Memorial Weekend

Sorry for the delay in posting...this is the first chance I have had to really sit down and have a moment to blog...

We left Thursday and met up with my parents in Allendale. Then we left Friday morning to head further north. We park in the middle of nowhere in the woods. We used to have a trail that we walked through all the time, but they have done so much logging and it is impossible to even find the trail now. Sad. We still go for walks down the road, though.

Camping was a lot of fun! Damaris was still her normal fussy self in the evenings, so I really couldn't enjoy the campfire much...which was not fun, but at least this is a short time in our lives and there will be other campfires. :)

The weather was cool but nice...a little rain, but not enough to ruin the day. Sunday was really sunny and quite a few of us got burned a little. At least I am not as pale anymore!

On Sunday we had church service together around the campfire. Stephen did the sermon and Kara brought her guitar and led singing. It is always great to worship together as a family, especially since we are rarely together in a big group like this.

One thing that I am very thankful for are two grandparents in their 90's that are still able to go camping!! They pull their camper up every year and stay. My grandma went for walks every day with us and my grandpa was out getting trees for firewood and using the chainsaw. Not many people have grandparents in such great health (physically and mentally!), and for that I have a lot to be grateful for!!

On Saturday night Stephen's parents were able to come visit. It is nice that they only live 45 minutes away from where we camp. Maybe next year we can talk them in to camping with us :) (hint, hint...). Unfortunately Damaris was super fussy and by the time she calmed down, I went to bed because I was so exhausted.

We took a ton of pictures and it was hard choosing which ones to put on here. We realized on Thursday that I didn't have to be back to work on Tuesday (duh) so we took our time and didn't come home until Tuesday morning. We went to Grand Haven and let Titus experience the beach...but since I already have so many pictures on here as it is, that will just have to wait for another post :) Plus it is getting late and Damaris is probably going to wake up soon to eat...

I will leave you for the evening with a few highlights from the weekend...

Highlights:
The kids playing together. Titus had a blast with all his first and second cousins!! Titus and Joshua (see picture above) had to stick together...they were the only boys camping until my brother and his family arrived (they have two boys)!


Being Silly...





And best of all, just hanging out as a family. (I think there were close to 40 of us that camped and lots more that came to visit at one point or another that weekend)





Titus was a little tired after being outside all weekend and playing so hard with all his cousins...