Best Birthday Ever!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Thank you to every one who traveled and came to spend the day with Taylor. We had a great birthday celebration. A special thank you to Grandma and Grandpa for hosting this awesome party.

We invited all of our family and special friends to come for a country birthday for Taylor's 7th birthday party. Taylor was surprised with horses. She loves horses and here she got to ride them around Grandpa's yard all day.

Cowgirls Taylor and Anna. We let Taylor pick one friend from school to bring along for her country party out at Grandpa and Grandma's.

And then we also were able to have Grandpa take us on a hay ride with his big green tractor! At the end of the ride we stopped and picked pumpkins! So much fun.

Cowgirl Jenna!

Jenna with Ranger.

Taylor with Ty.

Mimi and Papa came dressed up so cute for the party! This is a great picture!

Rides around Grandpa's yard. Erika and Rachel were also excited to ride and they took off for a ride through the fields. We are so glad that everyone was able to enjoy the horses and the outdoors. We had such a beautiful day.

When we were all done with rides the horses had to get cleaned up. The girls enjoyed doing this too!

The day was so fun. In the evening we stayed out and had a fun bomb fire. Thank you to our friends for coming and staying so late, we are glad to get to enjoy some of the fun out at Grandpa's!! Thanks to our family that stayed a little later, we had a great time sharing some stories around the campfire. We truly had a great time. And the big question from everyone is when are we doing this again!!!?????

Soccer

Both girls started soccer for the year and are doing great.

Jenna is on a team with Sidney Benner, and while Sidney is not so sure about soccer Jenna is ready to go. The hard part is that there are boys on their team at this age and Jenna is the smallest one on the team so she really has to try hard to get to the ball. No goals yet, but hopefully she'll get one by the end of the season.

Taylor is looking so big this year. She really enjoys soccer and has a good group of girls on her team this year. Brad is coaching and is doing awesome as always as a coach.

Taylor is all over the field and works hard. This year is a big change for the girls because they are learning new positions and their is a goalie. This has presented some struggles for our team! They are working hard and have made some good friends.

First Day Of School

Taylor is  now in 2nd grade. I can't believe it!!

She also started second grade with no front teeth. It is so cute!

Jenna also started school this year and she gets to ride the bus with sissy. She is going to a pre-school program held at Teddy Thomson. She is so excited, and loves every minute of it. Her back pack is as big as she is!!

Poor mom, I was on a cruise and missed my babies first day of school.

Tennessee

Labor Day weekend we took off and headed down to Tennessee to visit with a bunch of our out of town family.

One day we made a trip over to Chattanooga to visit with Andy and Sadi! We had a great time down town Chattanooga, I wish we had more time to see the city. We visited the aquarium and it was so much fun.

Taylor, Jenna and Kirsten. We had a great day bringing Kirsten along for this adventure. The aquarium was a really cool building and it overlooked the river.

Tons of cool fish. The girls got to pet small sharks and sting rays. There was also a butterfly garden, and we got to watch the large tank of all kinds of fish get fed.

Though I don't have many pictures to show the rest of the week but we had a great time with Uncle Timmy, Aunt Jaime and Kirsten. We had some fun on the boat. Jenna was Uncle Timmy's buddy for the weekend. We also had a great surprise and Sarah, Mark, Paige and Bella came to meet us too. We had 5 little girls together and they all played together non-stop. I am so glad we were able to make this trip and spend so much time with our family.

I don't have any pictures to show, but we also went to The Lost Sea. We took a tour down in a cave to a hidden 'sea' and we even were able to take a boat ride down in the cave. The kids really had a good time.

Thank you so much to Tim, Jaime, and Kirsten for letting us come and stay with you. We had a great time. And thank goodness the kids were great in car for the long rides! We are even thinking of heading back down for Christmas!

Tigers

We took the kids to a Tigers game and we met Grandma and Grandpa Miller, Granny and Papa, and Uncle Jeff, Aunt Erika, Grace and Lance at the game.

The girls and their dad.

Family picture.

It was really a great time. The kids had a blast, especially cheering on the Tigers when they rallied in the 8th inning, until Taylor went to sit in her chair and it wasn't down and she fell and hit her head!

But they had a spoiled time. They got to ride the ferris wheel with both their grandparents. And Grandpa bought them both pink Tiger claws!

Thanks Gramps!

On the way out the girls were so tired they had to hitch a ride to the car!

Jenna is 4!!!

My baby is 4!!!

Daddy brought her the usual birthday flowers and balloons to start her day!

Jenna had a very eventful birthday weekend. We took off the morning of her birthday and headed to Traverse City for 6 days of camping fun! Jenna really had several birthday parties. First we had her 'camping' party at the camp ground. Taco's for dinner followed by ice cream cake for dessert. Daddy ran to DQ after dinner because he couldn't let his baby girl have a birthday without a cake! Along with the O'Mara's at camp Granny and Papa came to join us in Traverse for Jenna's birthday.

Jenna also had a 'beach' party! Rachie made her a sand cake with four stick candles. Jenna loved every minute of this camping trip.

The next day we went to Torch Lake with Granny and Papa and we met Mimi and Papa there too. Such a beautiful lake. Our weather wasn't great so we packed up and headed up to Charlevoix to have lunch. We sat on the porch and watched the boats. Jenna also got Julie from Mimi. Jenna and Julie made a lot of friends at lunch that day.

The girls even enjoyed root beer floats for lunch.

The marina in Charlevoix.

The next day...  We made a point to visit some of the most beautiful beaches in Michigan this summer. One of our favorites is in Glen Haven. It is a beautiful beach and we had our own little secluded beach party for the afternoon. We were very lucky not to get hit by storms.

The kids had a blast too!

The nest day we carried out Jenna's birthday and took the kids to Pirates Cove for some fun. Poor Jenna was not tall enough to enjoy any of the fun. The older kids rode the go carts, zip line and navigated the rope course. Despite not being able to participate Jenna still enjoyed our time there. Here is a picture of the O'Mara/ Woolman clan. Please keep in mind that we have been camping for 4 days at this point... so I am definitely not looking my best.

Taylor did great on the rope course. Her only problem is that sometimes she couldn't get the safety line to turn the corners. Blake, Bryce and Taylor all did great and made it up all three stories!

On our last day we went up to Elk Rapids to another one of our favorite up north towns/ beaches. After spending the day on the beach the girls and I went for a walk.

It was a great weekend of camping fun! We can't wait to get back up north.

Wonderful weekend in Muskegon

This past weekend we took our first camping trip to Duck Creek Resort. It was wonderful, beautiful camping- minus the dirt! The campground had a nice pool, and we had beautiful weather to go with it.

Brad and Tay in the pool.

 

 One side of the pool was a shallow kid pool and the other side was deeper and there was also a hot tub attached. The best part was all of the lounge chairs, and our first day there Rachel and I were lucky enough to have all the kids leave with their dad's and we were able to have some adult girl time in the sun.

 Saturday we went to Duck Lake State Park. We were able to sit on the beach all day overlooking Lake Michigan. There was a shallow little canal that the kids could play in, sand dunes they could climb and fun waves in Lake Michigan too.

We were also lucky to have Grandpa and Grandma come meet us for the day. The girls were exhausted by the end of this day on the beach. Tay had some cuddle time with Grandpa.

The kids all climbed the dunes several times. I have no idea how because the sand was so hot it burnt my feet. But we did get some good pictures.

Our family on the dune.

Sunday we headed down to Grand Haven for the day. The kids still enjoyed every minute of the beach.

Silly girls, I couldn't get a serious pose all day!

We walked out the the pier and got to watch a ton of boats. What a great vacation with the O'Mara's.

The kids were all over the place, trying to look over the edge so we made them hold hands. Later when we walked back down we were watching all kids of people jump off the pier so we let them try too! I had to be the first one in to test the water and the depth!

After the beach we went downtown to try and find somewhere to eat. Along the way the girls stopped to add their name to the chalk board.

Of all the choices of places to eat we choose a small little restaurant overlooking the channel so we could watch the boats. What a great family vacation. I can't wait to go back.

Rachie and Jenna behond our camper. We had so much nice grassy play area around us.

Monday we went to Michigan's Adventure. It was Jenna, Brad's and the O'Mara's first time. We had a blast. Our first stop was the whale ride! Jenna LOVED it.

The monsters after riding their first rollar coaster, the Big Dipper!

Again they are all silly. Giving the peace sign.

After a long day at the park- tons of rides and water slides we stopped for ice cream.

Good bye Snoopy.

Blake, Max and Bryce.

Such a long exciting weekend. Jenna crashed out on the way home (with Lulu).

For some reason this picture was out of order, but Rachel was Tay's buddy this weekend and everyday they liked to plan what they were going to wear that was the same or similar. So they had jean shorts, tank tops, brades and hats.

This will be a hard trip to top.