Strawberry picking

We decided to go strawberry picking yesterday after so many people said they had gone and had gotten lots of strawberries. We decided to go first thing in the morning. As we were driving up to Wisconsin, it was raining. Fortunately, it stopped when we arrived! Then, when we talked with the gals at the farm, they told us the picking was terrible! Great, we thought. Fortunately, there were not many people there so we had a quiet morning and the boys had fun finding strawberries. We did manage to fill our tummies and come back with one basket of strawberries!

Elise in a dress

Elise is busy crawling and climbing right now, so it's very hard to put her in a dress. She gets frustrated with crawling over it! I try to take advantage of Sunday mornings to put her in a dress at least once in a while because she looks so pretty. I managed to get a picture of her and the boys which is quite amazing since she rarely sits still!

Week at Grandma and Grandpa's

Dan had his annual CDYC (Central District Youth Conference) trip to Indiana Wesleyan University with the students. The kids and I went down to my parents' house while he was gone. The kids always enjoy a change of scenery and being around Grandma and Grandpa.

My mom has an annual pass to the Dupage Children's Museum in Naperville. We took the kids along with Seth and Noah. The had a lot of fun there with all the different play and building stations. They even got to make their own wooden cars with hammers/nails/saws and everything. Carrie and Jay met us there for lunch so it was fun to see them too.

Elise enjoying her Cheerios

Levi building his car

Isaac, Levi and Jay playing at the water station

Elise had fun with the ducks!

Seth pulling a bubble over his head

Isaac, Elise, Seth, Levi, Noah, Jay

Seth, Noah, Jay, Isaac in the geometric area

The kids always love the "new" toys at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Levi always finds all the motorcycles and plays with those. Elise loves the refrigerator at our house and also at Grandma's house!

Seth and Noah both have June birthdays so we celebrated their birthdays on Saturday. The boys had a great time hanging out with their cousins.

Betty (Amy's mom), Grace, Selah, Amy's niece, Isaac, Levi

Levi and Selah

Isaac and Selah

The birthday boys - Seth and Noah

Grandma Connie, Elise, Levi

VBS

We had Vacation Bible School at our church last week. Isaac was old enough to attend this year so he was very excited. Since I was helping out, Levi and Elise also got to go. The theme this year was SuperFriends. Isaac learned that the SuperFriends were great at keeping peace in the city of GotHim because they knew the ultimate peace maker, Jesus. Isaac and Levi told me about Captain Chaos who was "not nice"! By the end of the week, he came to know Jesus and became nice. During the week, Isaac made a superhero cape, wrist bands, and shield. Thankfully, Levi was given a cape too so he could also be a superhero! Levi's favorite saying now is "He's not nice" whenever he sees a bad person or animal :) Isaac was really cute too because he wanted to pray for Captain Chaos so he would come to know Jesus. He's starting to understand the power of prayer!

Happy Father's Day

We are so blessed to have Dan in our family. He is a wonderful dad to our three children. He brings so much energy and fun to life. Isaac, Levi and Elise all adore him and I admire him for the wonderful example he is.
We tried getting a photo of him with all 3 kids and it didn't quite work out. Oh well...

Elise refusing to sit still!

The boys!

Daddy's little girl

A fairly decent picture of Elise...she's on the move so very hard to photograph!

Jenny's Birthday

Another birthday came and went. It seems the older I get, the quicker they seem to come! The kids and I had a laid back day going to the park with some friends. After Dan got off work, we went out to dinner at Red Robin. Yum! I received some beautiful flowers and card and a yummy cookie cake. It was a nice day.
I love signing up for free things. So far for my birthday I have received...a free drink at Starbucks, a free sweet treat at Panera, a free dish of ice cream at Baskin Robbins, a free bowl of noodles at Noodles & Co, a free hamburger at Red Robin, a free breakfast at IHOP, a free brownie sundae at Chili's, and a $3.00 gift certificate for CVS. Not bad at all!!

Lake of the Ozarks

(When reading this, sorry about the extra spaces...I try to delete them and every time I publish it, the spaces come back. Ugh!)
We went down to my parents' lake house in the Ozarks the week before Memorial Day. We decided to drive in the evening so that Elise would sleep most of the way (she's not the best traveler). I had to work on Monday until 4:00 and then we were planning on heading out. Dan had the van packed when I got home and we were all set to go. Levi had told Dan about 5 minute prior that he was hungry and he got really fussy. All of a sudden, he threw up! We were so thankful that we were not in the van yet:) Not sure what happened to him, but we decided to wait a bit to leave to make sure that it wasn't going to continue. After Levi took a short nap, he seemed to be feeling a lot bettter. We thought we would start the drive and if needed, stop in Joliet to stay at my parents' house.
My brother Paul wanted to borrow some of Dan's hiking/camping stuff for his trip to the Boundary Waters, so we met him on our way. After we dropped off the stuff and Levi seemed to be doing well, we continued our 9 hour drive to the Ozarks. We arrived there around 3:45am. Dan did a great job driving and Elise did a great job sleeping. The boys slept most of the way, although sleeping in their car seats wasn't the best. I slept on and off most of the trip.
The weather while we were down there was OK. There was a chance of thunderstorms almost every day but we didn't see much rain. One evening, we did have tornado warnings and hail. That was a little scary after the Joplin tornado, which was not too far away.
Despite the weather, the kids seemed to have a great time. They even went in the water a few times!

Fishing was a big hit with the boys. They loved going out on the dock and throwing in their lines. They especially liked it when they got a fish!

Elise loved the swing on the porch. She could watch all the activity going on in the water and on the dock. Elise is at a busy stage right now where she likes to crawl and explore everything. She likes to pull up on whatever she can find and puts any little thing in her mouth. We let her crawl around quite a bit on the pontoon boat. It was like a big playpen!

The boys had fun swinging on the big swing hanging from the dock!

Almost every day, we would go for a walk. It is so beautiful up there and the hills make for a great work out! Elise enjoyed trying out the hiking back pack!

We were able to go on a couple boat rides. Elise was not too fond of her life jacket, as it came up so high on her neck. Levi was a lot better this year with being bigger. Isaac helped Grandpa drive one day too!



Isaac LOVED the wave runner. He and Dan went on it several times. Levi was not too sure about it and was not convinced it was similar to a snow mobile. I did manage to go one time but did not want to get wet. The water (and air) temperature was cold!!

My parents watched the kids one night so that Dan and I could go out and celebrate our anniversary. We went to a restaurant called Trail House. When we got there, we weren't sure they were open since no one else was there. We ended up eating alone for most of our meal until another party came in shortly before we left. I guess things don't get busy down in the Ozarks until the weekend of Memorial Day. It was good for us!

While we were out to dinner, Grandma and the boys made me a birthday cake. They had fun decorating it with strawberries. For a treat, Grandpa made them popcorn. Since Dan and I had so much food and dessert when we went out to dinner, we saved the cake for the next day!

The sunniest and warmest day we could find, we went to a place called Frankie and Louies. They actually have a sand beach where the kids could play in the water. At my parents' house, they just have rocks. Although the water was cold, the boys had a blast playing in the sand and water. We stayed for lunch and enjoyed some fried fish.






When Dan and I had gone out for our anniversary, we had driven over to a park area to see what kinds of things were available. One of the workers from Bridal Cave was there and gave us a family pass to go on a cave tour. The last day we were there, it was cold in the morning, so we decided to take the boys there. They seemed to enjoy it, although once the tour guide started talking, the boys asked when they could keep walking! Definitely glad we had the free passes :)

There is a look out tour near the Bridal Cave that you can climb up to get a gorgeous view. The boys did a great job climbing the stairs to the 80 foot top!