Saturday, April 6, 2013

More Spring Break Fun!

The last part of our spring break week has been lots of fun, but also very relaxing.  On Wednesday we hung out in the morning and then each of the kids had a friend over in the afternoon.  We have had fun playing 4 Square this week with our friends and our neighbors!


Thursday and Friday were vacation days for Casey!  We went to Meijer Gardens to see the butterflies on Thursday morning with our neighbors Adam and Katie and their girls, and then went to McDonald's for lunch so the kids could use gift cards that they had.  Then we spent the afternoon outside with a bunch of our neighbors, enjoying the sunshine and getting a few things done.






















Casey's little helper, vacuuming the car!
Fun with the neighbors!

On Friday we went to Marge's Donut Den for treats in the morning and then Casey and Esther went shopping to get Esther's dress for the father-daughter banquet, which is next weekend.  Peter and Miriam and I ran some errands.  After lunch we went to see Ice Age 4 at the theater.  Our local theaters do a Flick's Family Film Fest  a couple times a year.  Each week they have a different movie that is free for kids and $4 for adults.  We also had coupons for free kids' combos (drink/popcorn/treat) and they allowed us to use those for Casey and me too!  So we all saw a movie and had snacks for $8.  What a deal!   :)  Friday night we had pizza with some friends from church/school.




Peter paused before ordering the U of M donut. 
I assured him it was ok this time since MSU is out.



Saturday ended up being a more productive and busy day than we had originally planned.  We were able to get a bunch of free cabinets from a friend, so handyman Casey installed them in the sunroom, basement and garage.  He also built extra shelves for one cabinet since a few were missing and he installed a countertop over some of the cabinets to make a Lego creation station in the basement.  All of this resulted in a major reorganization project which affected other rooms of the house too.  It made Esther and I very happy as she loves to organize and reorganize as much as I do!  So it was a busy day, but we still found time to play and go to the library amidst our big project.  It's always so satisfying to see the results of a project like that.  I'm so thankful that I have such a handy husband!
 
Esther did a major detailing of the van (for pay)!
 
Sunroom craft/art supply cabinet
 
Garage cabinets/workbench
 
Basement Lego Creation Station!

Tomorrow we will go to church and then relax the rest of the day to get ready for going back to school and work.  It's been a great week... only 9 weeks until summer vacation!   
 


Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Fun at the Kroc Center

This afternoon we went to the Kroc Center.  It is similar to a YMCA, but is part of the Salvation Army.  We have been there a few times before, and this week they are doing special things for spring break.  We had a great time swimming, doing the big water slide, climbing the rock wall, bouncing in the bounce houses, and creating a craft.




 
Climbing cousins--Peter and Tyler!

The craft was creating birdhouses
out of ice cream cartons, cardboard
and aluminum foil.

The finished houses!

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Easter Weekend

We had a fun and relaxing Easter weekend.  Saturday morning we had the 7th annual Easter egg hunt put on by our awesome neighbor Dore.  She started doing this just for Esther and Peter in 2007, and now it has grown to include the other kids on our street as well as some of the grandkids of the neighbors.  It's always a lot of fun and Dore keeps making it bigger and better every year!  This year Esther found the "golden egg" which was worth $5!

Dore the Easter Bunny!






Karen and Juan arrived from Chicago at lunch time, and it was fun hanging out with them for the rest of the day.  We played outside all afternoon.  Then we went to Olga's for supper thanks to money sent from Grandpa and Grandma from Florida!  After Olga's, we checked out Sweet Yo's frozen yogurt, which was right across the street.  Dore had given us a gift certificate a while back, and this was the perfect chance to use it.








This morning Karen and Juan came to church with us and it was a beautiful service of celebration for Easter. Then we all went to Casey's parents' house for Easter dinner.  We had delicious food as always, and then relaxed and played games and hung out for the afternoon.


Special cupcakes made by Grandma!

Casey made Death by Chocolate for dessert.
YUM!!!


Now we're looking forward to a fun-filled week of spring break!