier in the day. The one driving the wagon is El, she is responsible for the care of the horses and is the director of the horsemanship camp (ahhh.... my dream job).

Here is Tyler and his Daddy waiting for the wagon to stop to get on.This picture was taken by our friends. While we were on the hayride. See??? COZY!!!

Blessings!!

Tractor Tyler

My Tyler loves tractors. He is drawn to them. He would sit on a tractor just playing for hours if he had the opportunity. So when he saw the tractor at Cran-Hill, it was love at first sight.

But when it is time to get off to give someone else a turn, the only way to get off is to.......

JUMP!

Blessings!!

Good-Bye

I had to say goodbye to a very good friend this week. We have known each other for 8 yrs. We have worked together, hung out together, loved each other, for so long... We spent almost every day together, or I at least saw her everyday. Can't seem possible that our time together ended so abruptly and now she is gone. This is my first weekend without her and I miss her terribly. My house will miss her terribly

Good-bye my friend, it was nice working with you....

I will forever miss that vacuum...

Blessings!!

Trail Ride

I love horses. I have since I was a little girl. I would make a 'horse' out of snow in the winter for me to ride. I would pretend that my bike was a horse in the summer. But being a city girl, my dream of having my very own horse is yet to be realized. But whenever I get the chance to be on the back of one, I take it.

When I was a early teen, I went to summer camp at Cran-Hill and took horsemanship. We "got a horse" for a week and were responsible for the care of that horse all week. Everyday we would ride and learn everything that you could learn in a week about the care of a horse. I was in heaven. I will refrain from naming the horse that I had, since my husband will tease me about my warm fuzzy feelings I have for her. She was a stubborn girl with a mind of her own. But I had so much fun with her.

I loved the feeling of flying through the air on her back. Her muscles rippling with every step. It was freedom to me. We would run through fields splattered with wild flowers amongst the tall grass. the sun shining down wrapping it's warm arms around us. We would silently walk through valleys lined with trees. We would splash through creeks, walk high ridges over looking the wild flower fields. It was a piece of Heaven. Truly, when I think of what Heaven is like, I think of that time in my life, on the back of that very special horse.

When I was a teenager, my old boss owned a stable in Byron Center where she boarded horses. Her home was out in Middleville and she had about 15 horses there too. She would let me come out and ride whenever I wanted. She had a beautiful old horse named Lizzy and that is who I would ride. For one reason, she was very gentle and for another I could ride western with her. Many of the other horses could only be ridden using an English saddle. My boss had told me that she would teach me Dressage (a form of riding with an English saddle), but sadly, I had to leave that job to start my career in the medical field before I had the chance to learn.

So here we were, Mother's Day Weekend and the opportunity for me to again be up on the back of a horse. Even though it was cold, windy and rainy, Kevin agreed to take me on a trail ride. Surprise, surprise we were the only people who signed up for the trail ride.

I was like a kid in a candy store. I was so excited to ride again. It had been years since my last opportunity. Some things never change, like the feeling I get when I am about to get in the saddle and then some things do.... like having to wear a helmet.

Helmets on, the speech they always give was done, it was time to to saddle up.

The young lady that was helping me brought over this step stool and set it down next to the horse. I looked at it, looked at her and said "do I have to use that?" She said that it was standard, and I said, "It is like cheating, if it's OK, I am not going to use that." She smiled at me and said that since it was just us, I could get on the horse the right way.
After mounting up, I looked over at Kevin and asked him if he used the step stool.... He cheated. Enough said about that. We did have a good laugh over it.
It was time to go, for the next hour I was in my happy place. Walking through the woods, on the back of a horse with my husband right behind me. It wasn't a very quiet ride. Kevin kept up a pretty good conversation with one of the trail guides (we had two). The girls heard all about how we met, how long we have been married, how many kids we have... El, the trail guide who was leading us, had just gotten engaged two weeks prior, so we talked about that.
As we came back to the barn, we stopped for a gate to be opened. our horses started to graze on the grass. When it was time to start moving again, I pulled my horses head back up and kicked him to start walking again. As we began to move, I turned around to make sure Kevin was following me and I witnessed one of the funniest things I have seen. I am assuming that Kevin had pulled the horses head up, as I did, but his horse was mad about it. He stared to toss his head all around and paw at the ground. This kept up for a few minutes. Kevin was at a loss for what to do. El called out that he needed to kick the horse, Kevin called back that he was. His horse was being so stubborn. Allysa (the other trail guide) finally got off her horse and led Kevin's horse back to the barn. I was laughing so hard. It really was a great way to end our ride. Another great memory with Kevin stashed away in my memory bank (hopefully he feels the same :-).

Blessings!!

Horseback Riding

I am going to continue sharing our adventure at Cran-Hill, sorry it's been a while since I blogged last. Kev and I decided to take a little vacation at the cottage for a few days with the kids and then we joined my parents for some camping fun over the holiday weekend. We are now back into the swing of things at home, so hopefully I will be able to do a lot of posting over the next few days.

Back to Cran-Hill....

One of the highlights of the weekend was by far the horse ride for the kids (and me, more on that later). This was Jilli's first time on a horse. Hard to believe since I LOVE horses, but for some reason she hasn't had the chance to ride one yet. It was all she talked about leading up to the glorious time she was hoisted up on the horses back.

Of course it was raining, you can see it in some of the pictures. The ring was very muddy, but that really didn't matter to the kids. They thought it was great. One of the funniest things that happened while the kids were riding was when I was taking Micah around the ring. The horse in front of us stopped to let off a little (rather large) load. Micah saw this and just started laughing his giggle laugh that made me start to laugh. Once the horse in front of us was done and started moving again, I started to lead Micah's horse on, but he wouldn't budge because...well...he was leaving a load himself, which started Micah laughing all over again. It was great!

This was the first time that Tyler rode a horse by himself. The last time he was up on a horses back, his Daddy was right up there with him (I was pregnant at the time with Jilli), so that was a long time ago. Things have changed. The once scared little boy was full of smiles as was walked around the ring.

Have to say it was well worth the cold/rain/wind, to see the smiles on the kids faces!

Blessings!!

Cran-Hill Ranch Continued

Oh My, I have so much to post and write about, but just don't seem to have the time to keep up with our busy, full, wonderful life. I promised I would write about our trip to Cran-Hill Ranch, but my scattered unorganized brain wants to jump straight to what just happened this weekend. What to do, what to do....

I think I mentioned in my previous post about Cran-Hill that the weather was less than nice for our little adventure, but being die-hard campers, we forged ahead armed with some "non-messy" crafts for the kids and movies that they had never seen.

Out of all the times we have camped in our new trailer, I have never been so thankful for the shear size of it. There was room for all 7 kids to do their crafts and 4 adults to lovingly look on (plus one not so small dog). We shared meals in our trailer and could be found just hanging out when the weather got too nasty to be outdoors. So thankful for God's blessing...

OK, so maybe I should start with the first night. It was horrible. Thankfully the kids didn't wake up, but around 2 am the rains came in a torrential down pour and then......the winds came. Kevin and I laid awake praying that we wouldn't get blown over. My mind was going a million miles a minute, thinking of the pictures that I had seen of trailers that had gotten blown over in high winds. I was imagining where I could put my kids to be safe in case our trailer did tip over. We were rocking back and forth, the trees were creaking and I was holding my husbands hand praying that God would keep us safe.

On a side note... when I was a girl I was deathly afraid of wind. If it was a windy day and my Mom made me go outside, you could find me under the picnic table shaking with fear. I have since overcome most of my fear of wind, but there in the very back of my conscience the childhood fear can come bubbling up. So this ferocious wind that kept beating the side of the trailer over and over, caused great anxiety within my heart. Lets just say it wasn't a night of peaceful rest.

To top off the night of no sleep, there was going to be a free pancake breakfast to celebrate Mothers Day at the Lodge at 8:30am! Most of you have never camped with me, but I like to mosey out of my trailer at....oh....10...10:30am, this girl likes her sleep and likes her slow, no hurry, the sun will be up for another 12 hours, no rush, kind of morning. So I had to muster all my energy to make it to the breakfast on time, that windy, cold, rainy Saturday morning.... this is what I call "roughing it", Lyn's style.

After breakfast we all headed back to our trailer for a craft, we had to keep all the kids busy, because it was..... still raining/snowing.

Thankfully, the kids all loved working on their masterpieces.

After crafts, the older 4 kids went to try their hand at archery, with the Dads.

From what I hear, they had a lot of fun. You really can't see it, but there was a roof over their heads, so they stayed dry. All in all it was a great experience for my boys, they were really excited with how well they did.

There is so much more to share about this day... but that will have to wait for another post.

Blessings!!