Friday, August 30, 2013

A look at Psalms 23 from the view of a 4-yr old...

Random conversation when Liam woke up this morning...



Liam: "Mommy. What does Psalms 23 say?"

Although I could say it by heart, I chose to pull out the Bible, help him look it up and then we "looked" at it together. I read it to him, explaining it as we went along...

Me: "We should memorize this chapter."

 "No, 'cause it's really looooong."

"Well, it is long. But, if we take verse by verse, you can memorize it. I know you will be able to memorize it, because you've memorized lots of Bible verses already!"

 "Ok!"

"So, the first verse says, 'The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.' Can you repeat that for me?"

"The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want."

"One more time, please."
"The Lord is my Shepherd. ...That means Jesus is our Shepherd!"

"Yes it does. And what does a shepherd do?"

"He takes care of his sheep."

"Very good! So if we are calling Jesus our shepherd, what is David saying we are?"

"But, I'm not a sheep, because I'm not an animal!! I'm a child of God!"

"You know what, you are right. You are not an animal. And don't you ever forget it! And you are a child of God too. David was just using an analogy, because he was saying that we need to follow God and trust Him like the sheep follow their shepherd."

"I'm not a sheep. Jesus is the sheep!"

"He is?"

 "Yeah, he's the Lamb of God! He's  a Shepherd and a Sheep!"

Thursday, August 29, 2013

a pepper a day...

... keeps the garden at bay.


 


After watching what they did to the peas, I'm thankful the beans are just a bit out of reach- we might get a meal out of them :)

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Family Vaca (Great Wolf Lodge)

As mentioned earlier, we spent our last night of vacation at Great Wolf Lodge. The boys loved it. We don't know whether we will ever do it again (unless another great deal comes our way), but it was such a splendid finale for our vacation. The boys were a bit timid at first, but by the end they were sliding down the biggest body water slides that their little heights were allowed. And Joel took me out to breakfast at The Flap Jack Shack. Yum!

Our favorite memory of the GWL (part 5)... Joel loved going on the rides and playing with the boys, the boys loved the slides, and I just loved seeing them all happy :)


The boys were all tuckered out from the long drive... we were thankful, since we wanted them to play until the park closed.

It is an outdoor and indoor waterpark. Here was what you saw when you walked in. They also had an obstacle course, an area with lots of basketball hoops, regular pools, a lazy river, a couple saunas, a kiddie area, and lots of body/tube slides.

Aiden pretty much just stuck to the kiddie pool (max height of 1.5ft) until about an hour from when we left.

They wouldn't even venture onto those slides for the longest time...

 If he wasn't strapped to me, he was usually guarding our stuff ;)



We would never coerce Liam onto the fort by threatening to go home...
just like he would never goof off and pretend to drink nasty, chlorinated water ;)



Posing for a picture, realizing what his Daddy was scheming, but a little too late. Luckily I had it on the right setting to capture the moment, since I was too far away to rescue him!
(That's 1,000gal of water that gets dumped every 5 minutes after a warning bell)
 Poor Guy!!!!!

 Aiden loved flirting with all the girl lifeguards.
They were switched out every 30min so that they would remain alert.

 Enjoying the "children allowed" sauna


The slides the two boys didn't want to leave. Liam enjoyed it for a couple hours, and then Aiden realized how much fun he was having and wanted in on it too. Joel couldn't ride down with him, but he still loved it anyways-- even when he accidentally flipped one time and went head first all the way down!

 

My husband had it down to a science... "shoulders and heels- make your body like a bobsled" he kept telling me, was how you went quick and made the biggest splash!


Joel's pancake order: homemade buttermilk peanut butter pancakes with peanut butter and chocolate drizzled... Yum!
It actually came with a chocolate coated ice cream scoop as well, but my lactose-free husband asked it to be held.

As any resort, there was a whole lot else you could do (some type of "magi quest", a beauty salon for kids, various restaurants, bowling, characters, arcades, etc etc)... but our kids were happy with just the waterpark, and frankly, we were too! But they did want to pose by this statue... I love how when they want the picture taken, they give their best smiles without even being asked!!


Monday, August 26, 2013

Family Vaca (northern MI)

As I mentioned earlier, after a night of camping we decided to drive through a bunch of cities that had been recommended to us. Our end goal was Traverse City, but we didn't know how long it would take and we didn't necessarily care either. We ended up seeing Harbor Springs, Petoskey, Bay Harbor, Charlevoix and finally Traverse City. We probably spent the most time in Harbor Springs, where we stumbled upon a little beach park and spent an hour with the spine surgeon Joel works with at Botsford; we ate lunch at a diner in Petoskey, drove through the ritzy Bay Harbor, admired the flowers lining Charlevoix before driving along Traverse City's shoreline en route to our hotel.


Our favorite memory of northern MI (part 4)... We both agreed that we loved Loved LOVED Harbor Springs. Well... maybe I'm the only one that said it with that much enthusiasm ;) I just loved that idyllic little place; I loved that there were two life guards to such a small beach with barely anyone on it. I'm so glad we happened upon it since there was a farmer's market that blocked our downtown route. :)

Harbor Springs












Dr. Bono's
Harbor Springs is known for it's natural artesian wells. One of them just happened to be right across the yard of the surgeon's home. We went to fill up our water bottles... Liam didn't want to drink "from the fountain", but changed his mind after the surgeon told him that if he drank it he would grow tall like his Daddy someday. :)





Petoskey






Bay Harbor




 (driving through to Traverse City... the sunflower fields reminded me of my sister. Joel and I loved the hills and variegated fields; we passed quite a few cherry orchards, among other produce!)