Slideshow of Vacation

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Summer Vacation 2007

Esther looking COOL in her cousins shades!
Sunset over Lake Michigan
Garrett and Micah taking a ride on a motorcycle at Playworld.  This was a dreary morning, so we got out of the house by visiting an indoor play area for the kids.
Garrett digging a hole on the beach.
Olivia giving me a sad face on the beach.  This was right after I had to punish her, so she wasn't real thrilled to see me in her face with a camera.  However, I love the picture of her!

We just got back from a great week on Lake Michigan with Josh's family.  His parents, Eric and Erin and their boys all came up to MI for the week and we stayed in a house right across the street from the beach.  The weather was pretty good - we had a couple of cloudy and rainy days in the middle of the week, but found other things to get us out of the house.  Overall, the kids were great, all 6 of them!  There were very few fights to break up and bed times were pretty stress free.  They loved the beach and especially the water!  Esther and Garrett especially like the water.  Yesterday the water was warm, but the rest of the week, it was pretty cold.  The coldness didn't stop Garrett - he went in even when the water was 58 degrees!  I'm hoping to get a slide show put together, so these pictures are only a taste of what's to come, ENJOY!

Pastor Steve & Family

Well, here at Burnips Wesleyan Church we are about to have a new pastor come in. I was trying to find their blog because Steve had told me that Beth had found our blog, and I found it. They are in our links, so check them out, but I found this picture on their blog and we will be able to see the group that is about to join our family. Jess and I are very excited to meet the family and we are excited for what is about to happen here at the church.  Blessings!!!!

20 weeks

Thanks to the news of the baby being a boy, we have more nights like this to come!
20 Week belly, I don't think it looks much different from the last time.

Boy or Girl??

It was 1:45 pm as we waited patiently in the doctors office for our name to be called. We were both a little nervous. Josh, mostly b/c he wanted everything to be ok. Me, b/c we really want this baby to be a boy!

They call our name, "Crisp." The tech walks us back to the room. "Do you want to know the sex?" She asks.
"YES! And if you could make it a boy that would be great!"
She starts the ultrasound, checks the size and goes right for the leg region. Luckily baby wanted to cooperate. "It's got BOY parts!" she says. I had to ask her to say it again, b/c I wasn't really listening, I was too busy trying to figure out what I was looking at!
So baby #4 will even out our family and we are so glad! Everything looked normal during the ultrasound so that's a praise too. Josh was more worried about that b/c he doesn't feel the baby move yet, like I do. We are so thankful for a good report today! Thanks for all the prayers!

Olivia's glad there will be three boys and three girls. Gotta love my little organizer!
Garrett's glad he has a BOY to sleep with him in his room.
Esther doesn't really know what's going on, we'll let you know how she responds after the baby is born.

All my friends in blog land can give us some ideas on the middle name for our little Gideon. Josh really likes Samuel, I like Aaron and Joshua. Do you have any good names? And it doesn't have to be Biblical.

It's a. . .

Rabbit!!  Ha! Ha!  You thought I was going to tell you the sex of the baby, but that's not for another couple of days.  So here's our rabbit story.  After we cut the tree down Josh was clearing brush from the yard and found that a rabbit had birthed her babies in the middle of our yard, where she thought it was wooded b/c of all the tree branches and limbs that were down.  We've been watching them closely, checking on them frequently through the day, and showing them to all our house guests that we've had lately.Two of the five rabbits sleeping.  Their eyes have just opened, and the first day that they had opened, two of them when running when we pulled back the brush to check on them.  One ran through the fence, into the woods next door.  I thought he was gone, but the next day all five were back.
A close up of one of them.
This is what they looked like when Josh found them, he and Garrett thought they were mice b/c they were so brand new and their features weren't really clear.

I'm loving all the nature around me now that I live in the country.  I was really freaked out this time last year, I really felt out of my element.  The longer I live here, the more I like the quiet solitude of life, out of the towns, cities, and suburbs that I grew up in.  I love to watch the birds, rabbits, butterflys, squirrels, toads and whatever else comes our way.  I'm not a fan of the snake that decided to say hello the other day when we were checking on the rabbits.  It was only a gardener snake, but he can stay in the woods from now on.

A week or so ago we had lots of fun watching one of the trees in our backyard get cut down.  My reasons for wanting it cut down were, first of all, that it was weeping on one side and was dying.  And secondly, I wanted more sun in the back yard!  Most people think I'm nuts, but we have three BIG trees left that still give us plenty of shade.
Here's what the tree looked like before anything was cut out.  The swing was relocated to another tree in the yard.
Josh took the older two up on the "cherry picker" before the fun began.
Two men worked for 4 hours "topping out" the tree.
Almost done the topping out process. 
Of course we had tons of mess to clean up. Olivia and Garrett helped as much as they could!  It was a lot of hard work, but I'm so happy with the result!  The video of the tree falling is the next post down!

Tree falling

Here's the result of all the hard work! I don't know if the video captures the excitement of the moment, but it was really COOL!

The Foruth of July - Take 1

Daddy and Esther waiting for the Parade to start.
The kids didn't just get a TON of candy at the parade, they also got to watch horses do their "business" along the route.  One of them was so kind as to leave some right in front of our seats.  At one point we told Garrett to run out into the street to get some candy that didn't quite make it to him, and on his way back he was coughing and gagging, saying, "That poop stinks, we gotta go home soon, PHEW!"  He had us rollin'!
Another lovely shot of the three kids, NOT looking at the camera and with eyes closed!  The day I get a great shot, will be the day pigs fly!
Mommy and Olivia waiting for the fireworks to start.  I love this picture of her, because she's NOT posing and looks so beautiful (if I may brag!!).
Garrett and Daddy waiting on the fireworks (seems like we did a lot of waiting, hu?).  But seriously, the kids did GREAT.  If I had the day to do over again, I would do it exactly the same, with no exceptions or changes.

We had a great holiday yesterday, starting with a parade in a neighboring town and ending with a fireworks show in Holland on Lake Macatawa.  Hope you enjoy the pictures from the day!  Keep scrolling to the next post for more pictures.

The Fourth of July - Take 2

Olivia and Garrett starting up one of the inflatable games before the fireworks.  This one had two huge slides on it! 
More sugar please!  This photo was taken at around 9:30pm as we waited for the sun to set so that the show could begin.  They did fine with the food - til it was gone - than it was pretty tough keeping them occupied and out of the way of thousands of people sitting around us.  Overall they did REALLY well at being up until almost midnight.
Esther saying "CHEESE" for the camera - she never looks at the camera - so this is a great shot!
Olivia framing her face with a glow stick (thanks Miss Deb for buying them for us!).  Notice the sky in the background, and the sun still not set all the way.  I think this was taken after 10!
Garrett with his favorite trustee, Mr. Gary.  Gary is so great with Garrett, putting up with all the questions and interruptions while he's trying to work.  Thanks for loving our kids Mr Gary and Miss Deb!

Olivia Riding her bike

Just wanted to update on Olivia's progress with riding the bike. She's a pro now and can even start herself. She's just a bit taller than Garrett, so she's got the advantage with the start. This same night we went down to the church to let them ride around the parking lot on their bikes and Olivia bit it hard! She still had on her bathing suit, so she got a really nice strawberry on her butt cheek and upper leg. Luckily, we were able to get her back on the bike the next day.
On another note about Olivia, she self-corrected the other day and it was AWESOME! We rode the bikes to the park behind our house on Friday and when we arrived there were three other girls playing and they asked Olivia to play. Garrett wasn't too interested in playing at that time, but a few minutes later he was headed to the picnic tables where they were. At first, all the girls were saying, "NO boys allowed!" Garrett kept his distance, just watching for a couple of minutes. He moved a little bit closer and Olivia turned to one of the older girls and said, "He can sit by me, can't he? He's just my brother, he won't bother us." I was so proud of her. All the tough lessons are not in vain!! Thank you Jesus!