Canada

Grandpa and Grandma Sytsma with their pack of 11! Erin, Julianna, Grandpa, Alex, and Andrew

Cousins enjoying a popsicle after dinner, yummy!

There's a lot of kids on that raft!

Erin and Mason exploring down the beach

Erin and Claire at the end of the week

Ben has taken a liking to wearing baseball hats which I think is adorable!

Erin doing a balancing act. I love this picture because at that moment her only care in the world was staying balanced on that wall.

Sisters and Cousins

Lisa, Sonya, Shari, Kim

My three junebugs. This was pretty much the best shot I got of the three of them. Why won't three year olds sit still?

My niece Leah with the yummalicious cheeks

Mom and sisters

We are home from our trip to visit Jerry's family in Canada and celebrate the baptism of our new niece Leah. I left last week Sunday afternoon with the three kids and spent the week up at Jerry's parents cottage on Lake Erie. We had fantastic, hot weather every day which is what you want for cottage weather. Jerry's parents stayed with us, and each day one of Jerry's sisters with kids would come visit for the day. Needless to say, the kids were pretty tired each night they went to bed! Jerry came up on the Friday and that day everyone from the family (sisters, brother-in-laws, and all the kids) came up for the day. We got our annual picture of the kids with grandma and grandpa. With Leah being born this May, the count is now up to 11 grandchildren. We decided that the rock out in the water where we've normally taken the picture is now a bit too small to accommodate every one so we moved the photo to the retaining wall in front of the cottage. On the Saturday the entire family went over to Jerry's Tante Alice for a family get together. This included many of Jerry's cousins including his cousin Shari who is visiting for a few weeks from Calgary. We had a wonderful time, and all the kids roamed free on Tante Alice's beautiful property. They swam, explored the tree house, ran through the wheat field, swung on the tire swing, played badminton and ate a ton of good food! On Sunday Leah Brooke was baptized and after church we celebrated with everyone back at Jerry's parents. We all commented on how well our 11 children (the oldest being 7) played with each other and got along. What a blessing! Now it is back to reality, particularly working off all those extra calories I have accumulated in the last month. Arghhhh!