Zoo De Mackinac!

In May, we rode in the annual Zoo de Mack bike ride with Scott's parents and his brother. Scott and I started this ride together while we were dating, and since then it's become an annual family trip. I blogged about our first ride with Carys here. Last year, I was pregnant with Harper and we thought that Carys would be too antsy to ride, so the two of us skipped it while everyone else rode.  This year was exciting because we were going to do the second half of the ride with Carys and Harper. The first half is pretty hilly and it's a long bike ride (51 miles!), so we don't want to push the girls too much. We also decided to simplify things and not go to Mackinac Island this year. I love the island, so I really missed going, but it was SO much easier to stay both nights in the same place and not have to take the ferry after our long ride.

On Friday night we arrived at Boyne Highlands to check-in. The weather was absolutely beautiful all weekend. You never know what you are going to get in May in Michigan. Some years we've been freezing - riding in rain/sleet, but thankfully not this year!

The girls were really happy to get out and stretch their legs after the long car ride. And speaking of legs, check out H's - love those rolls!

We hung out at the resort while Scott and David took care of the logistics of getting everything set up for Saturday's ride. This is Scott's specialty and weeks before the ride, we all get emails from him detailing our plan for the trip. Usually this involves the guys driving our cars up to Mackinaw City and then riding back on Friday night. This works really well because then we don't have to worry about taking a shuttle back to the resort. When we finish the ride on Saturday, our cars are ready and we can head back whenever we want. It's more complicated then it sounds though to figure out what gear needs to stay and what goes, so this year it helped make things a little easier to stay in the same place.

When the guys got back we made dinner and just hung out for the night. David needed to run out to his car to get something and Carys wanted to go with him. Not long after that we heard some yelling and looked out our balcony to see this... 

Apparently Carys saw the luggage rack and wanted to go for a ride. Uncle Hoon was halfway through his explanation on why they couldn't take it when he thought, "what the heck," and let her hop on. He pushed her down the hill, along the road to the parking lot and back. Of course she loved every minute! 

On Saturday morning, we started with the amazing breakfast buffet at Boyne Highlands and then Grandma and Grandpa hit the road. 

Not long after that Scott and David took off. Our plan was to all meet at the halfway stop, the Legs Inn, for lunch. We packed a lunch and stretched out for a nice picnic at the Legs.

After a fun picnic, the girls and I joined everyone for the second half of the ride. I'm upset that I didn't get any pictures of us on our bikes. Carys has a bike seat that she loves, so instead of putting her in the Burley with Harper, Uncle Hoon agreed to ride with her. That allowed us to use Harper's car seat in the Burley and that worked out great. Harper never made a peep the entire ride. She is used to her car seat and sleeps really well in there, so it was perfect that it strapped right into the Burley. Carys on the other hand, never stopped talking the whole ride. She was telling Uncle Hoon to catch up to other riders and go faster.  Then she learned to announce traffic and was shouting, "Car back" or Car up" to the other riders. I think she also went through every snack that David was able to carry, so she definitely kept him busy! I know Carys loved every minute of the ride though, and certainly enjoyed her time spent with Uncle Hoon. Thanks David for being an amazing uncle!

We finally all arrived in Mackinaw City feeling pretty good. It was a really fun ride. The route follows Lake Michigan and is just beautiful. It always reminds me how much I love living in Pure Michigan! The weather could not have been more perfect either.

  

  We absolutely love this weekend and look forward to it every year. It's so great that we are able to do it as a family too. Grandma and Grandpa are pretty amazing to take on this challenge each year and we couldn't be more proud of them!

On Sunday, we weren't in a hurry to head home and since the weather was so nice we decided to hit the pool with the girls. It was the perfect wrap up to a fun weekend.

Harper also started crawling while we were there. I've never been a big fan of letting the kids play on the carpet in a hotel, but since there's not much I can do I just try not to think about it too much. Of course, Harper thought she was big stuff! 

 After the pool, we loaded everything up, hopped back on the luggage racks, and headed home!

Can't wait for next year!

The Future Soccer Star and her Official Soccer Mom

At the last minute, I was able to sign Carys up for soccer through our city summer recreation program. The class is for ages 3-4, but they had a of couple openings, so they let her in a little early. She was excited to start this morning and even posed for a couple of pictures before we left.   

After I signed her in one of the coaches said she could go out and kick some balls. She ran out on the field and never looked back. I was trying to keep Harper from crawling away, so I only got a couple of pictures through the fence, but here is our sweet girl in action. 

They were supposed to be running laps, but Carys was busy gathering soccer balls. She carried both of these balls around the whole first lap.

It is so fun to watch Carys experience new things and I love that she was so excited to get out there and play. No matter what she decides to play in the future or her physical ability one thing is certain - she is never going to have bigger fans than her mom and dad! 

Bend it like Beckham baby!!

Mother's Day

Mother's day weekend we didn't have anything scheduled since Scott was on-call, but thankfully he didn't have to work too much.  So, we played outside, went for a bike ride, threw rocks in the river, went to the park, and just had fun. 

And really, just being their mom is pretty amazing. There's nothing I love more than the time I get to spend with them. 

Our church gifted all of the toddler's a bible on Mother's day. It was so cute to see Carys called up to the front and watch as our Pastor handed her bible. She was very serious and just stood and listened as he explained why the church was giving her a bible. I'm very thankful for a church that loves on our daughters. As a mom, I can't think of a better gift than for someone to love and encourage my child, so I really appreciated our church taking the time to recognize the children that morning. 

With her new bible! 

My sweet girls!

Our afternoon at the park.

We did some swinging, 

.

 hanging with daddy, 

sliding,

more swinging, 

and running up the hill...

 and down...

and back up!

Of course, it wouldn't be right to talk about Mother's day without recognizing the amazing women we call Mom and Grandma (even if this post is late), so Happy Mother's day to... 

Grandma Alice

 and Grandma Judy. 

We love you both so much!

Vegas Baby!

Finally! Here are the last few pictures from our trip out West. In case you missed it, in May we traveled out to Arizona by way of Las Vegas to visit Scott's parents. I posted about how much fun we had here and here, and now to wrap things up here are the last few days. Our trip was great. It was a little exhausting getting there and back, but thankfully we had lots of fun relaxing while we were there to make it more than worth it! Traveling with a toddler and a baby is definitely an adventure, so to make things a little easier on us we decided to stay in Vegas for a couple nights. That way we could get the drive out of the way and not have to wake up quite so early for our morning flight home on Sunday. 

But, before we left we had to make sure we spent some time playing Grandpa's golf game in our pajamas.

We also squeezed in another trip to the park, and Carys was fully accessorized! She was super excited about the beads Grandpa found for her and had to wear them. (Of course, we are not going to ask Grandpa how he got those beads!) ;)

She even let Harper have a little fun with them!

We left Friday morning and Grandpa and Grandma did a great job of entertaining the girls while Scott and I packed everything up.

Before we hit the road, Carys helped Grandpa make us some yummy french toast for breakfast. 

After our belly's and the rental car were full as can be, we said our goodbyes and headed toward Vegas. We decided to stop at the Hoover Dam on our way. We bought tickets for the power plant tour, but after the girls started getting restless during the first ten minutes, we opted to bail early. They probably would have been fine, except we arrived at lunch time and were trying to squeeze it in before - not a good idea. We did walk through the exhibits and then stopped to see the dam itself.  We were really glad we did too because it  was very impressive to see. We (mostly Scott) watched a show awhile ago on how they built the new bypass bridge, so it was cool to see that completed too.

After the dam, we arrived at our hotel in Vegas. Carys was super excited to see that Uncle Hoon and Brooke were there to meet us. (And that was really the only way we were able to talk her into leaving Grandma and Grandpa's!) We didn't waste much time getting unpacked before heading straight to the pool. 

This little fish wore herself right out. She's always loved the water, but she was just having a blast this time! 

Harper's first time in a pool! She didn't mind getting her feet wet this time. I'm sure it had a lot to do with the water being much warmer!

That night Uncle Hoon and Brooke had to hit the road. Our visits overlapped by a day and they were just coming in as we were heading out. It was fun for us to have some time with them though!  

On Saturday we had breakfast and just hung out in our rooms for a bit. We had a banquette in the kitchen area and Carys loved eating at this table!

After Harper's morning nap we decided to hit the strip. The girls were so good. There was so much to see that they didn't mind just hanging in the stroller while we walked around. The only thing we had planned to do was go to the aquarium at Mandalay Bay, so after a ton of walking to get there (we may have gotten a little lost) we finally arrived.

Thankfully, it did not disappoint. We all loved checking everything out. 

After wearing ourselves out on the Strip we headed back to our hotel. Scott and Carys squeezed in one more trip to the pool and then we ordered dinner in and spent the night packing for our early flight. Our day certainly wasn't what most people have in mind when they go to Vegas, but it was just right for us!  

Our trip home was a little long. Harper was fussy on the flight, so we had to do some walking up and down the aisle with her to get her calmed down. Carys (thankfully) was great the whole flight, but she finally melted down when the airport shuttle dropped us off at our van. She didn't want to get in the van - she wanted "our black car". Of course she was talking about our rental car. The same rental car that she didn't want in the first place because it wasn't "our fan". Oh the joys of a toddler! Thankfully both girls passed out as soon as we hit the road, and when we got home it nice to finally drop our bags for the last time!   

We really had a fantastic time on our trip though. We always love spending time with Scott's parents and  really appreciate how they go out of their way to make things as easy as possible for us.

Thanks for everything Mom and Dad! We had a great trip with lots of fun memories. We love you!