Visalia Visitors

Friday was a beautiful Spring day. We were able to celebrate this by getting some icecream Friday evening with our friends, The Borsts. Katie and Kamryn both had activities that night, so it was just Troy with us. We enjoyed our icecream (along with many others who had the same idea!) and then took a nice stroll down to Reed's Lake. Thankfully all the ice from a few weeks ago was melted and there were even boats out on the lake.Troy posing for the obligatory "blog picture" by some tulips.

Dads and kids at the lakeside park.

A great spot by the lake.

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Saturday evening we were able to host some highschool students from Visalia who were visiting Calvin. It was great to see these kids again. Scott had them all in youth group and I had most of them in the first grade at CVC! Wow! Time flies!

Again the wii was a favorite activity. Lance impressed us with his concentration abilities. It was fun to see the De Groot sibling competitiveness come out. Troy was the best boxer. Scott was again the best trash talker!

Sister against brother.

Lance trying not to get beat by a four year old!


A fun group!

Funny Quote

Nothing too exciting to post lately. We're trying to get through another busy school week with soccer practices and games sprinkled in. Meeting again around supper time after a day of activities this is the greeting Troy gave Katie yesterday: "Hi Katie. How was highschool today?" Katie: "Good, Troy. How was Preschool?"...We all got a good chuckle out of that one. The joys of family life (and a good spread between children)!

Spring Snippets

We've been able to enjoy some beautiful weather these last few days between activities. I've been working full-time subbing in a fifth grade classroom. It looks like it will continue for a few more weeks. I enjoy it most of the time! Troy has been busy playing in the neighborhood and hanging out with Boppa and Grandma who take him to preschool too. Scott has lots to do finishing up the last semester of his second year of Seminary. He also continues to preach in area churches. He will be finished mid-May. He was honored to be nominated for student body President for next year at the Seminary. We made up his slogan: "Give Scott a shot!" I volunteered the children to color posters to put up around the Seminary, but he declined that offer! :) Katie is busy with highschool and school soccer. She is begging to take driver's ed, but it doesn't look like that's going to work out in the near future. (Darn!) Katie had to provide the team snack the other day on their game day. She got creative and made soccer ball cupcakes in her team colors. The girls loved them.



Preparing for spring soccer season in the backyard.


Scott coached his first game of the Spring season for Kam's team. They had a great game and Kamryn scored 3 of the 4 goals.

No, we are not enlisting our son into the military. He just got a REALLY short haircut today. While I was waiting for Troy, I was casually reading a newspaper. I looked up after a few minutes horrified to see how short she was getting it. Anyway, we're all set for warmer weather and low maintenance, right?

Happy Easter!

We had a nice group of about 20 people at our house for Easter dinner today. It was a mix of family, college and Seminary students and their friends and families. This morning Scott had to preach in South Haven (poor planning!), I ended up staying home with Troy who's been sick and Katie and Kamryn went to our church with some friends. We had a good meal together this afternoon and then of course we had to have an Easter egg hunt. Thankfully this year we did not have to deal with snow!! Here is a picture of most of the "hunters" after the big hunt.

Scott got his "full contact" hunt he was hoping for! (He's in the red shirt on the bottom under all the big boys.)

All the "kids" searching around the front yard for a little chocolate.

Gathered on our back deck before the hunt.

The "Easter bunny" at work. Hanging out in the sunshine.

Kamryn and Troy talked the big boys into some backyard baseball.

Troy has been struggling with the flu the past two days, but perked up today thankfully.

I hope everyone had a wonderful day celebrating our risen Savior! Have a great week!

Mini Vaca

We enjoyed a little time away this week too. We ventured out to the East side of the state! My cousin Kathy and her husband Jim graciously offered to have us come stay with them. We had planned to do some shopping and sight seeing over there so it worked out perfectly. Although they did have some snow left on the ground when we got there, the weather turned really nice and the kids enjoyed playing outside too. We had a great time catching up with cousins!

Doing a little bouncing on the neighbor's trampoline.

There was a neat mall that we checked out with a nice play area for the kids.

One night we decided to go bowling. It was a nice outing although the alley had some questionable clientelle! We kept a close eye on the kids!

You can't see it well, but I actually beat Scott for the first time!

A group shot of the kids. Nathan really enjoyed playing with the kids and especially liked hanging out with Kamryn.

One of our Spring Break activities was to check on the butterflies at Meijer Gardens. There were a few more out than the last time we went. It was quite busy with many people seeking out a warm beautiful place which is hard to find in West Michigan in April. We enjoyed meeting Boppa and Grandma there.

Troy checking out butterflies in the guide book.

Some of the group. Enjoying lunch in the new cafe at the Garden.

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That afternoon Kamryn had her first skateboarding experience at the local skate park. She met her friend, Quinn, there who is quite an expert and could give her some tips. This park is inside of a mall so we could keep an eye on her while doing some shopping.

Kamryn contemplating a drop in.Troy and a friend watching Kam through the mall window.
Kamryn and Quinn.

Kamryn after three hours of skateboarding. She survived with only a few bruises and thanfully no broken bones!!

Morning at the Museum

This morning we headed downtown to the Public Museum. They were advertising a Dinosaur Exhibit that Troy has been wanting to see. We had a great time and learned a lot!

Kamryn and Troy standing in front of the car exhibit.

Kamryn trying out the big bike...

Troy on the big bike...

Scott on the big bike-careful!

This man was showing us how they used a printing press to create printed material. The kids were quite impressed!

Then we entered the dinosaur exhibit. Troy enjoyed pretending with the toy dinosaurs.

This was a robotic dino that you could control.

Scott joins in on the fun.

Kam works on another masterpiece.

We enjoyed running into our friends the Borsts. Here Scott is explaining the finer points of...guns.

Kam and Troy checking out the juke boxes.

We ended the morning with a ride on the carousel and lunch at Big Boy with the Borsts.

Fun times!

Why no pics of Katie? She was off working on some service projects with kids from the youth group at church. Nice job, Kate!