Hendricks Family Staycation 2010

This is mostly a picture diary of our week spent at the Hendricks Household (aka Hannah's parents' house). There was quite a crowd there, and here they are, in no particular order, to showcase the events of the week... (we are only first because for some reason I have to upload the pictures in reverse order and I forgot about us till last, so we showed up first. Does that make sense?!)

BRENDAN AND HANNAH:



Brendan is not a sun-bather, but you can't tell in the picture that he's in the shade. It was in the 90's just about all week, by the way.


We were babysitting our niece and nephews for the first weekend (over the 4th) and Hannah (adult on left) is holding Andrew, standing next to Ellie.

There was a lot of pool time (did I mention it was 90+ degrees!). Brendan and a few others tried to stand up on a raft. It didn't really work...


Hannah was the designated photographer, so there were really no more pictures of her:)

On to our kids. Again, I didn't really mean to do our family first!

LUCY:
Lucy spent a lot of time reading...We had a family quiet time out by the pool, and enforced it for the kids as well so they would let the adults read for awhile. Fortunately, they like to read.

Lucy built an airplane out of blocks, and said the small cylinder blocks were water bottles for the passengers.


She spent a lot of time in the pool, and no she never drowned. But people kept wondering about her:



While the family was playing baseball, Lucy opted to walk the stone path in Grandma H's herb garden.

Hanging out with Brendan. He is wearing Emily's sunglasses.


Lucy was the only one to successfully stand on the raft. She actually made it all the way up while my camera was processing this picture.


Arts and crafts during rest-time in the living room.


Reading on the floor of the garage while we all went out to watch Grandma ride a motorcycle. She didn't really watch, she just read.

GENE:
Gene spent most of his time playing sports, swimming, or hanging out with other people. He is not at all shy around family, and buddies up to all the newbies.

He read with everyone during poolside reading-time...


He spent a little time doing math, figuring out with bead how many pages he'd read so far for the library Summer Reading Program.


He was the self-designated ball-boy for the water basketball game.


Was so excited to play baseball with the fam.


Really enjoyed learning to play ping-pong with Grandpa, and even played doubles with some of the Aunts. What wouldn't be attractive about a game that involves a ball??


JANE:
Jane had a good time over the weekend. She loved to be in the pool, and hang out with people.

She didn't take many naps, but one day she crashed... Why do kids not believe you when you explain it's too hot to use a blanket? Especially a winter comforter! The house was air-conditioned, but not that much!


She LOVES this yellow floaty tube.


Jane got a lesson from Aunt Bekah in the world of fashion magazines. And notice the fashion Jane is sporting...

She built a random tower on the back porch.


The steps of the pool are a favorite play space. And get nice and congested when everyone is getting in and out:) Sometimes the girls bring out all the pool toys and arrange them nicely right around the edge of the steps, making it fairly difficult to enter.


Trying on someone's hat...must be Aunt Bekah's!

Here we go...


Squirting Grandma.



STAYCATION VISITORS:

Ben, Ellie and Andrew VanderVeen. Cousins to my kids, get along well with them. Not so sure about the rest of the family, though! Pretty shy and overwhelmed with the crowded house and pool area. Good thing the house was large...Ben was a master at hiding from the adults and had a fairly good time with new toys and books around. Ellie went everywhere Jane went, and spent a fair amount of time in the pool. Andrew stayed firmly attached to my hip, and was perfectly content to not be put down. He napped well, ate well, and didn't seem to mind being there.


Bekah painted Jane and Ellie's nails- they ALL loved it:)


This is a great picture of Andrew, but it is misleading. He didn't actually like to be in the water:)


AUNT LINDA:

My dad's sister Linda came to visit for one day. She drops in now and again to family get-togethers, and we enjoy having her!


AUNT PAT and UNCLE DAN:

My mom's sister and brother-in-law spent a couple nights...they are always fun to be around.



RICK and DEBBY:

Great job hosting this hoopla! There weren't any major hitches, and everyone was bedded and well-fed. Nobody got sunburned (too badly) or eaten alive by bugs. Good job Mom and Pop!





Mom rode on Craig's (see further down post for details) motorcyle, but it was WAY too hot for that jacket!


Pop enjoys having someone play piano so he can sing along...and Emily is definitely the one to do it! She's the only one of us who can really play without stopping to figure out every other note.



BEKAH and MIKE:

They joined us for the second half of their stay in Michigan, before continuing on their trek from Boston to New Mexico. They're halfway through their military commitment, and will stay 2 years in NM. Then where, and doing what? I'm so curious, and hope they'll end up here, of course!



Bekah and Jane, the two curly-girlies.


And from the back:


Mike and Janie. I think he likes to share his sunglasses with her...I think we got a matching picture last year of the two of them...



Mike tried a flip in the pool. His first ever, so he claimed. And he didn't do too badly...


A family dinner outdoors. See Bekah and Mike (front, right) and all of the those other people? Oh, middle left is Emily's long-time friend Meghan. She came just for that one dinner.


Bekah played baseball sporting the newest spring fashion... Running skirts are in, maybe baseball skirts are on the way:) (You looked cute, Bek!)


EMILY and PAUL:

Emily flew out from California to spend almost a full week here! Yeah! It's been ages since we've hung out for that long with her. And her "friend" Paul flew in a few days later. First time he'd ever been to the Midwest, and first time we'd all really seen him and Emily together. They're definitely a fun couple.

The kids and I picked Emily up from the airport...she took this picture herself...


We walked to the park after picking her up, to get the kinks out...


Then we went to Mom's and hung out at the pool, of course!


Emily really impressed all of us with her diving ability. She used to dive a bit when she was a kid, but to remember it years later is a feat. She did front, back, flips, twists, swan...I don't exactly know the lingo. Can you tell that I didn't dive?

I think Emily and Lucy could be kindred spirits someday. They both have that creative streak...


And here is Paul. He plays guitar (that's how he and Emily met, she answered a Craig's list ad for a drummer in his band) is learning piano, knows how to cook, and is an all-around nice guy.




He and Emily decided to chicken fight against nobody one day...they dominated the basketball game (I think, I mean they were really tall right?!).


Emily treated us all to a family sing-along of random songs she found in the house piano books.


And here she is, one of my favorite sisters...Yes, that shirt is interesting. She swears they understand it in San Francisco...



The guys had a couple random diving-for-rings contests. I think they're discussing the rules in this shot:


Paul was not as successful as Lucy trying to stand on the raft.

KATE and CRAIG:

They came a few days later than Emily, but well in time for the 4th. They've been dating for a while, in Chicago area, and you'll have to ask them how they met. I think it was through a Catholic dating site, but I could very well be wrong. Needless to say, they live close to each other and make a good couple. Craig rode a motorcycle here while Kate drove, and they made it safely.

From the looks of these pictures, Kate was busy...

Basketball (maybe just passing the ball back to one of the guys?)...


Baseball...

Ping-pong... Maybe Kate has more in common with Gene than she thinks!


I guess Craig zonked out at one point (we all stayed up REALLY late every night) but I didn't take this picture. Kate? :)


Dining with the happy couple...


That is the end of this post. Really long, for being relatively short of words. To summarize, a good time was had by all.

Normal life

We haven't had much normal life around here lately, but here are a few normal-ish pictures. We've mostly been at my parents' house for Staycation 2010 (see following post)...

Lucy has a few stashes of "favorite things she wants to keep" in her room, including stuffed animals she wants to hide from Jane and various pieces of artwork. One is her top drawer, and I think she was showing me something in this picture. Also, one of the only times she's wanted braids in her hair:)


Gene gave Janie a piano lesson, trying to teach her the C major scale. She was following a bit, since she knows the Do-Re-Mi song, but she wanted to play it all with one finger and he wanted her to play with the correct fingering. They were both happy in the end, though.


Gene and Lucy have been washing their own breakfast dishes lately, mostly because they keep forgetting the clear them from the table. I give them ample time, but if I've cleaned up the rest of the kitchen and they are still sitting there, I bring out the dish-washing setup and it becomes one more thing they have to do before they have free time. Today, Gene was questioning why he had to dump the bucket of dirty water in the toilet. He wanted to pour it in the sink, because it was closer. So he got a stool, and I let him try. He did pretty well! He sure is stronger than I think sometimes!


Jane insisted on helping to make lunch. I think she was starving, and wanted to get the show on the road. She did a great job covering each piece of bread with sliced cheese, to be the bottom halves of grilled cheese sandwiches.

I should have a post sometime consisting entirely of pictures of my kids reading. They are getting so into it... but, it's not as interesting as some other pictures, so I'll just post one of the latest. Lucy, balancing a magazine on a stool in the upstairs bathroom.


That's about all we've done at home in the last week:) Now head over to the next post to see what else we've been up to.

June Update

We went strawberry picking last week, and Lucy helped mash the berries to make jam.


We must have made something with eggs, and Gene got more practice cracking them. Lucy wants to learn now, too.

On cleaning day, Jane wiped her chair. It doesn't get as dirty as it did when she was a baby, but still...

Lucy has learned to use a knife and fork to cut up various things on her plate, and likes to get them all by herself when she thinks it's necessary.

And then one day she wanted to help me cut a fallen tree branch with a funny saw/knife.... (don't know the real name for it). If she had the muscle for it, she would have gotten it!

Jane was sick with a fever for a couple days, but didn't mind lying on the couch and receiving toast and applesauce whenever she wanted.


Gene's morning job for the month of June is to sweep the sticks and leaves off part of the patio. His sweeping skills have finally begun to actually get things clean, though he still requires frequent "breaks" and "rests" during the process... (in other words, it's not a favorite activity of his).

Lucy wrote a list of books for me to look for at the library...books about "moths, spiders, beetles, and mushrooms". This girl isn't into princesses and fluff.

She also helped clean the grill one day before dinner. She doesn't mind doing dirty work...in fact, she was begging to do it.


Gene spent some allowance on an ice cream bar from the ice cream truck. The first time it's ever come to our neighborhood since we've had a child old enough to know what it is. Luckily he had some money!


Swimming at Grandma Hendricks' pool...all the kids love it. And the parents. And the grandparents. Jane loves her "yellow floaty ring" and scoots around the pool now all on her own.

Gene is a regular fish, and as long as he has goggles can do all the fun things I remember doing as a kid in a pool...diving board (learning to dive!), slide, handstands and somersaults (working on them).

Lucy is also becoming a fish, and can paddle around the pool on her own, with no flotation device. She is very confident of her abilities, but continues to look as if she is drowning...I'm never quite sure. She experiments in the water, and comes up with her own tricks. Like her "seahorse kick" which consists of doing a bicycle kick while bobbing up and down in the deep end. She is the hardest one to get out of the pool at the end of the day. She also likes to be thrown up in the air, and doesn't mind how high she flies as long as she lands in the water.

The Mitzel's came over to swim one day as well, and most of the kids helped to scrub the trampoline...it's been getting black marks on any kid who jumps...we'll see the next time we try it how well they cleaned it!

Florida! (and the pictures resume...)

I have borrowed a camera for the time being, so I have to update a little beginning with the pictures my mom took from Florida in May. There were something like 200 pictures, so this is the quick version...

Everyone wore sunhats and lots of sunscreen every time we stepped outside. Needless to say, we did not get burned even one iota. That only happened the day we returned to Michigan and decided it was silly to spend all that time slathering on the sunscreen...I got burned the worst!

The kids were all excited to wear sunglasses, though they didn't actually wear them most of the time. Mostly squabbled about whose were who.


A family picture, minus only a couple sisters and a husband. Wish you all could have come, too:) Lucy and Jane had trouble looking into the sun. Actually, Lucy had trouble with pictures all weekend. She squirmed and fussed and never would look at the camera...


Upon entering our massive mansion of a rental home, we would often see a head peeking above the railing of the second floor. I don't think I am explaining that right (I'm really tired right now!)...anyway, there was a kitchen on the second floor, and from the sitting area next to the kitchen, one could look over the railing...


And a certain threesome often did.


So, we spent the majority of the week either in the pool or at the beach. There was a pool in the backyard, and a path to the beach just beyond. The kids were in the water almost non-stop, and Lucy learned to back float in the ocean with whoever would help her (my dad in this picture).


We watched the sunset every night from the screened-in back porch. And took lots of pictures of the sunset. The pictures definitely do not do it justice. Just had to be there. The kids stayed up late one night and got to see it, and we had a good discussion about whether it was rising in China at that exact moment...


One day we drove to the Everglades (not far from Naples, where we were staying), and took an airboat ride around the alligator hideouts. It was kind of loud, since we were powered by a massive fan, the only means of scooting a boat through water a foot deep.


Everyone had to wear headphones. Most people didn't mind.


One person did.

She actually didn't mind the headphones as much as the wind. We were moving pretty fast, fast enough to make a person kind of squint their eyes against the wind. And fast enough to blow a hat off a person's head (it almost happened a couple times). Jane wanted me to cover her eyes with my hand, and actually pressed it tighter against her face a couple times. When we slowed down she would peek out...


We did actually see some alligators.


And after the ride I got to hold one (notice my sister Bekah isn't actually touching it!)


But the kids did touch it, for a second. I only did it because no one else was volunteering, and I didn't want the kids to think we were all a bunch of wusses. I didn't REALLY want to hold it. But it was kind of cool...

More beach pictures:

Bubbles with Aunt Bekah...



And back to the pool. Gene learned how to do a handstand/flip thingie. You tell me what you would call that. He loved being underwater, that's for sure!


Lucy motored around in her floaty ring, and had a grand old time as well. Her favorite trick was being thrown (or jumping in by herself) so that she landed and went under the water (even with the ring on).


And that's all, folks. It was a fun vacation. The last time I was in Florida, Jane was a baby. And that was fun, too. But this time was little more relaxing:)