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In a funny twist of fate, Paul is good friends with the son of someone I knew back in high school. His sister and I were good friends and he was always "little brother". So funny how worlds collide. I knew their parents well so when I heard of a 50th wedding anniversary open house, we had to go. The kids loved the cake and nuts. I loved getting to see people I haven't seen in forever! No pictures of Paul because he was busy messing around with his buddy during the party.
We left the party and headed out to the club for dinner. Lots of smiles.
Lillie abstained from the children's menu and instead got very excited when the waitress said the soup of the day was chili. She ordered a bowl of chili and a side salad. Love this girl.
We took Peter home to get him to bed and I took the bigs out for a fancy dessert at one of our favorite places. Elements Tea and Wine has excellent tea, wine, food and dessert choices. They thought this was pretty cool.
Awesome desserts!
Fun day with yummy food....I call it a win.
For the last couple of years, Jason and I had been talking about an outside fire pit of some sort at the Ankeny house. We knew we needed a new deck and had been thinking we would just do one big outside project. We never got it done and then we were moving. We decided not to wait that long to follow through on the interest in good outdoor space where real wood can be burned.
We initially thought we would do a small patio and a fire pit ring in the middle. And then we talked some more and decided we wanted to proceed with an outdoor fireplace instead with a patio large enough to have a real seating area. And so began our planning, design and installation process. We had a great partner in John Miletich. The project took longer than we had anticipated but in the end we were thrilled with the results.
Patio and fireplace completed, sod installed around the pathway and planting done. This was right after we returned from vacation!
Three Rose of Sharon shrubs. One for each of our Korean born children as this is the national flower of Korea.
We opted for a custom built fireplace rather than a pre-fabricated model. I really wanted a piece of reclaimed wood as a mantle to make it unique. John found us a stone mantle that looks like reclaimed wood. Win/win!
We were anxious to break in the new fireplace so even though all of the furniture wasn't in yet we headed out for an evening with FIRE! Here's Lillie hanging out on one of the corner pillars.
The kids love the seating walls and pillars - probably more than sitting on actual furniture.
Paul was pumped to throw pine cones in the fire.
We didn't have full s'mores fixings but we did have some marshmallows. So we roasted.
We brought back a cool piece of driftwood from Michigan that makes an excellent piece for the chunky mantle.
A week or so later we had furniture delivered! Super exciting to be able to hang out on comfy furniture with our friends and family.
Broke out the full s'mores fixing so we could test out the new furniture.
Maya has been enjoying our time outside as well.
And then she photobombed us!
The many crazy faces of Paul.
And then Mr. Me Too had to get in on the face making action.
We had splurged on the monster big marshmallows. Bigger than his mouth!
These two warm my heart. So much.
Get to work kids! Roasting.....
Everyone loves s'mores!
We can't wait to continue to enjoy this new outdoor space long into the fall. It always feels nice to invest in projects that bring the family closer together.
A morning filled with frantic packing, loading, searching for all of our things......and then it was time to hit the road for our long drive home. We took a few moments to take some photos and say real goodbyes to our friends. These kids were so great all week. Everyone was sad to see the week end and clearly Juno was over it all. I love how the kids paired off in different ways depending on the activities. They made it all pretty easy because they could entertain each other. Here's the nice one.
And then the silly ones......
Big hugs! Squeeeeeeeze.......
Love these boys.
More hugs and squeezes!
These ladies mean the world to me. We are all hard working mommas just trying to raise our kids right and enjoy life along the way. We've all had changes in the last year - some harder than others. I am so glad we took a week to spend together with our families. This is my Michigan summer vacation tribe and I love them.
A few final hugs and squeezes with Lillie and Zach.
We hit the road and arrived at home around dinner time. It was a pretty uneventful trip home with just a few slow downs due to construction. I am so happy that Jason doesn't mind driving so I can catch some zzzz's. The kids slept and stayed entertained as well. Always nice to be gone on vacation but it does feel nice to be home too.
It was hard to believe that we were already to the last day of vacation. It always goes so fast when you are having that much fun. With eleven people in a rental house, the bowls go fast in the morning so poor Lillie had to use a mixing bowl for her Cheerios!
Quick snap of Lillie and Zach before we hit the road for our day of fun. The kids loved that swing and it got a lot of use during the week.
Chaos in the car....never dull and certainly not quiet.
I had run across something about an hour south of where we stayed called Mac Wood's Dune Rides. It looked a little campy and touristy but it got rave reviews so I convinced the crew that we should check it out. It wasn't warm enough that morning to hit the beach so this was a fun activity. It was busy but our wait was only about 30 minutes before we could jump in an open topped sand buggy with our tour guide. It was windy!
We took up two rows in the buggy and there were plenty of smiles and laughs due to a fun tour guide. It was a tour of speed up and down the dunes but also some learning in there too.
Not sure why he has all of a sudden started throwing up the peace sign for every picture. It's like he feels he is back in Korea.
Sweet face.
Quick stop off for a run down the dune.....and then the big climb back up. I wish I would have run video when Paul ran down as he took two separate headers as he ran down the dune (hindsight I was wishing I had taken his glasses before he made his run). Lillie ran down with Karen.
Back up top after his first run - he took another crack at it and avoided the tumble on his second run.
Lillie and Mark climbing back up the dune. I'm tired just watching them!
The whole crew. Love this family of ours.
And this just makes me laugh - the Mac Wood's Dune tour guides take these selfie style photos for each group that asks for a pic. Scott was our tour guide and he was great. He's a full-time teacher and then appears to do this gig for the summer.
We finished up our fun time on the dune and headed to an adjacent playground to eat some lunch.
He seriously loved his ride....can you tell.
Kids loved the sign on the way out - this is the little food shack we snagged our lunch from. Not the best service but nice to grab an easy lunch before we headed back to the rental house.
The previous day of storms allowed us to have access to the public access beach adjacent to our rental house. It brought in some sand to make the beach actually appear. We schlepped our stuff down and enjoyed some relaxing beach time to wrap up the trip.
Always smiling this girl. She had such a fun trip and has really grown a lot since last year's trip I think.
Super relaxing afternoon.
The starting of a big sand hole.
We ordered pizza for dinner and ate outside at the house before heading back down to the beach. The littles got their own little table.
And the big boys had their own space to eat too.
And then we headed back down to the beach for some more fun.
Happy parents after a wonderful week of vacation.
Not even sure how to caption this beauty.
Time for s'mores!
Beautiful fire for the sunset.
Lillie snagged Karen's sunglasses - thought she was pretty special.
No one was happy to go to bed because it meant we had to leave to go home the next morning.
