My favorite lighthouse

Here is a picture of my favorite lighthouse I've ever toured. Lighthouses along the Great Lakes is one of my favorite things to see whenever we're on vacation. I've only gotten to tour a few of them but they are so cool the history you learn is amazing. This one is a museum and it had a lot of artifacts from ships that sank in the Great Lakes. Lucas is somewhat of a history buff like his mama and really enjoyed going through it with me. The innkeeper of this lighthouse was one of the longest living innkeepers of any lighthouse in the U.S. It was neat seeing his living quarters and everything as it was back then. You can go all the way to the top of the lighthouse to where the inn keeper would light the bulb every night. Below is the spiral staircase you take to get to the top.
The hike up those stairs is worth it below is the view of Lake Michigan that you can see.
Lucas posing for a picture in front of the lighthouse.

A walk on the beach...

On Monday night we took a walk with the kids along lake Michigan. This is my favorite place to be I absolutely love swimming in it, walking along it etc. We actually took a really long walk the lake was 74 degrees so the kids had a lot of fun splashing in it that night it was so warm. It's not to often the lake is that warm. Above is Romans footprint in the sand Ben and I both thought it was so cute. When the boys were running ahead of us and his little footprint compared to his big brothers...well...I just had to take a pic of it.:)

Below here is my favorite lighthouse that I've toured. I really enjoy lighthouses and going through them so much history..more on that in a later post. Anyway, a nice couple took a family picture in front of it for me.
Below a rare picture indeed Lucas took this one for me. My babe and I.

Kaleb posing on one of the big white rocks the boys had fun climbing all over. Look at those legs he's getting some really long longs. He grew five inches last year must've been all in his legs.:)
One of Ben and Roman they both have the cutest smilies on their faces..so adorable!

Family Vacation...Fishing..

Last week we went on our family vacation to a house on a lake. It was gorgeous all week long hot and sunny everyday but this one day the fishing pictures are from. The boys fished their little hearts out just from the dock but they had a blast. They'd be up early every morning and sit out until dark fishing. Over the next few days I'll be posting some pictures of our vacation and things we did. Today's pic's are of fishing.

Here is Lucas and Kaleb on the dock fishing.
Here is Kaleb with his prize fish he caught the biggest one of the week. A Large mouth Bass that was around 17 inches long not to shabby for dock fishing. He was so proud of it I never thought they'd catch anything so large from the dock. Ben's brother David had to help him carry it up and then our uncle cut it up. He was begging to be able to keep it we did and had a fine lunch the next day. Poor uncle Don cut his thumb badly while cutting the fish and ended up getting 6 stitches on the way home. Thanx again uncle Don for cutting that up!
Here's a close up of the Large Mouth Bass. Pretty big eh?
And here is the yummy lunch of bass we had it was quite tasty. I don't like fish but this bass was awesome. It fed all three boys and myself for lunch.
Roman was so happy when he finally caught a fish. This was the first one he caught can you tell how excited he was. Again, assistance from uncle Don was required can you tell who the expert fisherman in our family is?
One of Lucas' fish he had to bring it into the house to show me so I could take a picture. I think we have three up and coming fisherman in the family.

Camping...

Every year some of my girlfriends and I go camping with all our kids. This year we tried out a new campground and absolutely loved it! We had great weather all week besides one little storm that came through on Wed. night. All the boys had fun making forts in the 90 acres of woods and riding their bikes on the trails. We also went on a hayride and the kids got to feed horses. We did lots of swimming, sitting by the campfire roasting marshmallows, playing at the park, playing games and just relaxing.
Here's Roman and his friend these little guys played so good all week long and didn't fight once. Pretty good considering their both four they just had the best time. I just love this picture of them at the pool.
Here's Kaleb in the pool swimming can you tell how many teeth are missing in that cute smile? Four. One on the bottom and three on top one more is loose on the top to. Think he'll have any teeth left:)
On the hayride we stopped to feed some horses this was Romans favorite part of the camping trip. He is such an animal lover.
Lucas and his friends on the hayride his best friend is in the orange shirt. They are the oldest of all the kids and were just so helpful at helping watch all the little ones.
Roman at the pool he's grown so much taller lately he'll be four in a few weeks makes his mama sad:)

Tomorrow we are off on our family vacation. Crazy two weeks I got going on here but it's what I so enjoy just relaxing and spending time with the boys and my hubby!

Greenfield Village

This is the time of year when we're done with school for the year and I always try and get in a few extra field trips while everyone else is still in school. Yesterday the kids and I went to Greenfield Village in Detroit. It's about a 21/2 hour drive for us but oh so worth the trip it was incredible. All of us learned so much it is one of the coolest places I've ever been to. I do enjoy history quite a bit so to me it was really neat. The boys and I studied Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and the Wright brothers the past two weeks. Once the kids each wrote me a report on one of them I told them we could go. Lucas wrote one on Thomas Edison he was so enthralled by Edison's house, factory, offices and research facility. The cool thing about the village is that all the buildings are the actual houses where the people grew up or lived at one time. Nothing is a replica all are the original and they are very well preserved keeping a lot of the furniture the
families had.
The boys and I on the train the elderly gentleman behind me who Roman had made friends with asked if I would like my picture taken with my kids. I of course didn't turn him down:)

Here is the wright brothers shop.

All the people that work there are dressed in the period costumes so you really get the authentic feel for the "good ol' days". Model T's are common on the streets you can take a ride in one if you want to.
At Thomas Edison's park we watched this actor portray Thomas Edison. He did a short skit and told us all about Edison it was really good this guy did a great job. He called some of the kids up front to read different things here is Kaleb reading his line.

This was Roman's favorite part the steam engine train. It was awesome to say the least. We paid our train fare and boarded on for a ride Roman was just all smiles the whole 45 min. ride.

Can you tell he enjoyed the train ride?:)
This was Henry Fords house that he lived in.

more pool pic's

Lucas and Roman lounging...

This is a picture of Roman and his cousin who is also three. These two were so cute the entire time they acted like twins. They got along really well all week. Here they were making soup by the pool. They were inseperable it really was adorable. I just had to share this conversation with Roman on the way home from church on Sunday when we were in Florida. Acutally Roman was talking to himself and I was butting in:) His cousin shown here in the pic was in another van with her parents right in front of us.

Roman: "I'n(I'm) a working man"

Roman: "And my working girl is in the other ban(van)" "yup, I'n(I'm) a working man".

Ben and I were laughing so hard it was just so cute. Roman would go around the condo with pretend tools and "fix" things while his cousin would follow him around with her barbie backpack. She must've been his sidekick. He called her his working girl the whole week it was just priceless.

Home and resting..

We got home yesterday around 9:00 in the morning we had good driving conditions and the kids did really well again on the drive. Most days we spent by the pool just relaxing and having fun. Here are a few pic's of our days by the pool.

Here is Roman sporting sunglasses.

Kaleb and Lucas posing for a picture.

There are two slides going into the main family pool this is the one the kids liked the best. Here is Kaleb going down.

Lucas ain't he cute:)

Friendly visitor

This little guy greeted me this morning as I was getting out of the shower. He fell out of the towel hanging on the towel bar I screamed so loud it wasn't even funny. This little guy is huge as far as lizards that I've seen here. Thankfully my hubby was laying on our bed on his computer when he heard my screams. Poor guy thought I burned myself or cut myself I screamed so loud. Ben captured him and promplty called Kaleb who has been taking care of him ever since. Kaleb has been outside every day trying to catch one and lo and behold one land's in his mama's lap for him. We're trying to talk Kaleb into letting him go so far no luck we'll keep trying. He's a huge animal lover and will be devasted if he finds him dead some morning. So far Kaleb has named the lizard "spike" and fed him leaves, given him a stick, rubbed his back,(cuz you know lizards like that:) says Kaleb. He also has given him water and lots of love:)

wedding

We had a family wedding out of town this weekend thus my blogging hiatus. It was a nice wedding the kids had only been to one other one before and that was five years ago. They did very good at the wedding and had a good time at the reception as well. Here is a family picture we had taken there.







Roman and his cousin Ambry playing after dinner with some cookie cutters. Ambry was the flower girl and looked so cute!







I just had to post this picture it's so adorable. Ambry had such a tiring day that when she danced with her daddy for the wedding party song she fell asleep on him. It was so precious.

Tour of Italy

Or so it felt like it. This weekend Ben and I and a bunch of our friends went wine tasting for a friends birthday. We visited four different vineyards in our state and just had a very relaxing and fun time. It is so amazing to me how many different wines there are and how different they all tasted. We bought a few different bottles to share with friends and family. We decided we'll do it again because we only saw four and I think there are about 15 more we could've visited. We got a tour at two different vineyards and learned all about the process it was quite interesting.
A picture of one of the vineyards each one was just beautiful.
Hubby and I at the last vineyard the suns rays got into the picture too but I still thought it was a nice pic.

Road trip time...The Creation Museum

Whenever I get a little money on the side saved up the boys and I go on road trips. I usually make them somewhat educational and sometimes out of our home state so they get to see different states also. This time we traveled to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky and stayed two nights in a hotel. The Creation Museum http://www.creationmuseum.org/
was the best road trip we have taken so far. It was incredible to say the least I highly recommend it to everyone young and old my three year old enjoyed it as well as the teenagers that were with us. Lucas and Kaleb learned so much as did I. It is a walk through the Bible from creation, to Adam and Eve, to Noah, to Methuselah. It is all based on the Bible and totally refutes evolution. They explain how the dinosaurs fit in the Bible when they lived etc. Thus all the pictures of dinosaurs they make them life like and you get a real appreciation for how it must have been to have lived with them. Noah's Ark exhibit was awesome you really could see how large that ship was. It really brought the Bible to life. It is somewhere I'd like to try and go to once a year it was that good and you will learn something every time. We also saw a movie in the 3D theater and a star show in the planetarium. We also visited some dear friends we haven't seen in five years who live close by. It was so nice to see them and have dinner with them. On the way home we stopped at Shipshewana a huge flee market where we found some goodies. I'll post on that later. I will post more pic's tomorrow of our trip but these are some of them.

A large dinasaur right out front before you enter the museum.


A T-Rex this was life size and let me tell you it was huge! I couldn't fit the whole dinasaur in one picture frame I wanted a close up of the head so you could get an appreciation for how large they really were.

These are a couple pictures from the Adam and Eve exhibit all the people were so real looking it is amazing what artist can do.


Here we have Methuselah Lucas thought he was kind of creepy. He moved and talked also the picture below tells about him.


Roman "petting" a dinasaur he thought they were all so cool. I do believe he might like one for a pet.:)

Summer vacation

This past week we went on our family vacation to a cottage on a lake. We had awesome weather and a lot of fun. We went to the beach three times, golfed twice, Ben and the boys once, did lots of boating and tubing and mostly relaxing. We had friends come up on Friday and Sat. many staying the night with us which was so much fun. Because I love lighthouses I had to go and tour the lighthouse that was 2 miles down the road. We also took the kids to the pier one night and walked it so I got some pic's of them in front of it. Someday I want to tour the coast and see all the lighthouses. Hubby didn't think this sounded like to much fun:) But throw in some golf along the way and he'd be happy as a clam. I've decided that I would love to live on a lake and that I got used to it very fast. I loved waking up on a lake sitting in the sun room and drinking my coffee every morning watching the boats on the lake it was just awesome. I think it was one of our most relaxing and favorite family vacations.

The boys fished a ton as much as they could they would catch 22 fish in an hour off the dock it was crazy. They'd fill up their bucket with fish and then put them all back when it got full they were so cute. It got to the point where they didn't even need bait they would still catch a bunch of fish. We're not talking large fish of course mostly small bluegills, and a few small pike and bass. I even fished with them and I will admit it was quite fun catching the fish it was a thrill. Of course I don't take fish off the hook never have my daddy spoiled me there he'd always take it off for me:) Now Lucas or Kaleb do it and it worked out great. For my auntie out there you like the new look!



Here is Ben and Roman on the pier. It is my favorite picture of the two of them. It turned out a little dark but if you click on it and see it bigger you can see both their huge smiles it's just adorable.











Lucas and Roman at the beach we buried each other in the sand. Roman thought this was such great fun.

















Kaleb and one of his many blue gills he caught. He ran all the way up from the dock to show us his HUGE fish he caught.













Lucas with one of his fish a small blue gill also.