Weekend of Celebrating!

This weekend was filled with fun and celebrations!  We left Saturday morning to go to Farmington Hills to be a part of the jubilee celebration for my Aunt Elaine.  She celebrated 50 years of service to God as a Sister of Mercy.  We attended a mass and then enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Aunt Elaine and relatives and friends.  We are grateful that we could be there for her celebration since she is such a special part of our family.  It was also nice to visit with some aunts, uncles and cousins that we don't get to see very often.

The Sova Siblings:  Mom, Uncle Larry, Aunt Joanie, Aunt Susie, Aunt Elaine.  They are standing in order of age... all 5 of them were born in a 6 year time span!

After lunch we checked into our hotel, watched some Olympics, grabbed an early supper and then drove to Comerica Park for the Detroit Tigers baseball game!  Peter went last year with Casey, but this was the girls' first time attending a game.

The weather was hot, but sunny when we arrived...

A few innings in, the sky started to get dark and people with smart phones saw on the radar that we were in for a storm...

Fortunately it was a brief storm, so we huddled under the roof on the concourse with everyone else until it passed, dried off our seats and enjoyed the rest of the game!

The fireworks after the game were great too!

This morning we enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our hotel and the kids swam in the pool for a while.  Then we drove home, unpacked and went over to my parents' house for my Dad's 70th birthday steak dinner!  Peter told Grandpa that he only seems like he's 66, so that's quite a compliment.

We are thankful for celebrations of God's goodness in our lives and the lives of people we love.  It was a great weekend!

White Pine Trail

Today we crossed off another item on our summer vacation bucket list:  biking on the White Pine Trail with Grandpa and Grandma W!  It was a beautiful morning to ride.  Esther and Grandpa took the tag-along to Belmont and rode the 5 miles from there to Rockford, where the rest of us met them.  Then Miriam hopped on the tag-along with Grandpa while the rest of us rode our own bikes.  We rode about 7 miles all together and then had a picnic lunch with our favorite Corner Bar hot dogs!  Peter and Grandpa rode back to Belmont and the girls headed home, although we all stopped for ice cream on the way home.  Then it was time for Esther to head to Grandpa and Grandma K's house for her birthday sleepover!

Peter and Grandpa's ice cream stop in Comstock Park:

Plantinga Family Reunion

Saturday was the actual reunion day.  We gathered at Casey's Uncle Henk and Aunt Thres' house so that we could use the pool.  There were around 40 of us and we had a great time together, swimming, talking, playing and eating delicious food!

All of the kids (except for 1 baby):

All of the kids with their grandmas (Casey's mom and her 3 sisters):

Meijer Gardens

On Friday some of the guys went golfing in the morning, so the moms and kids went to Meijer Gardens.  Alissa and I were joined by Casey's sister Renee as well as his cousin Joanne and cousin-in-law Becky and all their kids.  It was a beautiful day to enjoy the children's garden and all the kids had a fun time together while the moms got to chat and catch up with each other.

We packed a picnic lunch and after lunch Alissa, Renee and I took all of our kids back in for a few more hours of fun at the farm and seeing the big horse.  It was a long but great day!

Playing "old fashioned" games in the log cabin:

Sand area:

Beaver hut:

Fun at the farm! 

The kids got to do an egg hunt and gather eggs from the lawn.

They also got to cut out a piece of cloth for this quilt and put their name on it:

Sing-along with instruments:

Cooling off in the water!

Human sundial:

Top of the hill by the big horse...

Such a great hill to roll down!

This was the reaction we got from Peter and Mason when I (jokingly) suggested walking through the rest of the sculpture park after we'd been at the gardens for 5 hours and we were all exhausted...