Vacation

We had an absolutely wonderful vacation and trip back home!! It is always so good to get to see family again-and even better when you are bringing home a new little bundle of joy for everyone to enjoy and love on!

We started the vacation by going to my friend Sarah's wedding!  We were so blessed to be able to share in your special day and we wish you the best in your new life and in all your adventures!  We had a wonderful time and got to see friends and family!





















My mom was wonderful and let us crash at her place both times we were passing through Chicago.  This is great in helping break up our trip so that it is a bit more bearable.  Thank you so much Mom and Darwin.  We love you so much.  We wish we could have seen more of you!! Hope to see you both sometime soon. (I have no pictures of you guys :( sad day!)

Sunday we got to spend time with my dad's side of the family.  It is always so good to see all the aunts, uncles, and cousins. What a wonderful family they are.  We love you all so very much, thank you for coming over and spending time with us! Dad and Annette-the meal was amazing! Thank you Auntie Sissa for taking Elijah swimming-he had such a blast, what an amazing Auntie you are!

We even got to meet a second cousin that is just 6 days older than Avery. 

Such a wonderful day spent with family!

My sister Lauren came over Sunday evening after we were all at my dad's and hung out for a bit!

 She even got to feed her namesake a bottle!

We spent a lot of time at my in-laws house.  Always a wonderful treat.  For one they let us crash there and give us our own basement suite!  What wonderful parents you are, we are blessed beyond words!  The children have a blast getting to play with all the aunts and uncles around the house!  Mom and Dad have a blast having a lot of free babysitters.  I think I only changed like 5 diapers while I was home(when you have 3 kids in diapers that is a pretty good deal!!).  We all love the extra attention that everyone gets and it really made it perfect for my recovery.  It gave me a much needed break and the extra hands and help that you need after a C-section when you are limited as to what you can do.  Again a major blessing! We can't thank you guys enough for all the help and the wonderful meals.

Athaiah hanging out with Uncle Aaron!

We had lots of friends over for dinner on Tuesday night-which was so much fun to see everyone! Thank you to the Turley's for hosting such a wonderful get together!

Uncle Tyler and Avery!

Tuesday during the day my Grandpa and Grandpa Loper came over to the Turley's house.  It was so nice to see them especially since the last time we came home we were unable to get to see them. Thank you Grandpa and Grandma for making the drive up to see us!  We love you so much and are blessed to have such wonderful examples in our life!












Wednesday Grandpa and Grandma Turley with Sydney and then Aunt Melanie joined us for dinner.  We had such a good time with them and are so blessed to have you all as part of our lives! 

Thanks to Grandpa for standing on his head to get Elijah to smile for the family picture! We couldn't have done it without you!

This was a reenactment since we were busy getting our picture taken the first time!

 

Saturday we went to the Toledo Zoo with the Turley's and my dad and Annette! It was so much fun.  It kept going between pouring rain and nice and sunny.  The kids had so much fun! Elijah was a bit under the weather-but the next day he was talking about all the animals so he must have been more alert than we thought.  Thank you to everyone who helped push the kiddos around that afternoon and ran with them in the rain!  We had so much fun getting to spend time with everyone and doing something that I grew up doing! The Toledo Zoo was a huge part of my growing up and it meant so much for me to be able to go and spend time with 2 sides of our family together there! So thank you for helping making wonderful memories for my children there!

Watching the otters!

We just experienced a down pour! All wet!

Snuggle time with Grandpa!

 

Sunday we got to spend time with the extended Turley family over lunch! What an amazing lunch.  It was so good to see all of you and get to spend some time with you before we had to head out of town!

 

Well that was our trip in a brief(very brief) nutshell.  We had so much fun and can't wait until we can see everyone again-hopefully real soon!

Road Trip!

I'm so excited...we got to take Avery on her first road trip.  She, well let's face it all of the kiddos, did excellent.  I do think, unfortunately, the car seat rubbed on Avery's umbilical cord a bit as it had a bit of blood around the edges-but other than that everything went amazing!

We decided to go back home, for a friend of mine's wedding-something I wouldn't miss unless I absolutely had to. Soo back to Michigan we went-me 1 week post C-section, with our 1 week old baby, a 14 month old baby, and our 2 year old.  Yes, some days I think maybe we must be crazy.  But everything was amazing and so smooth!  We had a total of 2, did you see that 2!! meltdowns, 1 from Athaiah due to being over tired and tired of being stuck in a car seat, and 1 from Avery during a stop when we were changing diapers-the car had been turned off and the poor girl was dripping in sweat, once she cooled off she was back to being our little angel.  For a 16 hour car ride,split between 2 days I think that is extremely amazing.

We got to watch Cars, Cars 2, and a Veggie Tales movie.  The kids and I had a blast.  I even brought one of those splash water balls-and we played catch just the 3 of us in the backseat.  I know it sounds a bit dangerous, but they were in the way back and I was in one of the back captain chairs.  Also, please remember they are 1 and 2 so they do not throw very far-in fact most of the time it hit the floor by my feet.  All that matters is they had fun and it kept them entertained for about 30min(great in my opinion for killing time).  They also read books- to themselves and had so much fun looking over them and pointing at all the pictures.

Well, we are here now and are looking to such an amazing week relaxing and spending time with our families. It is always so good to get to see everyone since we don't get to see them that often.  A blessing to have technology such as Skype so we can keep in touch with family and the kids can see their faces.  Wonderful because then we come home and they know who is who and go right to them giving them hugs and kisses.  Although, my children are pretty friendly and I'm sure even without it they would go right to them and give out lots of hugs and kisses.

I will post an update when we get back! Oh and I am posting this from my computer! Yeah-thank you so much Grandma and Grandpa! I am so thankful to have my computer back and in working order.  That means I can start adding pictures again! The post when we get back should be full of pictures-may have to do several, so I don't overwhelm anyone with our amazing trip home.  Well off I go to go play with the kiddos and spend time with the family.  Just couldn't resist posting about what a special thing we are able to do!

Thank you God for watching over us on our trip home.  Thank you for letting the kids behave and do so extremely well, especially for their ages!  Thank you for allowing us this special time to be able to spend with family.  Thank you for letting everything go well with the delivery of our new little one, so that we were able to go home for this wedding and to get to see all of our wonderful family members! Thank you for providing everything that we needed, and just when we needed it.  What a wonderful, giving, and caring God we serve.  One that has perfect timing in everything thing that He does!

Vacation Part 4

The last part of our vacation was spent with Greg's side of the family.  We got to go to a family reunion and meet the kids 3 Great, great, great Aunts!! Talk about cool.  Elijah made sure to shower them with lots of hugs n kisses.  We also had fun just hanging out around the house. It was overall such a good vacation and a much needed break and time with my husband.

 5 Generations!

 With Great Grandma and Grandpa Turley

 Bath time is fun to watch!

 Wrestle time with Uncle Matt!

With Meme and Grandpa!

 



Vacation Part 3

This next part of our vacation was spent with my dad and his side of the family.  It was so nice to get to see family again!  We really had a lot of fun with everyone and just hanging out!

 Elijah found a frog on the back patio!

 We got to spend time with Great Grandpa and Grandma Luurtsema!

Great Grandma ended up putting her to sleep right after this!

 Grandpa took Elijah swimming the first day and he loved it!

 

 The next day mommy took him swimming and he kept wanting to jump off the edge into the pool!

 Our sunbathing beauty!

Snuggle time with Grandpa!

 Auntie Natalie walking with the big boy! (don't you love the shirt-thanks dad!)

Sad to leave Grandpa and Grandma Luurtsema!

Thank you for such a wonderful time, we can't wait to see you all again!

Vacation Part 2

The next part of our vacation was waayy too short.  We got to go visit Great Grandma and Grandpa Arnold at the lake.  As a bonus we also got to see Great Uncle Mike!  Here are some pictures from there. 

Wish we could have spent more than just a few hours with them, but we were between places!

Vacation Part 1

Since we got to do so many things on our recent vacation, I will post them in parts.  That way we don't overwhelm you with a super long post-as they will probably all be long!

The first part of our trip consisted of going up north to the lake house.  This was to celebrate my Grandpa Loper's retirement and my Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. It was also a family reunion as almost everyone from the family was there.

 The trampoline was a highlight for all the little kiddos(well and the big kiddos)

 Early morning on the lake, doesn't get much prettier than this!

 Elijah and Athaiah with their Great Grandma and Grandpa Loper 

The 88lb pig that we had for the party!

 Three little men!

 Auntie Lolo with Elijah

 Uncle Tyler with Elijah

 First jet ski ride!

 Grandma Kiki and Grandpa Dart enjoying the fire!

On the boat with Auntie Lissa!

We had such a good time, and they are just a few of the snapshots from the weekend up north.  But we really had a great time and a lot of memories to look back on and cherish!