Friday, May 29, 2009

MEMORIAL DAY

i finally found some time to share what we did for memorial day.... i think i'll do a picture diary of a day in the life..... we started the day with the jenison parade. it was THE MOST relaxing parade that greg & i have had EVER! you ask why?....well....only watching after 2 little ones who were completely restrained the entire time, the older 5 taking part in other floats of the parade,
no 'back up guys!' or 'move down guys so you're not in front of everyone' or my all time favorite 'would you all just SHARE your candy?!?!?!' (yea, like THAT's ever going to happen!!). all of that combined, greg and i had a delightful morning! caleb and grace were on the ridgewood vbs float....grace in all her glory with her bff, and caleb on the actual float pelting everyone he knew with candy! abby, luke, and andrew on the school 'float'....luke and abby did a great job handing out things. the only way we allowed andrew to go was if he was actually IN the bus and not riding next to it!!! he had fun anyway.




after the parade we told the kids that we were going to have SO MUCH FUN.....working outside finishing up with the stones! you can imagine the van full of moans and groans to which we replied (as any parent says in response to this reaction from their kids)......'come on guys, it's not gonna take long if we all pitch in together' ....followed by the ultimate bribe.........'AND if you do good and don't argue - we'll take you all out for ice cream!' that bribe used to work so much better when they were younger! so we moved stone......and more stone.......and more stone!!!!


the job was FINALLY finished!!!



so....true to our word.......ice cream for all! (after it took only 6 more hours of work! it's amazing how deceiving the size of the stone pile was!)





....some are just too cool to smile! :)

after ice cream we went to the cemetary to bring seth's planter to his stone. WOW! i didn't realize how busy the cemetary could get.....i was truly amazed.


...the kids made me proud...they had to clean seth's stone off! something is
rubbing off on them!!! :) all in all....it was a GREAT Memorial Day!

3 comments:

chippy said...

What a great family day! I love the picture of the kids cleaning off Seth's stone! There IS some of their mom in them!
I was struck by the picture of Luke. Boy,does he have some Seth in his looks! Mostly with the hat on!

Kristin said...

I looked for you on Monday when we were at the cemetery, but we weren't there at the same time... I am glad that you had a great family day!

Heather said...

What a beautiful planter -- and lovely memories too. I sense healing again in this post, Jolynn -- God is good, isn't he?