Bananas and Milk

I am sure every household with children has the same ritual as we do: the bedtime snack. The kids are clean from their bath, and they sit down to eat one last bite before being read to and tucked into bed. My sister and I had the same ritual when we were growing up. I am continuing a DeVries family tradition with my kids: bananas and milk with sugar for bedtime snack. Here are the girls enjoying it a few weeks ago! They love it!

You might notice in the top picture that it was still light outside at the time of the picture/bedtime snack. That's another DeVries tradition that I am continuing: bedtime before dark in the summer! My girls (especially Grace) do pretty well with it, but I remember being so mad when mom and dad would put me to bed when it was still light outside. I would wistfully look out the window at my friends in the neighborhood still running around at 8:30 PM. Since becoming a parent, I now understand why they did it!

Lily

Lily has been pretty busy the last few weeks! We were pleasantly surprised to get this certificate in the mail with Baskin Robbins Scrip! Apparently, she's a polite and obedient bus rider. Only one bus rider out of all the routes gets this certificate each week, so Lily feels pretty honored. We're very proud of her too.

Last night our HS cheerleaders hosted a Jr. Cheer night at the football game. Lily practiced last Saturday morning, and made her debut at last night's game. She had a blast, and it was fun watching her dance around and cheer for our school. She is pictured above with her "cheer girl" (as she called her), Analiese. Analiese has babysat for us and is also the daughter of Lily's teacher.

She also got her first manicure last week!

Every week the kindergarten studies a specific color and have color days on Thursday. Last week was orange, so she is pictured below with her orange shirt and hair bows. She learns a song that helps her remember how to spell the colors too. She is enjoying school much more now and gets up and ready to go without too much of a struggle. Though, she did tell us last night on the way home from the football game that she was ready to be done with school. She wants to stay home and play and swim and watch TV and be with us. I didn't have the heart to tell her she has many more years to go, but I think if I was her, I'd want to stay home and play and be on the dairy too!

Belated summer post

Just before school started 4 weeks ago, we decided to take the kids to the big Lake in the foothills. Lily had had a fever for 3 days, and we were feeling a bit housebound, so it was a great way to get out before we settled into the routine of school. Above is Charlie letting Grace "dwive" around the lake. The lake was quite low, and there weren't many people out on a Wednesday afternoon.We also pulled the houseboat out for the first time, and it proved to be a bit much to handle. Two adults + two kids + two watercraft=recipe for disaster. I almost killed my husband, literally, with our ski boat. Good thing he has good reflexes and that God was watching over us! Lily did enjoy jumping off the top though. We're looking forward to using the houseboat more often next summer as we'll have a bit more freedom as Grace gets older.

The girls enjoyed riding on the tube for awhile, until Daddy got a bit crazy and threw Grace around one too many times. She was a great sport all day, though!

20 year reunion

Last weekend I met 6 college girlfriends in Scottsdale, Arizona, for 4 days of catch up and making new memories together. It was 20 years ago this month that we met on the campus of Calvin College! Most of us lived on 2nd Rooks, and we all stayed friends throughout college and after wards. Sometimes we laughed so hard that we cried and doubled over. We reminisced about our years in college together and caught up with eachother's families. God has been so good to all of us. I felt so blessed all weekend to be in the presence of these ladies and to be their friends. We can't wait to meet up again, hopefully in 2011! Special thanks to our husbands who held down the forts while we were away.

We had lots of pool time with great drinks. Joy was our hostess/chauffeur because she lives in Scottsdale. Can't wait to return the favor in a couple of years when you all come out to California.
Here are the ladies below: Kim Danhof Grahm, Joy Rinsema Homan, Betsy DeGroot Jacobsen, Kristi Lunenburg Elzinga, Jodi Kats VanStelle, me, Heidi Arkema Dorr.
Friday happened to be my birthday, so I spent the afternoon at the spa, and then we went shopping and out for dinner to Chelsea's Kitchen (fabulous Sangria!). We ended the night in the pool with inter tube races. Yes, you read that correctly....a group of 30 somethings were racing in the pool after midnight. It was fun: side-splitting, laughter, water coming out of your nose fun.
Saturday we did a bit more pool time, lunch at In'N Out Burger, a little more shopping, and dinner at Greasewood Flats, a fabulous hangout. We ended the night at Saddle Ranch in Scottsdale where Jodi and I rode the mechanical bull. Yes, you read that correctly too! We've still got it girls!

Because I think they are cute!

We've been mowing through the corn around here! Our two rows of sweet corn are about finished, but not before we enjoyed corn on the cob nightly and froze about 20 bags of it.