Surgery

Some of you may know that Christi is scheduled for surgery tomorrow, September 1st, to repair torn cartilage in her left wrist and 'clean out' the area where one bone is longer than the other. She has been wearing a brace to protect herself from over-use or bumping it. Gracie has been so intrigued about Gramma's brace that she wanted to try it on, then she ran downstairs so Grampa could take her picture. We sure would appreciate prayers on Christi's behalf for healing after the surgery. We will post again tomorrow and give you an update after we get home.

Meet Jessica

Meet Jessica Weaver, this is the young lady that Jeff has been dating the past 4 months, and we are thrilled to introduce her to you.
Today when we all met at ON THE BORDER to celebrate Joey's 23rd birthday I asked if it was okay for me to post this picture of them on our family blog.
Jeff and Jess met through Jess' aunt and uncle who attend our church. She is a wonderful young lady who loves the Lord and is gifted with many talents...violin, piano, organ, singing, song writing and I am sure there are many more that we don't even know yet. We are so happy that the Lord has brought these two together.

Happy Birthday, Joey

Today is our youngest son, Joey's 23rd birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEY! It has been a joy raising our three children. Being a Mom and Dad is the Best job EVER and we wouldn't change it for the world. Growing up Joey loved to play baseball. We always let the kids try any sport they wanted but Joey only cared about baseball. He played Little Leaque for Georgetown and then played for Hudsonville High School. He mostly played short stop, but he was a key bunter, breaking a long standing record for Hudsonville in Career Sacrifice Bunts - only to have his record broken tree years later. Now Joey works at Gentex full time and is renting a townhouse with our other son Jeff.
This is Joey at 9 months old.

Here is one of his senior pictures taken in downtown Grand Rapids

This photo was taken early this spring at Hockey Town in Detroit which is right across the street from Comerica Park. Dale and Joey went to the game together. Joey is not looking too happy as the thought of watching a game in 36 degree weather, is enough to make anyone unhappy, and the Tigers lost 2-4 to Los Angeles Angels of Anahiem.

It doesn't get better than this

It doesn't get better than this - sitting around on a comfy weather evening by a nice roaring fire. We are enjoying the firepit the kids gave Dale for Father's Day. Yummy hot dogs roasted, marshmallows for the 'smores and even an occasional dough-boy. The only thing that could make this better is if you would come and join us some time. We would love to have you.

Funny People

Check out these funny balloon people we made at Auntie's daycare. This has pretty much been the size of my crew for the summer minus Carissa on the far right who had her last day in June. We were glad she could come back a day to play.

New Shoes

According to Julie's COUNTDOWN TO DISNEY we only have 74 more days before we leave. We are all getting pretty excited for some time away - together. Dale and I bought our new walking shoes for the trip and now our goal is to start out with a small walk each night (hopefully) and then work up to a longer walk maybe on the weekends. We want to break in the new shoes slowly so we don't have blisters on the trip. Check out those white, white tennis shoes...sad to say they won't stay that way for long. What a good excuse to spend some quality time with each other.

The Orchard

It has not been a great summer for growing Roses and Fruit trees but I did have some success and wanted to show you a few pictures of the success I did have.

I think my love for roses stems (no pun intended) from my Dads love for them. And it brings back reminders of Grandma Bolhuis who used to always say "Where there are Roses there are Prickers"

I have always loved growing Moss Roses

Our grapes are starting to turn color and it won't be long and it will be grape juice making time.

Christi's favoite, pears nearing picking time

One of my apple trees which is loaded this year, and I am planning to can some apple pie filling with these this year.

This apple tree branch is so loaded it is touching the ground.

We had our first harvest of sweet cherries which is also one of Christi's favorite.I just ordered two more fruit trees to plant this fall. One is another brand of sweet cherries which are the deep purple ones you see along fruit stands, and I also ordered a Peach tree.

Yummy!

Check out this yummy recipe I found in a magazine. They showed it drizzled with white chocolate morsels but I was out so substituted pink and blue. The kids thought this sweet treat was wonderful and had to take some home with them.
Chocolate Chex Caramel Crunch

8 C Chocolate Chex Cereal
3/4 C brown sugar
6 T butter or margarine
3 T light corn syrup
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 C white vanilla baking chips

1. Put cereal in a large microwavable bowl; set aside. Line cookie sheet with waxed paper.
2. In a 2 C microwavable cup, microwave brown sugar, butter and corn syrup uncovered on HIGH 1-2 minutes, stirring after 1 minute, until melted and smooth. Stir in baking soda until dissolved. Pour over cereal, stirring to coat evenly. Microwave on HIGH 3 minutes, stirring every minute. Spread on cookie sheet. Cool 10 minutes. Break into bite size pieces.
3. In a small microwavable bowl, microwave vanilla baking chips uncovered on HIGH about 1 minute until melted and smooth. Drizzle over snack. Refrigerate until set. Store in air tight container.
*Personally I think you could skip the extra chocolate on top but the kids thought the colors were great. zBe careful, it is so yummy it is addicting.

Costco

Julie decided to meet Christi and I at Costco as we had some shopping to do. So we ate supper first, and as you can see, the pieces of pizza are almost as big as Tyler's face. He did a great of eating it, and what he could not eat he took home to finish off.
Gracie wants in on the action to.

Grandpa pushing Gracie in the shopping cart and as you can see by the look on her face she did not want to be in the cart. She wanted to run and be freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Waite Cousin Reunion

Jim Curtis and Ron Sprik

Mariylyn Drew, Pauline Sprik, Christi, Sharon Miller

Ron Sprik, Jim Curtis, Henry Tamminga, Gordon Miller, and Joyce Tamminga

Marilyn Drew

Carl Tiethof

Margie Curtis & Dorothy Jenison

Don Roede and Ron Sprik

Judy Roede and Myra Tiethof, daughter and daughter in law to Uncle Carl & Aunt Reva

We had a great time at the Waite Cousin Reunion today. We were able to see family that we have not seen in a long time. It was good to catch up on families and hear stories of the past. Dale especially enjoyed hearing stories about Grandpa Ben Waite, that he had never heard before.

Surprise Visitors

Yesterday morning as I looked out our kitchen window I was suprised to see a whole family of wild turkeys in our back yard. Christi started counting as they were in our rose bed and we counted at least 7 of them. Then when we walked out on the deck they started moving out from the rose bed into the lawn and as we kept counting there was 12 of them. We kind of laugh at all these hunters who travel sometimes long distances to bag their perfect turkey. And they even use a turkey caller to bring them in closeer, and here we just look out our window and there they are.