First Day of Kindergarten for Allison

It was a windy first day of school

Hanging up her backpack

Getting in line for the flag raising ceremony

First day of school was a success!

It seems like we have been waiting for this day for months! Since Allison has a December 15th birthday she starts Kindergarten as a 5 year old, but turns 6 very soon! She was super excited about her first day of school with Mrs. McIntosh. She loves going to school everyday and is meeting lots of new friends. I am so happy that she is starting a new chapter in her life. She is certainly ready for all the challenges that school has in store for her. I am hoping for a happy successful school year with lots of learning and lots of fun for sweet girl.

Friends

Tess, Madeline, Allison and Connor

Ice Cream

Best Buddies
Last week our good friends from Ann Arbor came to visit. We had a great time with Meg, Madeline and Tess playing at the house, having lunch, going for ice cream, and then to the local playground to burn off some energy. Thanks so much for coming to visit us! We miss you guys.

The last taste of summer

Ella and Papa

Rosalee, Allison and Mary Violet

Connor getting ready to go Kayaking with GG

Grand Rapids Children's Museum

Kathryn, Anna, Grace and Allison at the zoo

Our finished kitchen

New appliances, counters, backsplash and these cabinets to match the older ones

Looking into the breakfast nook

The last few weeks have been super busy and lots of fun. We had the Springer girls with us at my parents' house to enjoy the kayaks and have fun in the water. The girls enjoyed going down the channel on the orange kayak and jumping off into the water. They figured out how to paddle around and get back on too. Craig and I took the kids to the Grand Rapids Children's Museum. Later in the week we went to John Ball Zoo with the Ackerman girls. To wrap things up, the kitchen was finished and we unpacked the remaining boxes. The amount of packing paper that was used is crazy!!!! We are all so happy to have our kitchen finished and all of our stuff unpacked.

More Summer Fun

All the cousins (minus Genevieve and Ella) and the Carnival

Grace, Craig, Allison

Allison and I went to the movie Beezus and Ramona

Sweet Ella

The Kitchen is almost finished. Ready for paint!

Ella LOVED this dog that Colton got for his birthday

Carli with Ella and Colton

The last two weeks have been a lot of fun. Craig had most of the first week of August off, so we took advantage of the fun Coast Guard festivities. We spent a lot of our time with family and friends. Allison, Connor and Ella enjoyed a day at the carnival with all of their cousins, we went to the parade, the fireworks, and the beach. We also went down to the three on three basketball tournament to see my cousin Casey and his cousins take first place. It was an enjoyable, but hot week!

This past week was busy as well. Monday Allison had swim lessons and then I spent the rest of the day in the ER with Connor. He was in terrible pain, but luckily it was resolved before the end of the day. The rest of the week we spent time at MVP swimming, hanging out with friends, hosting my sister in-law and nieces, and then a day at the beach with them on Friday. Allison had two sleepovers in a row. One at Aunt Amy's house and then last night with my parents. Busy girl. Last night we said good-bye to Bob, Traci, Carli, Casey, Cameron, Caydee, and Colton. It is always sad to see them go back to Florida. We are hoping that they return for Christmas this year!

This week our kitchen is going to have the final stage in the makeover process....PAINT! I cannot wait to have the kitchen done so that I can unpack the rest of our stuff into all the cabinets. What a joy that will be! We are also getting a new roof. Although we were hoping to not have to replace the roof for at least another year, we now have a leak that is going into our sunroom and we have to have a new roof. The one plus is getting rid of the green! All that will be left of it is the shutters, front door, and garage doors. Thank goodness for paint.

Safety Town and Fun in Grand Haven

Allison holding her Safety Town Certificate

Connor and Genevieve

Connor, Craig and Allison at Uncle David and Susan's Pool

Anna and Allison
This was Allison's last week of Safety Town and I have to say that it was nice to have her involved in something for the mornings. She really enjoyed meeting new friends and I enjoyed having only two kids for a couple of hours. It meant that I could jog each morning with Connor and Ella, take Connor to the playground, get a coffee, and relax. On Friday she "graduated" from Safety Town and Connor, Ella and I went to her her sing and get her "diploma". It was very cute.

Friday night we headed to Spring Lake. We stayed the night at my parents and were up early to kick off Coast Guard week with the Coast Guard Run. Craig and I both ran the 5K. My goal was to go under 21 minutes and Craig was hoping to run under 18 minutes. I ran it in 20:38 and Craig was a few seconds over 18. Then we were off to the kids' Parade where they took in a HUGE amount of candy and had a ton of fun with their cousins. We topped off the day with a great dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Alguire's house.

Today we spent the afternoon at Craig's Uncle David and Susan's house celebrating their 40th anniversary. The kids had a ball swimming in the pool.

Wednesday we are heading back to Grand Haven to take in many of the Coast Guard Festivities. Looking forward to another fun week!

Fun and Friends

Connor feeding the birds

This week was spent getting back into the routine of being in our new home and sleeping in our own beds for a week. I no longer here Allison say, "Where are we sleeping tonight?" Like she has for the last 2 1/2 months. Each morning this week Allison has had safety town. It has been nice to have her doing something fun for a few hours so that I can exercise with the two younger ones and do a few things around the house too. I spend most mornings jogging with Connor and Ella in the jogging stroller. On Monday I ran around Reeds lake, which was a bit much with the two kids in the stroller. They are good for 3 miles, but 4 1/2 was a little much and it was a lot pushing them up the hills. Ella fell asleep, but Connor kept wanting to talk to me and I could hardly hear him with the noise of traffic. After each run I would either go to the track to let Connor run around or to Wealthy playground to play. He had a ball doing both and it was nice to spend some one on one time with him (Ella typically took her morning nap in the stroller).

Monday Allison had her afternoon swim lesson with Lucy. She is really coming along with her strokes and seems to really enjoy the water too. We joined MVP on Monday, so we went to the pool for a short bit to check it out. The kids LOVE it and it gives us something fun to do as family. Craig and I enjoy working out there, they have a great kids area and nice indoor and outdoor pools.

We meet my aunt Tracy, three of her girls, her niece and my cousins Jenny and Amy at John Ball Zoo. We had lots of fun feeding the birds, petting the sting rays and enjoying the animals. That night we met Craig at the pool.

Allison feeding the birds

Friday we spent most of the day with friends. Our good friends Mia and Janelle came for the afternoon to have lunch, see the house and hang out. It is always good to spend time with them. Then we went to another friend's house for Thai food and hung out with friends. The kids had a great time.

We had a busy and fun week hanging out at the pool, meeting new friends, hanging out with old friends and enjoying our new life in EGR.

July

Allison

Ella

Connor

Ella showing off "SO BIG"

Craig's graduation from U of M

Craig, Connor and Tom Izzo

Ella at aunt Katie's house

It is has been a long time since my last post. Life has been crazy busy and now that we are moved into our new home, things have settled down a bit. I have decided to get back to the blog. My hope is that I can blog once a week and talk about what has happened over the week. Allison is now 5 1/2 and has been going to safety town all week in EGR. She is loving it and has met a lot of new friends. Thank goodness she is very social and making friends is very easy for her. I actually felt a bit sick to my stomach leaving her with a bunch of people we didn't know, but when I picked her up she said she loved it and wished she could stay all day. She told me she met a new friend named Kathryn and she LOVED safety town. I should have known that it would be an easy transition for her. Connor is two and boy is he two! He is in to EVERYTHING, is talking up a storm, now sleeps in a big boy bed, and is just plain BUSY. He is doing really well with the bed and is a ton of fun. Ella is now 10 months old and she is crawling everywhere and pulling herself up to everything. My little sack of potatoes is now mobile! She is such a little sweetie. This week we joined MVP and the kids have been enjoying the indoor and outdoor pools. They spent 45 minutes in the kids' spot while I worked out. Allison and Ella did really well, but it was a bit hard for Connor. He doesn't like me to leave him. Hopefully this will get easier. We have also spent a lot of time at the beach with my cousins, and time in Grand Haven with family. Craig and Connor got to meet Tom Izzo and Connor got a ball signed from him. Lots of fun! Craig and I just recently went to our 15 year reunion! Lots and lots of fun and great to see old friends.