Bryan and Becca's Visit

Bryan and Becca drove through the night Wednesday night and were at our house Thursday morning between 8:00 and 9:00.  We fixed pancakes/bacon for breakfast and then just enjoyed visiting and having family here!  Russ had class all day but he met us at Riverside Park later in the afternoon.  Although there was still a cool breeze, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful
afternoon.  After thoroughly enjoying the ribeyes Bryan and Becca brought from home and the fresh strawberry pie I made earlier in the day, I took Becca on a trip to experience Meijer (she thought it was more like Super Target than Walmart)  

On Friday morning we went to the seminary for a tour and to shop at the bookstore.   After a quick lunch of soup and Casey's cinnamon and sugar bread (thanks again B and B!) Bryan and Becca left with their two oldest to go through the Bodies Revealed special exhibit at the GR Public Museum.  Russ and I met them an hour later with the rest of the kids to go through the other part of the museum.  Since the day was cold and drippy the kids spent late afternoon/evening inside playing hide and seek and other board games.  

Learning about Grand Rapids--"Furniture City"

A taste of NW Iowa?

Learning about the vests men wore at the turn of the century.

General store

Saturday morning we had a slow start with the kids watching Ratatouille in their jammies after breakfast.  The clouds started to break apart around noon and since Caden wanted to see Lake Michigan pretty badly, we took off for Grand Haven around 2:00.  Although the sun was shining, the wind off the lake was cold, but it didn't seem to bother the older kids at all.  We walked the pier and were excited to see some fishemen catch fish:  walleye (a huge one!), rainbow trout, lake trout, and brown trout.  We arrived back home late afternoon with lots of sand between the toes.  We ordered Jets pizza for supper and then celebrated the birthdays of Nicolas, Caden, Amirah, Willow, and Romee.  The kids again played games and then the older boys stayed up to finish the movie Pilgrim's Progress that they had started the night before. 

Playing football in the sand--this is why Cade had sand in his ears!

At the end of the pier.

Soaking in the warm rays away from the wind

A few trout the fishermen caught

This morning, Easter Sunday, we worshipped at Harvest OPC.  Pastor Dale's sermon text was from 1 Peter 3:18-22.    We were just back in the house when Bryan came in asking Becca if she had a spare set of keys.  Evidently he (Becca? one of the kids?) hit the lock button and locked the keys in the car.  We called our AAA and found that our membership expired in January--we had forgotten to renew or had not received a renewal notice probably because of the move.    Thankfully, they renewed our membership over the phone and within 30 minutes someone was here to open the doors.  After we changed out of our new Easter duds, Becca hid lots of eggs in the yard for the kids to find while we waited for dinner to be ready.  She put little pieces of paper with words related to the resurrection in some of the eggs along with the candy.  After they were all done, they sat in the middle of the driveway and opened the eggs and took turns reading the words and explaining what they had to do with the resurrection. 

We had such a great time.  One can not adequately blog about the laughs we shared, the parenting "wisdom" exhanged, or the church/spiritual discussions that were had.  The visit went all too quickly and as I write this, my house is entirely too quiet.   This weekend Russ and I mentioned a couple of times to each other that although Greenville also has a great seminary, we are once again glad we chose a seminary closer to home.