A spring break that was more like a winter break

I'm slowly working on getting caught up on the blog again and getting into the habit of more regularly posting on here.  As I do, I'm finding that the impetus to post comes in spurts.  There's no way I can summarize what's been happening prior to resuming these blog posts, but I can catch up on the past couple months.  Here it goes!

 

Back toward the end of January/early February my grandpa (or Papa, as Drew and Kate call him) had a surgery on his hip.  Drew and Kate were super excited about a visit to Grand Rapids to see him in the hospital a day or two after the surgery.  The day of our visit Drew had a school field trip to a local hospital and Drew was proudly showing Papa his hospital garb in this photo.  Drew had the gloves on and everything, so he got all cute and sweaty.  Both Drew and Kate made wonderful pictures for Papa and Jana is showing them off.

Also at the beginning of February Drew turned 7!!  Wow, it's hard to believe that Drew is now 7 years old.  Below is Drew showing off a Lego set he received for his birthday.  Drew is a Lego guy and plays with Legos daily.  He pulls out the instructions and whips right through putting new sets together, and then he has fun making up his own Lego creations. 

 One of Drew's favorite new books is a Star Wars Lego book.  It lists all the Star Wars Lego sets ever made.  It's a little like reading from a catalog, but both Drew and Kate love it.  Jana and I, not so much.

 Drew had a small party with some friends to celebrate his birthday.  Wow, there was a lot of energy among that crew.  They were like a four-person tornado moving through our house.  It would have been nice if Drew was born during the summer so we could have an outside party! We started out at a local bounce house, which served to get everyone nice and hot and sweaty and riled up.  Then we brought everyone to our house for dinner and dessert.  The boys could hardly sit still to eat they were so excited and energetic.  Never have we been so happy to return three boys back to their parents!

 Recently Kate's preschool class celebrated Easter.  Despite not feeling well, I braved the four-year-old preschool to help with the party.  Kate loved having me there and greatly appreciates it when Jana or I can make it to one of her class parties.  They party quite a bit in preschool! 

 The weekend of Easter we went up north as a family to the Traverse City area for a few days.  It was over Drew's spring break, although given the weather it was, as Drew put it, "more of a winter break."  Regardless of the cool weather and snow, we had a great time.  We started our time up north with a short hike to a beach we visit in the summer.  Drew and Kate had a blast getting out of the car and running around.

 The three explorers checking out the shore of North Bar Lake in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

 Kate had a great time tromping on the ice and snow along the shore.

 Drew was jumping around and I caught a picture of him in action.

 As we were walking along, it suddenly occurred to me that our children could take a picture of me and Jana.  Wow!  No camera pole or tripod or anything.  Drew and Kate are getting useful for pictures!  We let each of them snap a few pictures of us, and you can see one of the results below. 

 Of course, no trip to the beach is complete without some sticks to throw in the water.  Well, actually, this trip it was throwing sticks onto the ice, but it was still lots of fun.

 We don't travel a ton with the kids or stay in hotels all that often, so getting a hotel for a few nights was a huge treat for the kids.  We had a boys bed and a girls bed and the boys bed was filled with two great sleepers.  The girls bed wasn't as successful in their sleeping.  Below we are getting ready to head to the pool, which is where we spent quite a bit of time during our trip.

 Both Drew and Kate have been taking swimming lessons and Drew did very well in swimming all around the pool.  It was perfect because at the deepest it was 5' and in the shallow end it was 3'.  In the shallow end, Kate could touch the bottom.  In the deepest part, Drew could bounce up and down on the bottom.  It was a perfect size and set up for our family to enjoy.

 Jana and I both had fun getting in the water with Drew and Kate and messing around with them.  We went to the pool a few times a day over our whole trip.

 Drew has been posing for pictures nicely and he had me take this picture of him outside on the balcony of our hotel overlooking Grand Traverse Bay.  Drew and Kate loved going outside on this balcony because we gave them free rein to do so.  It was a little chilly out there though!

 Kate drew a picture of her swimming in the pool . . . without a bathing suit!  Where this girl gets her ideas, I don't know.  She always wore a bathing suit when we were at the pool for real and I don't think she's even heard of going in a pool without a swimsuit.  Oh Kate!

 Last week Kate was the student-of-the-day at her preschool.  She led the class in a number of things, including the pledge of allegiance.  For her special day she could bring something in for show-and-share.  This time, she chose to bring in Drew!  Kate introduced Drew to her class and told them how old he was, how he liked to play with Legos, and that one of Drew's favorite things to do is "to play with me."  Drew did a great job being up front with Kate and Kate thought it was wonderful to show off her big brother.