Camping Trip West Virginia 2010- Day 2

We started our second day out at the hotel, praying that the van would get fixed quickly and we wouldn't have to set camp up in the dark. We headed down for a good breakfast of oatmeal and yogurt and everyone filled their bellies.

The hotel was gracious enough to let us stay until 2:00, which was very nice of them. So, we filled our waiting time with....

taking naps.....

watching the all time favorite Tom and Jeri.....

singing some music.....

and then we had to carry all of our stuff down to the lobby of the hotel to wait just a little bit more.

There was a restaurant just across the parking lot, so Jonathon went over there, got our lunch and brought it back to the hotel for us to eat. We played cars and ball and really had quite a good time doing it.

That's pretty evident on Diella's face that at least she was having a good time. Finally, the garage called right at 3:00 and said the van was done, so Jonathon and Josiah walked over there, got the van, came picked us up, and one happy family headed back out on the road.

We had about 1 1/2 hours to go before reaching our destination, so the last part of the drive was nice and short. We got to camp and started setting up our tent, fixing supper, and preparing for a fun weekend.

This is where Benaiah spent most of his time and found it quite funny to smoosh his face on the mesh. Too funny!

That's a better picture of his face along with his mosquito bite that he got that first night and then we didn't see another mosquito. Was just perfect!

First night campfire and smores. A wonderful way to complete our setting up time and a great way to begin the camping experience.

Roasting and eating. Yummo! After all the sugary goodness, we headed to bed with temperatures a little cool but great for sleeping!

Camping Trip West Virginia 2010- Day 1 as a whole

Well, we met up with our traveling buddies over a delicious meal at The Macaroni Grill and then headed on. We didn't get too terribly far when our van overheated. We sat and waited for a bit then caught back up with our friends who pulled over by the next toll booths. The guys checked over the van and discussed what could be wrong, and then we decided to continue on because it wasn't acting wrong then. Well, we did get a little ways further and with everybody in both vehicles needing a potty break, we decided to pull off, but before we got there, yep, overheated again. This time it was longer before it cooled down, so once we got it back going, we were glad to pull into the gas station which was near two auto places. Bless the Lord!

There was a hotel very near also, and after talking with one of the mechanics and having him check things out, we decided to stay at the hotel for the night since he would be able to get it fixed tomorrow. He was thinking that it was the water pump. So, we sent our friends on their way to camp. We pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, and it was constantly squealing now, pulled in, and the power steering went out. Bless the Lord that it didn't happen out on the highway!We have points saved up for free nights at this brand of hotel, so I called in to make a reservation here and got our night stay with points. Bless the Lord again! When I made the reservations, the lady told me how many points and it wasn't going to be as many as I thought it would be AND we got a room with a jacuzzi tub in it! Bless the Lord!

The children were so bummed that we weren't going to be camping, but when they set their eyes on that, the smiles were all over the place. We all enjoyed the jets and feel ready for a good night's sleep. Jonathon and Josiah drove the van the short distance without power steering and after traffic slowed down over to the garage and now we wait. We are just praying that the water pump is really the problem and that it will fix the van and the rest of our trip will go smoothly.

Can you tell we are having fun? Benaiah got spikey hair from the hot tub water. : )

Our room that we are very blessed to have so close to the van and free!

They weren't sure what time they would be done tomorrow, but it looks like our day will be a little different than we expected. I am learning that sometimes it just doesn't do any good to have a set plan. But if this is God's plan, then I'm glad to be a part of it! We aren't complaining much about our situation. The children traveled amazingly, the Lord worked all things out perfectly for our travels, and we rest in His faithfulness to us at all times. Bless Him for taking care of us!

We've only just begun.....West Virginia Camping Trip

So, we are headed on an adventure to West Virginia to do some camping....tent camping that is. Do you know how much stuff has to be packed when you are camping, and you have 4 children, one being a little one? Our van is packed! And we are going to have a great time!

It's a beautiful day to travel and to be on the beach, but we chose to travel today. Our traveling friends are a little bit behind us, but with the way traffic is slowed down, we may catch up to each other eventually. We have a lunch destination to meet them at, and we are all going to welcome getting out to stretch and eat some real food instead of snacky stuff.

The children are doing wonderful so far. I realize that by the time we get there, their happy hearts will be vanishing, but right now all is quiet. They have been eating mints to prevent car sickness (which they get when we travel) and ginger snap cookies. Diella and Alegra are demonstrating their snackage in the picture. We listened to one CD of Hank the Cow Dog on CD, they are in the middle of playing Travel Bingo (girls against boys), and now we are listening to Because of Winn Dixie on CD.

Traffic has cleared, and we are back to traveling at regular speed. I feel so blessed that we are able to take a vacation to relax and enjoy God's creation in the mountains. We will take lots of pictures, letting you all in on our family time away from home.

A vacation wouldn't be a vacation without me now making a mental list of all the things we forgot. Oh well, too late! BUT a pot holder to get the cast iron skillet off the fire might be important. Hope our friends brought something that would work. Always an adventure! : )

Father's Day 2010 Photo Shoot

Father's Day 2010 was a busy day for us! We met up with my parents and grandparents at Pokagon State Park in Angola, IN for a picnic. Was a lovely day and it was nice to sit and visit. Then we headed to a near by log cabin pavilion to take some pictures. It's always a trick when you're using your own camera to get a good picture especially with a baby. Notice my hand out to my side. Well, I held onto a limb of dried leaves and shook them infront of Benaiah to get him to look forward, then last minute, I would drop the leaves, hoping that we caught him looking towards the camera. This was about our only good shot of him not looking behind us. It worked I guess.

Here we all are: Jonathon, Christi, Benaiah- 1 year, Josiah- 4, Diella- 6, Alegra- 8, my dad, Dan, my mom, Deb, and my grandparents (my dad's folks), Dean and Jeanette.

I don't think my granparents knew what they were in for because after pictures on our way back to the cars, they were quite tuckered out and ready to go home. They were great sports though and we captured some good moments.

My parents with the children. We had more parties to go to that day so we wasted some time at the nature center and then let the children play at the park for a bit before heading on to the next party.

My lovely little family. Who would have guessed that I would have been blessed so much by such great children and a wonderful husband! God sure is faithful even if we don't deserve it!

Hawaiian Pregnancy Celebration

We had a lovely Celebration for Bethany Hawkins who is due very soon to have a little babe. What a wonderfully colorful time we had during this Hawaiian themed party for her.

Food was very tropical with waflle bowls dipped in chocolate and covered in coconut. We put fruit dip in these and an umbrella to go along with all the fruit we served.

And here is our fruit display that really added a tropical touch. The ladies loved, we had fun putting it together, and the fruit was delicious!

Our table decor consisted of blue material, sand, shells, and a fish bowl with fish. Was perfect for the occassion. And we had beach balls hanging from the ceiling above each table.

We put together a cute diaper cake complete with sandals, sun glasses, and even a bath toy with palm trees on it and squirter fish.

The guest of honor standing by the fruit before the ladies dig into it and destroy our masterpiece.

Oh, what beautiful plates of food the ladies had. We served fruit, veggies, crackers w/pineapple cheese spread, meat wraps w/turkey, cheese, & olives, and big shells full of skittles.

While soaking her feet and during the lady's share time, Shalom joined Bethany for a little foot soaking of her own. Was too cute!

A couple families with babies got together and took pictures to make a little video for the couple but mostly for the dad to be. It was all about things to do and not to do with a baby. Turned out really good and the ladies of course got a good chuckle out of it.

Diella joined me for this Celebration and it was nice to spend the time with her in between me keeping the party hopping.

Me and Bethany before she left the party. Is always such an honor to plan and organize a party for the sisters at our fellowship who are entering a new phase of life. I am so blessed to serve them in this way!

Free Summer Fun!

Here at the Bovee house, we are heading into summer break. School is out for the summer!!! But with that always comes the children wanting to go do fun stuff. Well, we pinch our pennies where we can, so we love to find FREE or inexpensive fun things to do close to home. Money Saving Mom posted a great post on her blog here that covers some wonderful entertainment for the children this summer. Check it out. We love the reading programs that the book stores offer. We may try a few other things on her list as well. Oh, we have done the Kids Bowl Free thing too. Another great program for children, and this year they have it in Sturgis. Yay!!!

Let me know if you and your children do anything from the list, and let me know how you liked it. I would really like for some National Parks to be closer to us, but oh well. We've got other great things and parks nearby.

It's been a restful ending to another week so far. Looking forward to the sun shining tomorrow after a long day of rain and storms. Grow garden grow!

Benaiah is 1!!!!!

Yesterday was Benaiah's 1st birthday and boy did he have a good one! It looks like we are in for a messy summer with this little guy. He isn't afraid to go exploring off on his own, of course with the mama watching closely.

I was hanging laundry and turned around and he was crawling to the playhouse. Well, Jonathon was out that way, so I figured he was fine. Then I went out to the garden which is by the playhouse and we were working at building a little teepee structure that we planted morning glories at the bottom of to climb up in the middle of our wildflower patch. Well, we turned around and he made it to the garden. Right in the middle of it and looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. By then it was too late, so we just let him play.

I'm not sure that he was very pleased with being so messy though. Looks like our summer will be filled with lots of baths for Benaiah.

We got a surprise lunch guest who even brought lunch. Yummy! Too bad for Benaiah that he didn't get to enjoy any of it. The pizza and cookies were delicious! Benaiah had vegetables, turkey, and barley baby food. Poor guy! Ha!

After his morning of play, he was a tired little guy. He took a looooong nap which was just enough time to let me get more laundry done, sweep and mop, and even take a short nap.

Nap is over, time to get back at it. He loves pulling my towel down off the oven. He is pretty good about staying out of the cupboards and drawers after much training, but he still loves to pull off my towel. No big deal as long as the floor is freshly cleaned.

And then he realized that I wanted him to sit still so I could take a picture....or maybe he thought I wanted him to take the picture because he was on a quick path to get the camera, smiling the whole way.

After supper we headed back outside to work in the garden. He had a bath before lunch, so I really wasn't excited about letting him play in the dirt again. I told the girls they needed to pull him around in the wagon to keep him happy and out of the dirt. He loves riding!

"Hi, Mom!"

He officially has the wave down. It's quite cute too if you can't tell from the picture.

We were outside for such a long time that he got tired of the wagon, or rather the children got tired of pulling him and just left him sit. I entertained him nicely in the grass for a little bit with seed packets, but then his adventurous spirit kicked in again, and he was off. I watched him though so he wouldn't get into the dirt and would pull him back to the grass if he got over by the play house, but finally his speed crawling won out and he managed to get himself in the play house without me catching him first. Next thing we know, he is crawling ever so carefully back out again. It was quite cute.

We cleaned up all of our working messes, got the laundry in and closed up all the out buildings and headed in for showers all the way around. I think it was a good day for the little guy's birthday. Thankful for the sunshine that we could play outside most of the day and get so much accomplished. It looks pretty nice out there again today. One load of laundry to hang up and then we are off to do massages. The weeding will have to wait til tonight I guess. Ugh!

A Fun Day With My Children That Rarely Happens!

A Fun Day At The Park

The children and I took some time to have fun today. With it being windy and then later in the afternoon, rainy, it wasn't a good day to do work outside, so we headed to the park. Scidmore Park in Three Rivers, MI was very inviting, but a little poopy (literally). With lots of geese and ducks, you definitely have to watch your every step when visiting this park. We were hoping to enjoy the petting zoo that is there, but it wasn't open today. We could see quite a few of the animals from the paths, so we still got enough of an animal fill. We particularly enjoyed this mama duck and her babies.

I don't think she enjoyed us though.

We could see this little pot belly pig from the outside of the petting zoo. He came right over to see us. Alegra thought he had gentle looking eyes.

What do you think? I just don't see the gentleness here. :)

We got to see ponies and donkeys and......

funny shaved alpacas. This one though was quite hilarious with two bottom teeth that stuck out of its mouth about 2 inches. The children thought it was quite funny too. Can you tell?

And the pony did a little bottom itch for us too, which the children also thought was quite funny. Can you tell?

This park was nice but again with all the birds, it did make for a not very relaxing walk. The river was pretty and the bridges were fun for the children. And we did enjoy seeing gosslings and ducklings but with that came unhappy parents who wanted to attack. We watched our backs constantly.

Three children having a ball while one was just along for the ride and didn't really care where he was at.

After our walk we headed for the big playground that was quite fun for the children. It had lots of slides and little special things that were added fun.

The mini wide slide.

And some of the geese that I kept my eye on. At least at the playground we were close to a place we could climb up to get away from them.

We did have fun!

These were fun twisty toys. Not a typical swing.

And made for a fun picture.

Slides and hair gone wild.

And I even made Diella do some math. Way to go! You get an A+!

All smiles from us all!

Silly faces in the tube. I think they were really just getting away from the geese.

And I certaily can't end our day without saying that today is Jonathon and I's 13th wedding anniversary. He took me out to Applebees and rather than spending the crazy amount they charge for dessert, we went home and made our own amazing dessert that we all enjoyed. Chocolate Fudge Brownies with Peanut Butter Passion ice cream with two kinds of chocolate drizzled on top and don't forget the whipped cream. Delicious! Perfect ending to a near perfect day!