Here are the Pictures!

Here are some pictures from down in Colon. With so many requests I have decided to fill some of Elizabeth's computer space with a few of my pictures. So here they are!

Off to work!

Today was Jason's first day to report to school for meetings, etc. He wasn't feeling too nervous this morning and was just anxious to get started. I am curious to see how the day went. I am at Elizabeth's house right now doing laundry while the kids play. The house is full of kids, as Elizabeth started today watching a little girl named Carly (elem. principal's daughter), who is just over one. So that makes 5 kids all under the age of 3 :)

Last night Carol came over to tell about a house that went up for sale which could be a great possibility for us! We went last night to check it out, it's maybe a half mile from Elizabeth's, across the street from Palmer Lake, 4 bedroom, 1 bath, sits on 2 lots and is BLUE! Macey has been talking about wanting to live in a blue house, so this could be it. The price is a bit too high but the guy selling it seems willing to negotiate so far. I will call him today to see when we can go through it.

This past weekend, we mostly relaxed, took road trips to figure out our surroundings. Everything is about 15-25 minutes away, which is what we're used to so it's not bad. We have been going to the track at the high school to take walks/runs with the girls and working on Jason's room. Macey loves going to her dad's new big orange school!

Sorry still no pictures. My memory card is full but just no way to get them off or onto a blog yet. Don't worry I'll make up for it soon!

Life in Colon

Well we've been in Colon now for over 24 hours and it's been great so far. We arrived yesterday around 11am, unloaded got ourselves cozy in the cottage. Within 2 hours, we met two of the cottage neighbors. One even brought us fresh produce from her garden. We tried laying the girls down for a nap but not successful as Macey was way too excited about everything, she just kept singing everytime we laid her down. So we were off to explore Walmart in Coldwater. Got a bunch of groceries so the fridge is now full! Elizabeth, Darrin, kids, and dogs came over as well as Carol and Mark (owners of the cottage). Carol greeted us with fresh flowers and homemade cookies even. After some fishing of the dock, popsicles, and some chatting, we got the girls in pj's and they were off to bed. We all slept pretty good besides it being a little warm upstairs, but the girls slept just fine. Woke up and had a cup of coffee (yes I am starting to drink coffee now) as the sun was rising over the lake. Had scrambled eggs and toast on the porch when the girls woke up and enjoyed the relaxing morning. We keep saying we feel like we're on vacation. Jason headed off to school for a few hours to get some stuff done, while Elizabeth and kids came on over. The kids played in the sandbox, did shaving cream on the picnic table and played with the water table. It's very private where we are so the kids were running around with undies or nothing on at all, so now Macey thinks this is quite fun. After her nap, she requested to just wear undies outside to play again, we may have started something here. I took quite a few pictures but since I'm not Elizabeth's computer right now I will have to download them later.

We are now at Elizabeth's and just got done eating dinner. We had pork chops on the grill, it was delicious! The kids are now off to the park, then Mace will have a bath here (we only have a shower at the cottage, which Mace is not fond of, so thanks to Elizabeth for their tub!) and we'll head back to put the girls down. I think Macey should sleep good tonight :)

Tomorrow, the plans are: Jason at school for just a bit, while us girls and kids go to the library or park. The rest of the day should be just us relaxing at the cottage. Brenda is coming on Wednesday for the day and I'm waiting to hear from the Burgess' of when they're heading down to visit :)

Just wanted to check in since I know many people are wondering what's going on and we don't have that great of phone service at the cottage. Feel free to try and call though whenever!

Can't be too busy if I'm still blogging.

Today Jason signed his contract with Colon Community Schools so is now officially a Magi! Elizabeth and I with kids walked to the school from her house. We saw his classroom and met the Superintendent, new Principal, and the new Athletic Director ( it's Darrin! :) Elizabeth's husband). It is a very cute school and Macey kept saying, " I like Daddy's new school!" The kids had fun running up and down the hallways and getting many drinks from the drinking fountains. We dropped some things off at the cottage we will be staying at on Dean Lake, checked out another house (eh, maybe possibility?), and then headed back home. We ate real healthy today with McDonalds for breakfast and Wendy's for supper. Both girls rode VERY well in the car so it was kind of a relaxing trip.

Tomorrow we close on our house, might head into Holland to see Dad for dinner later in the day.

Thursday and Friday will be busy packing things up, even though we do have a lot of the bigger stuff out already. We have been sitting on those bagged chairs in the living room now since yesterday, they actually work pretty good.

We get the results from our water tomorrow, let's hope it passes!

I still manage to take a lot of pictures throughout this packing process so here they are!

This is how Kelsey sleeps, head in the corner with butt up in the air! Notice the breathable mesh bumper we had to switch to since her face is always jammed into it.

Packing up is kinda fun! Leave it to dad to find a way to make a fort. I really don't spend much time on doing make-up, but somehow Macey thinks she needs her makeup on daily as well. I tell you she's going to be trouble! As you can see, she's into fashion as well :)


Our cozy cottage for the next month or so!

So this is the plan....

We now have a plan for the next month or so of what's going on. Here it is!

We just found out that we close on our house here in Dorr, this coming Thursday, but still have 9 days to get everything out after that. It will be nice to have that officially sold so we can move on. Next Saturday, we will move down to Colon. We will be staying in a cottage on a lake, sounds wonderful doesn't it? Elizabeth and Darrin have wonderful friends that are willing to let us stay there until we find a house down there. It doesn't have heat so we won't be there too long, hopefully we'll find a house soon and be in that by October. If we can't settle on anything by then, we will move to a house for rent during the colder months. Jason HAS finally received his letter from the State so he's good to go! He will sign his contract sometime early this week. Starting tomorrow we will be busy making many phone calls to cancel utilities, changing addresses, etc. We will be moving most of our stuff to Jason's brother's basement since we won't need furniture, dishes, etc. for the cottage. We have quite a bit to move still, but should have most of the week to do so. I quit my job in Hudsonville last Friday. I surely will miss those kids and my co-workers, but I have a feeling I will be back someday down the road. They asked me to keep them all informed. Unless we absolutely love everything in Colon (which we might, who knows?) we plan to move back in this area when Jason has experience so we can be closer to family and friends again. But in the meantime, we are excited yet nervous about this big change as it is coming closer. We will be saying many "goodbyes" (not true goodbyes, but goodbyes to not seeing loved ones as often as we do now) this week. Down in Colon, many are excited about our arrival. Elizabeth's friend, Carol, already wants to have a burrito dinner to welcome us as they're so excited for us to arrive. I'm so glad we have friends down there to help us meet a lot of great new people right away.

I will try to post when I can, who knows when this computer will be turned off? But I'm sure I'll find a way to get on another one that is working to check on things and to update.

PS. Our water was treated again last Wednesday evening for bacteria, and will get tested again Monday. Pray that it is bacteria-free!!!!!!!

Happy Friday!

Today is Jason's last day of concrete! He has been doing this for about 12 years now and is now off to be a high school math teacher. We are excited for these next few busy weeks as we pack everything up and head down to Colon to start his huge career change.
As the girls and I were driving home yesterday we saw a Burgess Concrete truck drive by us, I mentioned that it was Daddy's work truck. She was very curious about this and wanted to know if Dad was in there. I said, "No, they dropped him off already at his truck, he is now home." She then asked, "Daddy work with Darrin and Bennett?" I said, "Nope, just his worker friends." Well she really wanted names so I mentioned a few of their names, one of which is named BJ. "Daddy work with Babybop and Barney too?" (For those that aren't familiar with Barney, BJ is a character on that show) I wasn't too sure how to answer that one, so I just said, "BJ is Daddy's worker friend." Somehow she thought these characters were then going to be at our house when we got home. As we pulled in at home finally, she was in tears that none of her favorite Barney characters were at her house to play. It was quite sad, yet hard not to laugh. The things she comes up with at this age......

Kels thinking she's cool like her big sister, playing in the tent.

"Hey Sister, do you see me?"

I'll try again and get your attention.

Learning to sit like a big girl!

Mace enjoying her arts and crafts, Kels of course watching.

Some of her finished work :)

birth certificate, beach, block party, and bacteria

Today was a jam packed day. Started off with going to get Kelsey's birth certificate, then headed off to the beach with Brenda. We decided to try Tunnel Park this time so we didn't have to pay to get in. We parked across the street and walked. I carried Kelsey in her carrier, fold up tent, cooler, diaper bag, and bag full of beach toys. Brenda had her hands full with holding Macey's hand as we crossed, her bags, fold up bouncey seat and two chairs. We never realized how steep and big the hill was to make it to the beach area, oh my. (I think next time Bren, we should just pay the $4 or go to the neighbors pool) We got settled, and everything went great for awhile. Kelsey a happy camper sitting in her tent in the bouncey seat watching everything going. Mace snacked and played with toys for awhile. Then the whinning began. She hated the sand on her hands, but wouldn't go NEAR the water to wash them off. So I ran back and forth to get small bucket fulls of water to pour onto her hands. We made it about an hour and a half and had to go. She wanted to go bye bye. We even had to say no to the swings because of too much whinning :( Good thing for naps, they make her a MUCH happier camper. The rest of the day she was a different child, much happier :) We ordered Sluggos pizza at dad's and then headed off to First Church's Block Party. My aunt Rachel was in charge of this one and it was themed Fiesta Party. Needless to say we had a good time, we got there when it started and shut the place down after 8:30pm. Mace had fun getting candy from the pinata, searching for money in sawdust, eating popcicles and doing the cookie walk. We're now home, both girls went to bed super late (9:30 and 10pm) and we now have a guy here trying to treat our water for bacteria. We had to get it tested to sell the house and we already bleached out the well and killed our grass from it and we STILL had bacteria so we now have a specialist here trying to get rid of it for us now. Jason just told me the water is now shut off so his chemicals can do their thing. Let's hope this works! Who knows how long we've been taking in bacteria, sorry girls. Hope you turn out okay :) Jason just told me he hasn't even eaten dinner all night and it's 10:30pm now. I better go help him find something. I'll post recent pictures tomorrow sometime.

Kelsey's big day!

Today was Kelsey's big day! She was baptized this morning and we had many friends and family there to witness this celebration. Kelsey didn't mind the water on her forehead one bit and watched happily as everything happened. Mace was a bit hesitant about going up on stage, so blankie came along. And as you can see from the picture, she was thinking, "Don't you dare touch me!" Maybe she remembers back to her baptism, when she cried through it all :) Afterwards we headed to the park for some good food and a Cosco cake. It was a fun day!

Annabelle, Bennett, and Macey enjoying their food for about 2 minutes, before going off to play.

Annabelle still loves Kelsey!

Kelsey with her Aunt Sis (that tongue is always out!)
ps. We've put an offer on a house down in Colon, hopefully it gets all settled here soon! That will be a whole other post though!