Megan's Summer Adventures - Critter Camp

We signed Megan up for a two-day camp through Zeeland's Critter Barn.  We had heard this was a great place to check out - a very interactive "farm school".  This girl is a huge animal lover, so even though Zeeland is a bit of a haul for us, we thought it might be worth the trip.  Again, we were right - she loved, loved, LOVED the experience.

First day of Critter Camp - she was a little nervous at drop-off, but once we saw open access to animals, we both knew she would be fine.

Yeah, this is going to be good.

Kitties, too?  Bonus!

Just hanging out, holding a baby chick.  WHAT?!?

We quickly fell in love with the baby cow...

 

especially when it tried to eat Megan's shoe

These giant fluffy rabbits cracked me up.

And yes, Megan loved those too.

Day 2 - she is old friends with the rabbits by now.

Out for a donkey ride.

Hannah Marie - Woman of Mystery

This girl and her sunglasses...

She keeps us laughing, this one.  She is a total character.  I say often that she has a career in stand-up comedy.  She can't help but be funny.

Hannah goes to Cooper's Birthday Party

Hannah got invited to her first-ever friend's birthday party.  Cooper, a preschool friend from Appletree, had his 4th birthday party at Celebration Cinema.  It was a Planes themed party, and all the kids got to go see the movie afterwards.  She was soooo excited about it!  Daddy took her to the party - she had a great time and alleges she loved the movie, though witnesses (i.e. Daddy) say she fell asleep during the screening...

Excited for party time, with her patented one-eyed smile

Grand Haven - Second (albeit short) weekend

 We had a few scheduling conflicts during the second weekend of August.  Our weekend in GH was shorter than we would have liked, but we made the most of it!

We explored the farmer's market, discovering soft pretzels that are OUT. OF. THIS. WORLD.

And the nice weather meant a trip to the BEACH!

And a swim, despite the fact that the water temp was only 55 degrees.

Hannah and I stuck to the shore where is much, much warmer.

And we found the splash pad on the way home - fun times!

Our first bike ride for ice cream - quickly becoming tradition, but we won't rest until we've tried (and ranked) all the ice cream shops in GH.

Megan's Summer Adventures - Camp Manitou-Lin

Megan attended Appletree's Summer Explorers program during June and July, but in an effort to make her summer "special", we elected to keep her home in August and enroll her in some other camps.  During the first week of August, she attended Camp Manitou-Lin (through the YMCA).  We strategically selected this week so she could attend with one of her best friend's from preschool, who we found out last minute was NOT attending.  This was definitely not a good surprise!  The bus ride to and from camp was almost an hour long, and Mom & Dad were soooo, sooo worried about how she would react to such a long day without her good friend...

 

 

 

Turns out those worries were completely unfounded!  She came off the bus on Day #1 happy as could be!

The theme of this camp week was Dr Seuss.  She was part of the Aardvark group.

One Happy Camper!!  This was taken during dinner at Family Night, where she got to show Mom, Dad, Hannah & Grandma Purdy around.

Grandma & Hannah checking out Barlow Lake

 

Silly camper and her little sister

 

Super silly camper and sister

Enjoying a camp slurpee with Dad

Aardvark's turn for camp entertainment

Megan made a couple of good Aardvark friends during the week

 

On stage - we couldn't have been more proud of our brave little camper!

Grand Haven - Megan's Bedroom (Before & After)

Painting Megan's bedroom was the first big project at the new house.  Because we bought her bunk beds (pink, of course) that take up a great deal of space in the room, I knew that I needed to have this done before moving day.  I spent our first Sunday in Grand Haven in an empty house, armed with a roll of painter's tape.  Here is how it all came together:

This is what we started with - kind of cute, but definitely not Megan



I thought I was going to have to paint the ceiling, but a sponge and a bottle of Soft Scrub got me out of that

Those red curtains were put to death by my pink bunk beds

  

And again, I forgot to take a before and after pic.  This represents four of the five drawers of the blue dresser I found for her room...at a yard sale...for $20.  Score!

And here is the nightstand - well, some of it - found at the same yard sale for $10

Another night stand "before" pic + the dresser carcass... or at least most of it.

Megan got wind that I wanted to paint her walls grey, and she was NOT pleased.  I scored some brownie points by adding pink hardware to her furniture, though.

Furniture is done and ready for moving day!

My paint sample was a fail, but at least pointed me in the right direction - I settled on Glidden's Quiet Rain

Ahhh, now that's more like it.



Another view

And one more... this was the wall where I learned that 98 year old homes do not have square corners.

Pink bunk beds are ready for two little girls!  This is the Land of Nod's Sherbet Stripes bedding - I HEART IT.

Marie-Grace got a set of pink bunk beds too! 

Eventually I'll get around to thinking about wall decor, but for now I couldn't be happier with how her room turned out.  And neither can Megan - she has totally accepted the grey walls and loves, loves, loves her new room!

Grand Haven - First weekend!!

After much anticipation (and a whole lot of furniture painting), our first weekend in GH arrived!  It also happened to coincide with the second weekend of Coast Guard Festival, aka Absolute Insanity in Grand Haven Weekend.  We decided we had enough on our plates with getting used to the new digs and learning how to manage a second home, and avoided all festivities like the plague.

 

Their first glimpse of the new house.  To say they liked it was a bit of an understatement.

We got to the house on Thursday night.  We settled in with a late pizza dinner and let the girls explore.  We had the house loaded with surprises for them (LOTS of new toys compliments of yard sales and expert Craigslisting), and they had been excited for this night since we announced the purchase.  After tucking them in, I made THE dreaded trip to the grocery store, figuring they would probably stop having so much fun if we were unable to feed them the rest of the weekend.  I was delighted to find that the Grand Haven Meijer was arranged exactly like our Meijer at home, and the first major stock-up trip was relatively painless.


Though our strategy was primarily to avoid downtown at all costs, we did venture to the State Park early Friday morning to walk the pier.  The weather certainly didn't warrant a beach day, but we were still eager to explore our surroundings. 

Not exactly beach weather, but we still had to go check out the lake.  (Shockingly, though Megan has been to the Gulf of Mexico seven times, this was her first visit to Grand Haven State Park...still not sure how we managed that...)

  

Ugh.  She kills me with cuteness.

 

Why walk on the boardwalk when you could trash your feet in the sand?

 The rest of our weekend was pretty low-key (much, much appreciated after a crazy few weeks of projects involved with getting the house ready for habitation).  We played outside, took lots of walks to explore nearby playgrounds, and settled in to our new weekend routine.

Coming to the end of a GREAT weekend!

By Sunday, we came to realize our biggest challenge with the new home was going to be returning to real life in GR.  We are already looking forward to weekend number two!