Sun…Sand…and…Baby Powder…

Yes, we have returned from our second vacation of the summer, a week in South Haven with Ben’s family. For the last few years, they have rented a house for all ten of us to spend some quality family time together…and once again, we had a great time. Here are some highlights…

Hey, who are you again?
Ben had been sick for the two weeks prior to us leaving on vacation, and in bed for a large portion of that time. Yuck. During that time, we had been existing in the same house, but we really had not spent any quality time together, unless you consider our conversation where we decided he DID need to go to the doctor instead of hacking up a lung for the rest of his life…

Thankfully, he recovered sufficiently enough to be able to come to South Haven, and a couple days into it, I realized how horribly I had missed him. When you are “in the thick” of taking care of the kids and a sick husband and life, you just kind of put your head down and barrel through it. But when you are able to look around and see how wonderful it is to talk coherently to your husband (and have him talk back), hear him laugh, watch him wrestle with the kids, and have an extra set of hands to wrangle the kids, you realize how much you appreciate having someone who is “in the thick” right along with you. Also, it made me enjoy our “couple” time together more too – running across the street to catch the sunset, trying to teach me how to boogie board, snuggling on the porch swing…

Blueberries, Anyone?
Last year, we stopped at a u-pick blueberry place on the way home, but this year everyone decided to go. The bushes were loaded with bunches of deep purple berries almost falling off the branches, so we grabbed a bunch of buckets and took off. Parker began putting the berries into his bucket, but quickly realized that they were edible, and proceeded to eat about every other berry he picked. He also found it most intriguing to sneak between the rows of bushes, leaving the adult with him to squeeze through the same opening with a bit more difficulty.

Madi & Josiah went all out too – picking and eating – and running up and down the rows after Ben. He kept going deeper and deeper into the fields to find the best berries possible. Right at the end, we found an area where the blueberries were gigantic…and delicious. Yum.

The end result? Piles of blueberries, which we put into muffins, pancakes, cheese rolls, and pie…all in one week.

A Party a Day Keeps the Doldrums Away
Madi is always full of “ideas”, usually about one about every 30 seconds. This week it was all about “parties”. She wanted to throw about one party a day, making invitations, creating party games, decorating, and so forth. During one of our Wal-Mart excursions, we bought balloons and ribbon to hang all over the house and porch. I think she actually thought that her friends, Abby and Hannah, were going to come!

And the Answer is…”yeah”
All week long, Parker cracked us up…ask him any question, and 99% of the time, he will answer with “yeah”. Parker, do you want to go outside? Yeah. Parker, are you hungry? Yeah. Do you want to take a walk? Yeah. Can you say milk? Yeah. Do you want to eat something other than macaroni & cheese or nutrigrain bars? No. (That was the 1% of the time) I know his vocabulary will be increasing exponentially soon, but for now, the answer is…yeah.

Snacks on the Beach
Ask Madi what her favorite part of the beach is and she will say (with passion)…SNACKS! She loves going into the water, digging gigantic holes in the sand, decorating with sea grass, but her favorite part is all the food we bring to the beach. About five minutes after we get “base camp” set up, she will run over saying that she is hungry and/or thirsty. Inevitably, Parker will dash over too so that he is doing the same thing as Madi. So, our beach “food pantry” has to include not only lunch items but many different kinds of snacks to munch on and different beverages. I don’t know where she put it all; must be the extra energy she was expending running around on the beach in the sun?

Sand in every Crevice? Baby Powder to the Rescue!
One of the worst parts of going to the beach is dealing with the sand afterwards. Madi would take off her bathing suit, and big chunks of sand would fall out, and Parker would get huge amounts of sand inside his swimming diaper. Thankfully, we discovered the wonderful power of baby powder this year. You simply dig out that bottle of baby powder that you have probably never used since you received it at your very first baby shower, rub it all over the sandy body parts, and poof…the sand slides off effortlessly! It is amazing!

“The Very First Scrape of the Year”
Madi is the kind of girl who uses band-aids “liberally”. Every time she gets a bug bite, she wants to put a Dora band-aid on it. Anyways, the night before we left, Madi tripped, fell, and scraped up both knees on the sidewalk. It wasn’t much of a scrape, but it was bleeding, so we hustled her into the house, cleaned out the gravel bits, and put these huge band-aids on each knee. I mentioned that it was her first scrape this year, and she latched onto the phrase, and repeated it to everyone she saw, lamenting her “very first scrape of the year”. Also, after she was bandaged up, she waddled away, not wanting to bend her legs. Talk about “milking it”!

What? We’re home already?
South Haven is only about an hour away from Grand Rapids, and it felt much shorter in comparison to our two day drive to Minnesota in June. We were home by lunch on Saturday, had everything put away by mid-afternoon, and were grocery shopping by evening. There is something to be said for vacationing close to home. It definitely makes the “recovery” time easier, and we had Sunday too before Ben’s work week started.

We have a few days to recuperate, before our week in Grand Haven starts on Sunday. You can’t beat vacationing with family on the beach, with plenty of entertainment for the kiddos, beautiful sunsets, and plenty of blueberries!