A Day at the Beach with Family

Yesterday we took a break from our normal Sunday routine to spend some time with Wayne's sister (and her family) and Wayne's cousin (and his family) who were in town from North Carolina. We decided to venture out to the state park in Holland, Michigan for some swimming, some eating, and some chatting! What we weren't planning on was the rain!

It started pouring as soon as we got to the water's edge. We figured that since we were getting wet anyway, we might as well go swimming! The water temp was 78 degrees! It's never that warm! The waves were perfect! The pelting rain, not so perfect! But after about twenty minutes it stopped raining, the sun came out, and the crowds had thinned considerably! (Imagine that!)

The above picture is of "Big Red." That's the landmark at the park.

This next picture is of Carl and Justin anticipating the next big wave!




Here's Carl and his "cousins" Adam and Nathan. They enjoyed getting to know each other and are hoping that their parents are planning vacations to North Carolina and Michigan, respectively!

Here's Alicia with her cousin Victoria. They don't see much of each other, but you'd never know it by the way they played together!

And here's Justin playing with his new "friends," too! It must be a boy thing to enjoy digging in the sand. When they weren't jumping waves, they were digging. When they weren't digging, they were jumping waves. (With a couple potty breaks and hot dogs thrown in for good measure!)

We all had a great time, and in spite of the initial downpour, the weather was beautiful! We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Wayne's family better.

EFA - Bike Ride!!!

The weather warmed up nicely this week and on the right days so that Wayne was home on a nice day! That's always a bonus. After spending the morning getting some chores done around the house, we loaded up all the bikes and headed for the Musketawa Trail. This trail is a 12' wide paved trail that was built on an old railroad bed. So, it's nice and level for bike riding, and it's a lot easier riding than riding with kids on the roads. That always makes me nervous!

We rode a total of eight miles, and we tried to find a geocache along the way, but it was missing. Bummer! Guess we'll just have to go back. ~grin~ The other bummer thing was that I discovered my odometer wasn't calibrated just right. It was saying I had riden a mile when, in fact, I had only riden seven-tenths of a mile! That's not good. So, when we got home, Wayne recalibrated it for me, and now it's pretty much right on. The bummer thing is that in recalibrating it, I lost all the miles I had already put on it this year. It wasn't a lot of miles, but my goal is to ride 500 miles this summer, and every little bit helps!

While riding we spotted a half dozen turtles sunning themselves on logs, a robin's nest with four eggs in it, and various birds, and lots of woodchuck holes.

I'm grateful for a family that enjoys the simple things in life, like a bike ride on a beautiful afternoon after a full morning of work.

What is an EFA?

This past Christmas my husband and I had a difficult time coming up with Christmas presents for our three kids. Normally we give each child one nice homemade gift. In the past we've made them quilts, afghans, shelves, pretty pencil holders, etc. But nothing struck us this year.

After thinking about it for quite awhile, we decided that once a week we'd make it a point to do something really fun/interesting as a family. Now, we're not a family that's going in a million directions at once. We do things as a family a lot. Most nights you'll find us all home together, unless we're at church together. But often we'll each be doing our own thing. I'll be writing a letter while Wayne pays the bills. Carl enjoys playing with his flight simulator, and Alicia and Justin manage to keep themselves entertained playing games or whatever.

It's no secret that our kids are getting older, and we didn't want to look back on these precious years with regret. So, we decided that once a week we'd all do something a bit "out-of-the-ordinary" together as a family. And so the EFA was born!

EFA stands for Eefsting Family Adventure. And we've had some adventures already. Sometimes it's hard to know what counts as an EFA and what doesn't, especially when we're on vacation. But some of the things we've done since Christmas include: playing racquetball, attending Handel's Messiah, touring a battleship and a submarine, snowshoeing, attending a conference with Buddy Davis, building a quinzee, watching the Olympics, going on an "owl prowl," and watching a movie (when we were too sick to do anything really fun).

Some weeks we do more than one fun thing. Like this week, for example. We finished building our quinzee, watched the Olympics together, and Wayne is planning on taking the kids to an indoor football game tonight. (He got four tickets from someone at work. I opted to stay home and get some work done.)

And so that's how the EFA got started and what it's all about. And I know we're all enjoying spending time together doing stuff as a family. It was one of the best Christmas presents I think I've ever given or received!

Thankful for a Quinzee!

Yes, I'm thankful for a quinzee! You see, as a homeschool mom, I hope that all of our odd projects will turn out to be winners, but honestly, life doesn't quite work like that.

Take our hot dog/sun block experiment for example. It sounded great. Get two hot dogs. Put sunblock on one of them. Put both hot dogs in the sun. See what happens. What happened, you ask? Well, we forgot about them, and the next day our dog ate both of them.

Now, what's a mom supposed to do?

Poison Control Center: Hello. This is the poison control center. What is the nature of your call?

Mom: Please promise me that you won't submit this to Reader's Digest's funny column.

PCC: Oh, I can tell this is going to be good. What happened?

Mom: Well, my dog ingested some sunblock.

PCC: How big is the dog and how much sunblock did he ingest?

Mom: He's about 60 pounds, and he ingested all the sunblock that was on the hot dog.

PCC: Ma'am, how much sunblock do you normally put on your hot dog?

Mom: Oh, a little bit more than ketchup because we rubbed it all in.

PCC (After I explained our little experiment): Well, ma'am. I don't think the sunblock will hurt him as much as eating a hot dog that's been sitting out for over 24 hours.

Ah yes, the failed hot dog experiment...

But the quinzee. Now that is a success! We started it a week ago today. First we made a huge pile of snow. The kids thought I was crazy. (So, what's new?!?) They hated doing all that hard work. When we finished our pile was about 5' high. But before we had a chance to dig it out, the weather warmed up to the mid to upper 30s. So, we put the digging on hold until it got colder. Finally, two days ago the temperature dropped, and we put another layer of snow on it to get it back up to about 6' tall. Again, the kids questioned my sanity ... Until we started digging. And digging. And digging!

The kids spent quite a bit of time playing in it today. They love being out in it. I spent some time in it yesterday with Carl. It's big enough for all three kids to fit in with our dog, Scout. I haven't had all three kids in with me yet, but it's probably big enough for that.

And so, yes, I am thankful for a quinzee. I think it proved to my kids that I'm not totally off my rocker. I know after that bad hot dog experiment, they were definitely beginning to wonder!