Disney Vacation Day 3: Epcot

Our Epcot day had a rough start.  Lucy must have gotten something in her eye so she cried the whole way there, the whole time in line waiting for the gates to open, and the first 30 minutes in the park.  We bought her a new Minnie Mouse which helped a little because we forgot to take her blankie along.  All of the crying must have gotten her eyes cleared though because she did great the rest of the day.

Matt and I road Soarin' together which was really cool.  We thought his mom would like it so Matt and Mom rode it together.  While they were doing that, Lucy and I ate a snack (one of our favorite things to do!  See photo below), and then rode the escalators up and down, over and over again.  Lucy was a pro at getting on and off by the time Matt and Mom got back. 

The rest of the morning was spent in Future land and we saw a couple countries.  Then we went home for lunch and a much needed rest.  Here are some pictures of our morning.

Clockwise from top right:  Lucy and me in Canada; Lucy and me in France by a fountain; Matt, Lucy, and me in front of the ball/fountain; Lucy shopping; Eating a snack; Taking a break to figure out the plan

I was a little nervous about taking Lucy into one of the stores in Disney.  She was so good though!  She wanted to touch EVERYTHING, but never begged for anything.  Her favorite things to look at were stuffed animals, princess shoes and princess hats.

When we were home for lunch, we had a little birthday cake for Matt and Mom.  Their birthdays were the week before we left.  This cake was great and cheap and from Wal-mart.

When we got back in the evening, we went right to the room with the main Disney characters.  While we were there we saw Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto and Goofy.  Lucy was very shy meeting all of them.  I was surprised to see that Lucy was actually holding Mickey's finger in one of the pictures! 

After meeting these characters, Lucy was so upset that Daisy wasn't there.  Here was our conversation:

Lucy:  Where is Daisy?

Me:  Daisy wasn't there.  I'm sorry.  She must be taking a nap at her house.

Lucy:  yeah, she IS taking a nap at her house.

And that was the end of that conversation.  Daisy was at the park entrance greeting people in the morning.  We walked right past her our first day at Epcot, so we made sure that we saw her the next day.

Then we went to the Sea area which Lucy LOVED!  She loves fish, so she was excited to see this area.





That night we went to a place where we ate yummy French food in Epcot and then watched the fireworks show.  While we were waiting, Lucy spilled orange juice down her legs and my shirt.  Here are pictures of our evening adventures:

Top 2 pics:  At the Sea viewing fish and playing a game
Bottom Left:  Horrible pictures, but this chocolate mouse was amazing!
Bottom right:  Lucy's OJ spill being cleaned up in the dark.

The fireworks and show were really cool.  Lucy was NOT a fan!  I ended up holding her and covering her ears. 

This was the first time in Epcot for all four of us.  I think you can plan on us going there again!

Disney Trip: Day 1 & 2

Matt did a TON of planning for this trip.  I am so proud of him!  The trip was great.  We had a great house to stay in, great flights, and we love Disney.  Here is the start of our trip.

Day 1:  Travel Day

 Lucy looks happy here, but shortly after this she started to freak out.  She cried the entire way up into the air screaming "I want to sit on your lap!!!"  Very embarrassing!  The rest of the flight was fine.

When we got to the house, we checked out the digs.  This was the room Lucy stayed in.  All of the stuffed animals were in there plus a bunch of other toys.  She LOVED it!

Day 2:  Animal Kingdom

Saturday we headed to Animal Kingdom.  Our first stop in the park was the Safari.  They had just fed the animals so we saw a whole bunch!  We saw a bunch of animals in other parts of the zoo moving around too including a hippo drinking out of a waterfall and a tiger walking through the water.  Here are some of our pictures:

We also started to see some of the characters!  Goofy and Pluto were first and Lucy was so excited and then terrified as soon as we walked up to them.  Next we saw Minnie who Lucy ran from.  Then I held her for Chip and Dale.  Then she refused to get out of the stroller which is why Matt and I are with Baloo and King Louie and not Lucy.  Lucy warmed up a little to Pocahontas.

Here are pictures of us around the park.

We watched the Parade at the end of our day.  Lucy LOVED to see all the characters.  Here are some pictures of the parade.  The picture of Lucy is her watching Minnie, which she was so excited about.  This means, that this scowly face is a happy face! 

Our first day was exhausting but fun!  When we got home, we made dinner and ate with 3 of my high school girlfriends:  Stephanie, Rebecca G. and Rebecca B. and her husband John and daughter Hannah.  It was so fun to eat and talk and hang out with them.  Here are a few pictures from the evening:

From the left:  Lucy, me, Rebecca G., Stephanie, Rebecca B., Hannah



Hannah & Lucy in their Disney jammies

More to come soon!  We were at Disney parks 6 days, so I have a lot more to share!

Making safe, affordable, and abundant food a global reality

Check this out!

This is what our family farm is trying to accomplish, too.

What we ate for dinner tonight!

We ate another new freezer meal tonight.  A-M-A-Z-I-N-G-L-Y yummy!  We put them in the oven before going to the gym and then stuffed ourselves when we got back.  Here is the recipe if you want to try them!

Picture from http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/creamy-chicken-enchiladas.html

Now it's time to listen to Lucy singing to her babies in bed and for us to watch 30 Rock. 

<3 Love <3

What we ate for dinner

I found this recipe for Garlic Chicken Farfalle and decided to try it on our last cooking day.  We ate it tonight and it was AMAZING!!!!

Picture from http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/becky-higgins-garlic-chicken-farfalle.html

The one I made wasn't nearly as pretty as this picture.  Still tasty though! 

We will definately make it again.

Saturday Adventures

A few Saturdays ago, we had a fun day!  Matt was playing golf, so Lucy and I headed to Holland's Art in the Park in Centennial Park.  I called my mom while we drove over and she met us there.

Lucy got this new dress for her doll.  As soon as we saw this fountain, she didn't want to walk around anymore, all she wanted to do was look at the fountain.

Then she showed her baby the fish in the fishpond.

Do you see that french braid in her hair!?  She NEVER lets me do her hair and I somehow managed to convince her to let me braid it.  I was very happy with the results.  It will probably be another 3 years before she lets me braid it again.

We bought blueberries on the way home.  Lucy was really hoping she could eat the whole box.

In the afternoon, we walked around outside with the whole family, including Dilbert.  We tried for a picture of the 2 of them.  Neither of them have much sit though...

We have soybeans planted in the field around our house.  We went and looked at them.  Did you know that they get little purple flowers on them?  I didn't!  They were really quite pretty.

Dilbert checked for enemies.

Here is Lucy's grass mustache.

Dilbert loves me!

That is my kind of Saturday!

*****

This just in:  Lucy is helping Daddy with yard work as I'm writing this.  They are working on planting grass around our new patio.  Matt puts screens over the seed to keep birds (and Dilbert) off the seed. 

Lucy just picked up a big screen and said "I'm a hero Daddy!  I can pick up the big one!"

Bath time

Lucy in her "shower."  (Yes, we do let her take baths in her bathing suit)

She thought it was pretty cool to wear a towel like this and sing as loud as she could.

Such a silly girl!

Loving the Outdoors

Matt loves it outside and he has passed those genes on to his daughter.  Matt loves his landscaping and has been teaching Lucy how to water the flowers.  One night when we were hanging out outside, Lucy grabbed the hose and started to water.

To tell you the truth, I see visions of a girl with a power washer in her future!

Matt has some beautiful flowers around our house.  Here are a few:

Lucy wanted to try out the camera and we thought "Maybe we can get a good picture of the two of us with it not being a self shot!"  HAHAHA  Here is Lucy's best attempt in round 1:

Then in round 2, Lucy tried for just me.  There were a lot of terrible pictures.  Here is the best one:

And then Matt had to make a silly face for the one where we were both in the picture... sort of.  Some day...

I love this picture of Lucy.

It's been a beautiful summer so far.  It's hard to believe that it is already mid August!

Forts

I have many memories from my childhood of making forts.  We would drape our comforters over kitchen chairs and pile books on the blankets on the chairs to keep them in place.  Now, I get to make those types of memories for Lucy!

We have made quite a few forts in our house so far.  Here is one example.  She made us go to sleep in the fort.

Before Lucy was even born, Martha Stewart Magazine had a cool idea for making tents outside.  The took rope between 3 trees and then draped sheets over the rope.  I have been waiting to make one of these for a long time and we finally did.

Unfortunately our trees are too far apart from each other and it was super windy.  But, here is what we came up with:  (the ropes are tied to 2 trees that are out of the picture.  The one sheet we just pinned across the two ropes to make the 3rd side)

Lucy kept forgetting that the sides were sheets and two of the corners were pinned closed.  She kept running right into them.  Eventually we just had a two sided tent which was fun too.

As we were picking the spots, Dilbert peed right in the center of one group of trees and then pooped right outside of the spot we picked.  I proceeded to step in the poop as I was heading back to the house.  I love having a dog...

I've also seen cute "fort kits" made by bloggers in blog land that are made from dollar store sheets and loops sewn on, along with ropes and clips.  A cute idea.  Maybe someday I'll throw something like that together for Lucy.  For now, we just use old sheets we have around.

Happy fort building!

Best Mother's Day Ever

Matt and I have always loved zoos and have gone to them together since we were dating.  For Mother's Day, Matt suggested that we go to John Ball Zoo in GR.  We had SO much fun!  It was probably one of the most memorable zoo trips we've ever had.

Lucy loved these bass that were outside the penguin house. 

The bears were really active and had been swimming.  When we got there, this one was walking around in the exhibit.

We kept hearing a cat making a bunch of noise, and when we finished watching the bear, we walked over to the cat exhibits.

This mountain lion was meowing at the snow leopard in the next cage.  The snow leopard just kept ignoring the mountain lion.  All through the zoo you could hear the mountain lion: "Meeooow meeooowww  meeoooww!"

Lucy played the drum outside of the lion exhibit.  The lions were super boring.  <nap time>

Then the best part of the zoo happened.  We got to the chimp exhibit and saw these guys:

Next to the tree here is a mallard duck that must have been sitting on a nest (read: would not move). 

The chimp was not a fan of this duck in his area.

First he tried running at it. 

The duck didn't move

Then, he threw sand at it.

The duck didn't move

Then he went to the edge of the cliff thing he was on and turned his back to us.

He put his hand by his bum and pooped in his hand!!!!

Then he pooped in his other hand!

Then with a mighty throw he pitched to poop 1-2 right at the duck.

The duck still didn't move.

We were all like "Did that really just happen?"

Then the chimp ran up to the level above the duck and started to throw sand down on the duck.

The duck still didn't move.

After a little while, the chimp gave up.

As soon as that chimp moved away, another chimp jumped up and did a really crazy chimp dance.  It was unreal!

As we walked away from the exhibit, Lucy said "Monkey poop in his hand!  (while squatting and putting her hands between her legs)  And throw it at the duck!  So naughty!"

She said this over and over and over again all through the rest of the zoo and part of the car ride home.  And then for the next 3 weeks at any mention of zoo or monkey or just whenever it came to mind.

After the chimps, we were about done with the zoo.  Here we are in front of the spider monkey exhibit.

Here are Matt and Lucy in front of the penguins.

Ehinger family self portrait:

It was a fabulous day. 
I'm so happy to be a mom.

Global Leadership Summit

Global Leadership Summit

This is my 3rd time attending this conference hosted by Willow Creek Church.  It is phenomenal.  The speakers are a mix of church leaders and people from business.  The lectures are so applicable to work at the farm or an corporate job and to church leaders.

We heard 6 speakers today.  The main message I heard was "Go and DO something!"  Here are some of the nuggets I collected today.

Bill Hybels, Founder and Senior Pastor at Willow Creek
1.  Test your stress level.  Where do you do your best work?
2.  Rate your people and deal with the bottom people with a game plan based on an established system.  3 main issues with people:  bad attitude, under performer, and role passed up a persons talent.
3.  What is the core a your business?
4.  Name your problems and solve them

Len Schlesinger, President of Babson College
1.  Anyone can be an entrepreneur. 
2.  We are educated to believe that failure is bad.  Failure means you get to try again with experience!
3.  Baby steps solve the big problems, so take a step!

Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil, Speaker
1.  In the church, we need to break down barriers of differences
2.  When things in the world shift, (ie. demographics, economics, cultures) we can either view it as catastrophe or a catalytic event to change things for the better
3.  Pray for a Divine mandate, Name your catalytic events, Mobilize people to go

Seth Godin, Blogger
1.  Industrial age is over
2.  It's time for people to break the mold.  Be an artist, someone who picks herself to succeed
3.  If failure is not an option then neither is success

Pastor Steven Furtick, Pastor
1.  In 2 Kings 3:9-20, the kings of Israel, Judah and Edom and their armies are chasing the army of Moab.  They should be able to beat them but they run out of water.  They call for a prophet, and Elisha comes.  He tells them to dig ditches and God will fill them with water with no wind or rain.  They dig and God pours water down a valley.
2.  We need audacity to act.  If you want to see the land filled with water, dig some ditches!
3.  Faith without works is dead to get a shovel and dig!
4.  If you dig ditches God will send the rain.  Think about Noah: he looked pretty silly building the arc on dry ground... until the rain came. 

God, give me the faith to dig ditches and believe you will send the water!

Tomorrow there will be more great speakers.  I can't wait!

Happy Birthday, Rebecca

My high school friends and I stay in close touch and have since high school.  Each week we email check-ins with things we're thankful for, prayer requests, and stories from the week.  It has been a great way to stay in touch.

After high school, we all went separate ways, more or less:

Rebecca (Marcus) Brown went to Hope College

Stephanie Westrate went to Western Michigan University

Melanie Haveman, Julie (Koning) Phillips, Rebecca Geerlings, and Bethany Keeley-Jonker went to Calvin College

I went to the University of Michigan and then Iowa State (once I saw the light ;))

Let's just say, I wanted to get out of West Michigan and all my friends stayed in West Michigan.

Then I came back... and everyone else left for Florida, Colorado, Chicago, Georgia, Detroit, Iowa, etc.  (some have moved more than once).

It is always fun when they come home and I get to spend time with them.  This summer Rebecca Geerlings came over for dinner on her birthday! 

Here are her birthday cupcakes!

She could not get this candle blown out from laughing so hard!

Lucy got dressed up for the celebration: