The Color Blue & Some Animals (not the ones in our car)

Ahhhhh....

We do love Michigan!

We love visiting family and we love....

BLUEBERRIES!!!!

Doesn't Ava look soooo excited to be picking blueberries???  LOL!  She did enjoy eating them but perhaps not so much putting them in her bucket.

We went blueberry picking at our favorite blueberry place- Reenders.  As it was afternoon and since the kids had already had a pretty full day of playing with their cousins the kids weren't as interested in doing any serious berry picking.  Mark and I promised the kids (Lily + Gregory + Annika + Ava) that if they filled their bucket as best they could we'd buy them ice cream.

A little bribing never hurts....

Cuz look at the kids after they ate up their ice cream!

We spent Friday morning on a not-quite wild goose chase trying to find a farmers market in Grand Rapids (we bought some coffee from Grand Rapids Coffee Roasters- a guy with a roaster who loves what he does and it shows!)

To keep the kids happy after lunch we took them to the John Ball Zoo.  

Woo hoo!!!

Annika trying to take a photo of the gang:

I do love this zoo.  They've got an aquarium...and you can pet stingrays!  How cool is that?

You can feed the birds...Annika didn't want to do this so I stayed out of the cage with her.

Check out this cool "rock" wall!  If I had a ton of money you can bet I'd try to recreate something like this at home...it was filled with coral bells, ferns, berengia, ivy and other shade loving plants.

The butterfly exhibit...we spent a little bit of extra time here...

They had a Donate-some-money (even if it's a few pennies)-and-color-some-Monarch-butterflies booth that all the kids enjoyed:

including Henry:

(isn't he so cute?...concentrating so hard on what he's doing)

The girls showing off their colorful butterflies:

We were just about that Danger Zone stage with the kids (you know...the tired and cranky stage in the afternoon where you might end up with a crying child at any second & you'll need to make a quick exit) but we still stopped at the Baby Goat Petting Area

Fortunately Annika (and Ava) stayed cheerful!

A fully loaded van...every seat filled.  Poor Mark.  Personally, I think he enjoyed sitting in the Kid Area. hee hee hee....

At a stop at Costco.  The kids were mesmerized by the movie, Cars, while I watched them.  

I think after our outing the parents needed the naps more than the kids did!  :)