Our week in review...

WOW!  This was a crazy week, it all started last week, I went to get Anaya's birth certificate.  (What is it with this girl and her birth certificates?  I needed a copy for Luisa's adoption, so I figured I would just run down to the county clerks office here in town and grab it right?  NOT!  I should have known, but no, I have to go to Lansing to get it!  Ok, no big deal I will run to Lansing and get it!)  

So I left Friday morning for Lansing, and decided to stop at Panera for a cinnamon crunch bagel and a coffee, well, in my excitement {either over the food or of just being all alone,} I locked my keys in the van.  OOPS!  So I call Ryan, and he has to run the spare set to me.  (Mind you we were leaving for vacation that day, he was home waiting for the Fed Ex guy to deliver our computer cord that had been broken and left me unable to blog for a long time, hence this long post, and he had all the kids with him.  He had to quickly pack them up and do a quick clean up/close up of the house and well, Panera bread is about an hour away....)  Thankfully I stopped by one that is by a Target, Toys R Us and several other stores so I didn't mind the couple of hours it took for him to get there! Just so you know Ryan has locked his keys in the car before too, so when he came he didn't say a word, he was just as sweet as can be!  Thank you honey!

Okay, so I finally get on the road and make it to Lansing at 2:30, they don't allow you to order them after 3pm, so that was a bit close, but I made it!  Then I headed to my parents and met up with Ryan and the kids there.  We had a family get together for the 4th and watched fireworks and fun with the Tuinstra family.

This is my nephew Brayden, and he can do the splits.  Freakish I know, but he is so cute and funny I just had to share!

My mom had games for the kids with prizes!  Fun stuff!  My Dad grilled steak and chicken {on the grill} on the new patio!  We all helped take out the old cracked one chunk by chunk the weekend before, many little hands made for {a little bit} lighter work!

We left Sunday morning and went to Chicago and visited some more with Eric, Jen and Olivia.  We had fun at the water park and dinner was awesome ~ Thanks guys!
We headed out Monday morning for our trip to Tennessee to spend time with the Vander Zwaag family.

We drove to Lexington Kentucky and got a hotel with a pool and I actually went swimming{Okay so I didn't swim, but I did get into the water with Anaya and stay there for more than a few seconds, I think I was in there playing with her for a whopping 10 minutes!  Did I ever mention I HATE to swim?}Anyhow, we both got cold and wanted OUT!!  

Then on Tuesday, we finally made it to Tennessee!!

Check this place out!  This is where we stayed in Pigeon Forge.  We were up so high, the drive to our cabin was down right scary, and the drop off took your breath away, but so did the views, it was amazing!

The bear sighting we got up at 5:00 A.M. to see!!!
{the picture of the bear did not turn out, so the picture of everyone looking at the bear will have to do!}

 The whole lot of us!

I think Anaya thinks she is going to fall off the edge, hence the death grip on Ryans shirt!

 We went to Cherokee North Carolina and watched some Native American dances, then a few of our clan got roped into dancing with them! 

Then Robb and Dylan decided to ride the mechanical bull! I have some funny videos of them on that thing which I will post on another day!

 Lisa and her shockingly big dinner!

and it's all gone!!
{For the record, she did share with Brylynn!}

Fun times...

We went rafting down a river, climbing up a mountain, driving up and down the mountains, played in a mountain stream, a few danced with Indians, most {except for me} went swimming, and we ate way too much this week, but we sure did have fun!