Loving summer in Michigan!

On Saturday afternoon we went to the pool with Ryan, Kristi and the family. Once again, the kids showed off their ever improving swimming skills. Austin is now also excelling at water basketball, this was him hanging on the rim after his slam dunk!

Mason was a great chauffeur for Austin. You can see the stick he is using to get Mason to go faster!

That evening we went to a port close to their house to watch the boats and get some more ice cream. It was obvious that no one enjoyed the sweets at all!

We had a great few days staying with the Brunworths and are going to try to plan a vacation with them in the next few years to go to the upper peninsula of Michigan. Hopefully that will all work out! We went to church with them on Sunday morning, came home, packed up the car and hit the road. We landed in Deckerville, MI around 7 and the fun began again. We are visiting our good friends from Dallas, Josh and Renae Lunn. Renae is from MI and they are up here visiting for a month this summer. They are in a very small farming community that is absolutely beautiful right now. There are miles and miles of corn and bean fields everywhere you look. Austin got his first ride on a real 4 wheeler with Renae's dad, it was love at first sight!

They started up a fire and we got to have one of Halie's favorite desserts, SMORES!

Halie and Chloe being silly!

Life is good.....

The next day we took a trek through the maze in the corn field. Renae's brother makes one every year. It took us about 30 minutes to find our way out. Not an activity normally done in Dallas, that is for sure! Again, the kids loved it!

This trip has been wonderful so far. It has been great to have such quality time with the family. It was something we all needed and will all cherish. So far on this trip I have learned a few things:

1. Austin loves to be outside. It is one of his new words, it has progressed from "side", to "outside", and he says it all the time. It has started to come to the point that if he is not outside, he is not happy.

2. Austin loves any motorized vehicle or bike. I have a feeling the kid is going to make me pretty nervous at some point in his life! He has spent every moment he possibly can either sitting on the 4-wheeler by himself, or trying to convince someone to take him for a ride.

3. Halie has been the most well behaved little girl I could ever ask for. She has been so grown up, so helpful, so sweet and caring. I am so incredibly proud of her.

4. God made alot of beautiful places in the US, still trying to figure out what happened to Texas.

5. It has been great to have dad around!

6. Give people the benefit of the doubt. I normally do this, but on the road the other day I was driving and we ran into some traffic. It was 3 lanes going our way and up ahead there was a split in the road and I needed to go to the right, so, at 2 mph I was trying to get over to the right hand lane from the center lane. As I was trying to get over, the guy in the lane next to me drove up very close to the bumper of the guy in front of him, looking like he was doing everything in his power to not let me over. I got irritated and went to give him a sarcastic wave and thank you, when I realized he was trying to tell me something. It was a fellow cyclist, who noticed we were from out of state and he proceeded to very nicely tell us we didn't need to change lanes, the center lane would exit to the right. I felt like a tool. I was getting ready to be rude to the guy and he was just trying to help....lesson learned.

7. My body is physically starting to hurt (and get a little softer) after a few weeks of lack of exercise. Getting back into a routine will have its perks.

8. Got this one from a face book post...Philippians 2:3-4 "Do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself, do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others." Even when you are on vacation with your family for 6 weeks, this verse still counts. It was much needed, thanks for the reminder Phil.