Neighborhood Art Show

Our neighbor Katie is great and getting the neighborhood kids engaged in fun and creative activities.  A week or 2 ago the kids were all creating magnificent works of art on her deck, and then they talked about how they should do an art show.  We finally made it work today and it was a great success.  Katie had the kids bake little cookies so they could make ice cream sandwiches for the guests and we invited some of the other neighbors to come and look at their art.  The dads even judged the artwork and gave prizes in each age category (fortunately the only 2 kids who are the same age are Peter and one of the neighbor girls, so they did a female and male award in that age category).  :)

The girls weren't sure if Peter was going to participate,
so his name is not on the signs.

Dutch Village

Today we ventured to Nelis' Dutch Village in Holland.  I don't think I'd been there since I was in elementary school and I went there on a field trip.  I had heard several people say that it was fun, so I had it on our bucket list for the summer.  We were originally planning to go to the beach today, but it was too cool, so this was a good alternative.  We had a lot of fun doing the rides, exploring the little shops, seeing the Dutch dancers, watching how wooden shoes are made, and eating lunch.  On the way home we stopped at Captain Sundae in Zeeland for ice cream.  What a fun day!

Racing ducks by pumping water

Adorable Dutch school children

Teacher Miriam

Hand pump train cars

Learning how wooden shoes were made
in "the old days"

Dutch shuffleboard... just like we play
at Grandpa and Grandma K's house!

There were only 2 horses left when we got on
the carousel, so Peter kindly agreed to ride on
the bench with me.

Pigs in a Blanket--yum!

Captain Sundae!

We had to get a picture with the Captain!

Camping Fun!

This past weekend we spent a couple days camping at White River Campground.  We had talked about camping with Casey's cousin Don and Lisa and their boys as well as the McCaul family for several years, so we finally made it happen.  We had a great time together and loved the place we camped.  Lisa's family owns the campground, so she suggested it and we think it could be our new favorite camping place.  We had a rustic cabin, which was basically a cabin with bunks and a mini fridge.  It was nice not to have to deal with a tent, but still have the fun of cooking outside and doing other fun camping activities.  The McCaul family had  cabin next to us and Don and Lisa were on the other side in their pop-up camper.

We had so much fun riding bikes, playing bean bag toss, going to the playground, swimming, playing matchbox cars in the dirt, hiking the trails, and just hanging out and talking.  The cousins had a blast and Peter especially enjoyed having 4 other boys to play with... for once he wasn't surrounded by girls!

S'mores!!

Waiting for Daddy to make pancakes

After swimming on Saturday afternoon, we took a little drive to Country Dairy for some ice cream!

Peter and the other boys had fun
making tracks for their cars in the
sand/dirt/straw at the campsite.