A Real Nice Time

The last time Dave and I went on a vacation was when I was still pregnant with Isla.  So we figured, what the heck, I'm pregnant again, let's go on vacation.  It also helped that my mom blessed us with her timeshare, so we could go without having to sell anything.  

We headed to Pompano Beach, Florida with a few of our besties, the DeKornes.  We flew into Ft. Lauderdale at about 11pm.  Because our flight was a little late, the car rental place cancelled our reservation.  Seriously.  Aren't planes late all the time.  Thank goodness for Mark.  He landed us a sweet minivan around 1am.  We arrived at our accommodations a little after 2 am (there may have been a brief stop at Taco Bell...obviously, I did not participate.)  I was thirsty, shocking, but the water was a little weird for my taste.  So Dave and I headed to WalMart and got a few things.  I think we made it to bed by about 4am.  A few hours later we woke up and got pedicures.

 We celebrated by putting our toes in the water.

That was pretty much as far as Heidi and I got into the pool.

We needed sun more than anything.

 That night we drove down to Miami to see our buddy Laz.

His cute wife, Maria, is pregnant with their first baby.

The child is bound to be an amazing public speaker and athlete.

 The next night, we went and had dinner at this great little place by the beach.

 Steamed mussels.  Delish.

 We woke up the next morning at 5 a.m. to make the 4 hour car ride to Key West.

It was our first time to Key West.  Dave was so excited he could barely sleep.

He provided storytelling accompanied by Jimmy Buffett music the whole way down.

 We stopped in Islamorada and picked up a few of these buoys.

We have them hanging at various places in our house.

For those of you who thought they were a temporary Christmas decoration, you were mistaken.

 During one of our stops, Mark left his phone on the roof of the car.

You can imagine what happened when we got back on the road.

He got a new phone, free of charge, the next day.

You know, manufacturing defect.

 At last we had arrived at the original Margaritaville, Key West.

 We ate at this place called Caroline's Cafe.

I love this picture of Dave because this is pretty much how happy he was the whole time we were there.

 This is us at the beach.

Toes in the water, toes in the sand....in Key West!

I've spared you all of the pictures of me in a bathing suit while pregnant.

Be grateful.

 Seriously, is Dave a hot dude or what?

 Sunset in Mallory Square.

Pardon my multiple chins.

 After sunset, we went down to Capt. Tony's.

Everyone had some Pirate's Punch.

Everyone except me of course, I drove most of the way home.

 You can imagine all the fun we had together.

It was a real nice time.  With some real nice people.

Hope to do it again soon (and perhaps while neither me nor Heidi is pregnant).

Giving Thanks

You may be thinking to yourself, that's a great title, but seems more suitable for Thanksgiving.  Well that's about the last time I posted.  So yep, these are just a few pics from Thanksgiving.  I've been terrible about taking pictures lately.  Here's what's not pictured in this post: 1) The amazing Thanksgiving dinner that Jan prepared. 2) The efforts it took to remove the make-up from the clown. 3) Our trip to Frankenmuth with the Yatooma, Geha, Mitzel, Mayer, VanderLaan....you get the picture, Crew. 4) Mitzel Thanksgiving that occurred the week before (that's right, we celebrate 3 times).  What is pictured?  Isla's cuteness.

Her cute little Elmo hoodie from Grandma Jan

 My mom is very proud to be in the Designated Clown Corps at the Annual Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Every year she PAYS to get up at the crack of dawn and hands out thousands of beads to onlookers.  She wanted Isla to see her in full costume.  They exchanged a few beads and a bump.  The next hour was spent trying to remove the make-up.

 Thankfully, Isla likes baby dolls.  When she puts them to bed, its more like just throwing them on the ground.  We are hoping she's a bit more gentle with her new sibling.

 Checkin out the adds for Black Friday.

I don't think either of them actually ventured out to shop.

The traditional food coma after the amazing meal.

We really are grateful for so much.

Jesus's many blessings, a wonderful family, the best friends anyone could ask for and health.

Next year I'll try to post during the same year.

A Tribute to the Fall

Well, the Christmas tree is up and we are celebrating Thanksgiving this week!  Where does the time go?

Before the Holidaze puts me even more behind on my blogging, I thought I'd post a few pics of our Super Girl.

 She was Supergirl for Halloween.  

Now she hugs and kisses Superman before she goes to sleep every night.

 I love these pictures because this is how she looks most of the time.

A little disheveled, but so sweet.

 Does it look like her mouth is full?

It is.  Getting cute pics of her in the leaves = feeding her a lot of animal crackers.

Farewell fall.  Snow is in the forecast this week and we can't wait for CHRISTmas!

Down By The River

The Thornapple River that is.  We had a fall DeClOomaWicz get together to celebrate Mark, Dave and Kaiya's birthdays.  We wanted to take advantage of the fall colors and Captain DeKorne was kind enough to take us on a color tour not only on his lovely ship, but also in an RV that one of his family members let him borrow for the weekend.  More about the RV here, but see below for some of the beauty of the Thornapple.

Embarrassing as it is, this is one of our only family photos.

Nope, Greg and Megan are not a couple, but they photograph together quite nicely.

However, Megan and Diet Coke are still going strong.

Just 3 cute little ladies

Check out the kids in this great family photo.

Photographer's assistants are hard to come by.

To celebrate the birthdays, we found some poor soul to babysit all four children while we took the RV to a fine dining establishment in Grand Rapids.  What can I say, we travel in style (and we didn't want to be bothered with moving multiple car seats.)

 Even Breid made it out for the celebration.

(Brittany + Reid = Breid)

We all had a sleepover Saturday night and woke up to Heidi's famous sticky buns on Sunday morning.  We had dolma and hummus for "supper" (a concept I will never fully grasp), and enjoyed watching football the rest of the afternoon.  It was topped off by Heidi's homemade brownie fudge sundaes.  I mean, what's better than a sundae on a Sunday?....  Being with your besties eating sundaes on a Sunday.

How Can We Be Cousins If We Can't Be Friends

I know I tend to brag about my relationship with my cousins and my friends (and my cousins who happen to also be some of my best friends), but its really the greatest blessing I think anyone could ever have.  Isla has great cousins and great friends (who are like cousins to her.)  A few weekends ago, her Grand Rapids cousins and friends came to visit her.  She had a blast.

Isla started cleaning in preparation

 Brooke and Ava became best friends in about 5 minutes

 Couldn't you just eat her up?

Baby Jenna will be 1 so soon.

 The farm across the street is pretty much the best thing you could ask for in a neighborhood with young kids.  Its clean, you can walk there, its free, and it provides endless entertainment.

They even had pumpkins!

 The kids spent the whole weekend playing.

They played at the playground

 They went for walks

 They enjoyed a good game of bags during halftime of the football game

 and of course bubbles.

On Saturday night, Isla and I headed to headed to her cousin Abigail's birthday party.

We went on a "hay wide" got some cute shots.

  Thanks for the good times.

Do You Like Apples?

The only person who loves the apple orchard more than I do is my dad.  He takes it seriously.  When we were kids we would always go to Blake's and spend the day picking apples, eating donuts, drinking cider and finding the perfect pumpkins.  Except for the inflated prices, not much has changed.  So we took our annual trip to Blake's with Poppy and Bebe.  

Isla has affectionately named her cousin Timothy III "Titi"

They are just as close as I was with my cousins when we were growing up.  

Its the greatest when you don't know whether your siblings or cousins, 

but people really do mistake these two for twins.

How do you like them apples?

 She LOVES them

And she says "a pole" in the cutest voice you've ever heard

See you next year Blake's!