Do you remember "Mary Legs?"

So, part of our little trip the last 2 days was to a horse camp in Lawrence, MI, http://www.cedarlodge.com/, there we met the owner Amy Edwards, she and her showed us the stables, their wandering goat, sheep named "Lula." The kids had an amazing time.

So, if those of you that were horse crazy growing up most people will remember Mary Legs, she was the crazy little white pony in "Black Beauty" who stayed close to Black Beauty.

Miss Ella is who prompted our trip, she has "horse" on her brain at all times. We have new neighbors that have a large pasture and they have recently had "low lying australian beef" Allen (new neighbor) mentioned to Ella that he was going to have a minature pony named, "Spudley" stay with him for a while for some exercise, so everyday Ella asks about Spudley and when he is coming. She also rides around the house on a Diego bat, saying, "look at my pretty horse, want to pet my pretty horse?"

So this trip is exactly what I wanted to give her, she didn't stop talking about "Mary Legs." Since she is only 3 she needed someone to lead her and also be at her side, it only took 1 loop around the ring and she was already asking Miss Becca and Miss Amy, "when are we going to go faster?".......... they told her when she was 8!

She had no trouble taking that lead from Miss Becca, we just kept having to Ella so slow down......she was ready to go:)

Here is JD our more conservative one who most definitely enjoyed the ride, but definitely looked to his little sister to do things first in this situation:) He is ready to go back and ride "Stormy" again and even wants a shot at riding Mary Legs, but his sister keeps insisting "Mary Legs" is her pony!

A lot to catch up on...............I'll try and work backwords

These past 2 days I talked Rick into taking a couple of days vacation and going for a quick trip north:) We visited the Grand Rapids Children's Museum, http://www.grcm.org/ on Thursday and the kiddo's had a great time, also thanks to HP we also took in some very cool art, she told us about "Artprize" which is a 2 week art fair around the city where visitors actually vote...... very cool! the picture below is the one we voted for.

A puppet show just for mom and dad

nuts and bolts can be so much fun!

Ella fixes people with hammers, she kept pounding on this poor persons foot, trying to make him feel better.
This was a cool piece of art, there were more than 7000 sticks decorated by kids to symbolize what is special to them.

This was our favorite piece!

Where has June Gone??

Wow, we knew we had a lot going on this month, but wow? so much and and its over already, so lets recap.......

We started the beginning of the month out with a trip to see my sister, Jody's, family. Lexi, my niece was graduating from high school. So we decided we were going to drive out to NC, 14 hours, I know are we crazy or what? All in all we weren't that crazy, the kids did amazingly well. We had stops planned out for the way out and back, so it really broke up the trip. Our 1st stop was to Cedar Point for an afternoon at the water park, the pix' below were of the last spot at the water park and we probably could have spent more time at that particular spot.

A day and a half later we ended up at our destination, Aunt Jo, Jo's. This was the 1st time in 4 years that we had been together, far tooo long. The girls are not long girls they are definitely young women and ooohhhh am I soo proud of them, they are beautiful ladies:) While we were there we also got to see my brother Mike's family, which was much fun as well. JD and Josh couldn't stop talking and playing and scheming against the girls, it was sooo fun! and Miss Sarah is soo sweet:) Below is a pix of all of the cousins on the Holtz side.

Here is my brother and sister with their cousins
there were also many dress up parties, the girls had a lot of fun entertaining us:)

So, I forgot to mention earlier that my brother Andrew and his family headed out to NC as well after the girls finished school on June 9th, and I have to say we had both mentioned how excited we were about the food, this family knows how to cook!!! and we also know how to enjoy food too:)

Here goes, Mike and Jody's mom prepared a southern broil, it was soooo good, the flavor was amazing!!! Thank you Sandy for all your hospitality, we really enjoyed ourselves!

Okay, so there has to be a funny on vacation with Mike, I'm having trouble keying it cause I'm laughing........ I digress..... for Lexi's graduation, they had a "pig pickin" that's what they call it in the south, us northerns, a pig roast. So after the graduation Mike wants to make kracklins out of the skin, ??? So he puts the skin in the oven on BROIL, guess what happens, there are flames, is it soda or powder questions? I calmly ask Jody where a fire extinguisher is, oh my, Mike is fanning it (adding O2), and we are hysterically laughing, after we got the fire out of course:) oh by the way, it's soda that puts the fire out:)

Schools out for SUMMER!!!

Well, we'll back up a little here and take a look at JD's last day of preschool, I absolutely love his class and the teachers and parents, a wonderful experience:)

here is their spring program, they preformed all of their songs they learned all year...... do you think this kid likes to sing?

I think he is like his mom with singing voice, hehe:)

Ella is 3....... and a princess!

My sweet "Bean" is 3 and tells most everybody that, "she is getting bigger," she is also very much into dress's these days and princess's. She doesn't know the names of the princess's, just anyone in a dress is a princess:) She is learning so quickly and still adores...... for the most part her big brother:) Here are a few pictures of the princess on her birthday

JD's 1dt T-ball game

Later that day as he was waiting for me to make dinner, this is how we found him......... completely out and sitting up, he was sooo tired.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, the Easter bunny found our house yesterday morning, (in the rain too!) I had to try to catch a few pictures before we headed to church, we had a good day with a lot of food, more egg hunts, whiffle ball and good fellowship!

earlier that morning.....

the day before Ella and I went to an Easter egg hunt while JD had T-Ball practice