Life with the Bussis'- 9.2.15 and Conference Grounds vacation

Well, what a fun couple of weeks we have had over hear.  Last March Steve and I were trying to decide how to use our last week of vacation we still had available. We wanted to do something with just our family but the thought of driving a long time or staying in a hotel with our boys just didn't really sound all that fun to me. What sounded like the most fun was to spend a week at the CRC Conference Grounds in Grand Haven (only 25 minutes away). But we don't have a trailer so we needed a cottage and those are incredibly difficult to get, not to mention they do reservations in January. But I thought, hey, why not just look on their website. I happened to look the day they put up that one cottage became available one week of the summer. We quickly grabbed the cottage and have been looking forward to spending the week their with our kids. But before I get to those pictures, here are a few from the week before we went:

These boys (as in all 4 of them :)) love riding on the smooth road.

And Micah beats Daddy in their race!

Micah reading a dinosaur book to his brothers, so sweet!

Grocery shopping is always entertaining when David comes along

 

Cooling off in the pool

Practicing our kicking

Dinner is always easier to clean up when you eat outside :)

  

Micah wanted to draw on his chalkboard but it makes such a mess underneath so Steve came up with the awesome idea to have him do it outside :) He's so smart that man!

 

We were supposed to go to a big splash pad with some friends from church, but of course they day we were going was the one day out of about 2 weeks that it decided to be cold and rainy. So we went to the church fellowship hall instead. Micah loved riding on this balance bike. He thinks he's all ready to go now without training wheels :)

And I'm pretty sure Jonathan rode this bike for at least an hour. It belonged to a boy who really fit on Micah's bike better and thankfully Micah was riding the balance bike so that boy could ride his bike and Jonathan could ride Graham's bike because seriously, when Jonathan was not riding this bike he was not at all happy :) I think it might be time to get him a bike, good thing his birthday is coming up

Family game time

This is how Jonathan thought the Trouble parts were supposed to be used

So he decided to read the directions so he could play correctly :)

I had my 20 week ultrasound the day before we left for the cottage. What a cute little peanut! S/he was quite the mover, the ultrasound technician said it was a good thing we didn't want to find out what we're having because she couldn't have anyways. The baby just kept moving and crossed his/her legs. My guess is it's another boy and we have another stinker like David on our hands :). We will take whatever the Lord gives us, we are just thankful everything looked good!

Steve went golfing without Micah and felt kind of bad so he set up some flags on the church softball field and let the boys hit around. David has not yet figured out how to hold the club correctly. But don't even try to tell him how to hold it! :)

Jonathan holds it better, although I'm not sure he's really a lefty :)

 

Micah's got the swing down

David didn't last long on the field, he'd rather play in the sandbox, especially if he gets is all to himself

I wanted to take a walk after dinner but Micah wanted to ride his bike. So this was the view ahead of me...

And my view right in front of me, good views :)

And now on to our vacation!:

Van's all packed, we're ready to go!

It didn't take long for the twins to remember there is a playground there :)

And then it didn't take long for them to ask to be swung on the swings

 

David is such a jumper and climber. Steve says he doesn't even think David needed those tabs to climb up :)

We got pizza the first night so it was fast and easy...

So we could get down to the beach because it was such a beautiful night! (Even I went in the water, that takes a really nice day to do that :))

 Cuddles with Mommy and Daddy

This boy on the other hand would stay in the water all night if we let him. He just loves playing in water!

 

All ready for church

 

As soon as we got back to the cottage after church it started raining. Of course that made our boys want to put on their bathing suits and jump in the rain :)

 

 

Jonathan's got quite the hops

Just so much fun!

 

 

And then this silly boy decided to follow the other bigger kids and take a lap in the rain :)

They did a lot of bike riding around the circle of cottages. We had just brought Micah's bike, our tricycle and then a big wheels bike, but it was uphill part of the way and the twins had a hard time with the big wheels bike because all the weight is in the back so the front tire just kept spinning which means they had to share the tricycle which means we were having a lot of crying and upset boys. So I went back home Monday morning and picked up another tricycle from our friend Barb so they could each have one to ride. It made the rest of the time so much more pleasant :)

When we asked Micah what his favorite part of the time there was his answer was shuffleboard :). He just loved playing it! He was very surprised when we told him that we actually have a shuffleboard court in our basement, he'd never noticed :) Of course there is quite a bit of stuff stored on top of it. I have a feeling we're going to have to clean up our basement so he can play it this winter :)

 

The twins enjoyed playing it too

So Jonathan refuses to hold my hand, but he will hold David's hand so this is how we walk :). At least David will hold my hand

 

Monday night our friends Zach and Kasey came with their kids for dinner. They brought some bikes along too so their girls could gone in the fun. Carrie has the best ride, she gets to sit and Mommy does the work :)

Lydia and Jonathan

 

This boy loves riding his bike!

 

Steve and Zach and believe it or not, there's a cute little Silas there on Zach's lap :) he's wrapped up in a sweatshirt :)

 

All the kids eating dinner together

 

The twins loved playing Sequence for Kids. It uses animals instead of playing cards and they actually kind of grasp the concept :)

We went to the Great Harvest Bread Company to get our free sample and take home a loaf of Apple Pie bread, our favorite!

Then we went to the toy store down the street and the boys played on their Thomas train set. We had some unhappy boys when we told them it was time to leave :)

 

Watching their video before naps, they're just all so cute! :)

We decided it would be fun to take the twins miniature golfing for the first time (as you can see the weather was a bit cool this day so we decided it was a good day to do things off the conference grounds)

They did pretty good. They would pretty much just put the ball down by the hole and then try to get it in :)

Their favorite hole was the one where they actually got to hit the ball in the water. The whole time we were telling them not to hit it in the water because they would lose it, but this hole purposely has you hit it in the water. They must have done this hole at least 5 times :) (thankfully it was not busy)

Afterwards we let them play a few games in the arcade

We went to dinner at Red Robin (I still had a free burger coupon from my birthday, got to love signing up for all the restaurant clubs, you get lots of free stuff for your birthday :)).

And we topped the day off with some ice cream from the camp store.

The conference grounds has VBS for the kids Tuesday through Friday. Micah loved going to Bible School (and I think the twins loved getting Mommy and Daddy to themselves for an hour each day). Here he is with one of his crafts

Playing Planes memory and eating popcorn while the twins nap and Daddy takes a bike ride, a great way to spend the afternoon!

We went to the activity field to play and David preferred the sand volleyball court

 

We threw some frisbee

Hit the wiffleball

And then David and Jonathan just preferred to run and then jump flat on their bellies in the sand. It was actually quite impressive, especially David. 

 

I had to go to Meijer one day and they had these pajamas on sale (I wonder why, they're a little ridiculous :)) and since it was a bit on the cooler side and the boys weren't very good at keeping their sheet on, they got to wear new pajamas which they thought was pretty fun

Micah all ready for Bible school

Even though the water had turned a bit cold, these boys didn't mind. We headed down to the beach after Micah was done with Bible school and the boys had it mostly to themselves

Eating lunch at the grill there

We also enjoyed time in the heated pool.

 

This boy LOVES to jump!

 

Again, this boy would stay in the water all day if we let him

 

Jonathan wasn't so sure about the pool. He spent most of the time on the steps :)

 

Family ride on the wagon at the conference grounds

 

For the past 2 years the conference grounds has had a big tent up for Sunday worship and Bible school. Next week the tent comes down and they will start work on building a new worship center. So Micah got to be a part of the last day of Bible school in the big tent and as part of that they let the kids draw on the ground. So here is Micah leaving his name on the tent floor :)

 

On more trip to the beach

Jumping into a hole

Just so much fun!

We had so much fun getting to spend 7 whole days together all the time and watch our kids just enjoy life. We are truly blessed!

They got Daddy to build a sand castle for them (and amazingly it actually lasted about 5 minutes before one of the twins smashed it :))

They also got Daddy to race with them down the beach

It was such a fun week of getting to spend lots of time together as a family at a wonderful place! If you live in West Michigan and are looking for a great family place to camp, definitely check out the Conference Grounds, it's awesome! We thank God for our beautiful family and are so excited to add another one to our group in just 4 1/2 months!!!