It was a great, sunshine filled week here in the Land of Cheltenham – with a special bonus at the end of the week.

The kids started off the week at the lake with Penni. It seems there was some swimming and a lot of digging.

Steven had trouble sleeping on Monday night so we took the opportunity to watch some “late night” Olympics together. Really special time.

With Amaya’s hair color and all the time in the pool, she decided to try out a swim cap. Thumbs up!

Amaya has been really into crafts lately. This is another book she has from the library (or the same one from last week). She made a hand stand for jewelry. It’s super cute.

Tinfoil rings! Amaya and Penni can open an etsy shop. 🙂

Steven tells me this park was very very hot and he got very very tired. “There’s a spinny thing and, for almost the whole time, anyone who wanted to go on it I would always be pushing them.”

Amaya also crafted bunnies this week, made from old dance tights. They’re super cute! And she made a pair of overalls for one of her stuffies (named Rosie, Steven wants me to share). I love the creativity.

With Amaya’s move to level 7 swim, she and the boys have classes back to back which is very convenient.

The BIG news and adventure of the week was a visit from Nana!! She hasn’t been here since early June 2019. It’s really unthinkable to contemplate after near-monthly visits for 5.5 years. Once Nana arrived it both felt like no time had passed and also like so much time had passed.

On Friday, Penni, Nana and the kids went to the pool. They were the only kids there – lots of space to themselves! Amaya had to re-take the deep end test b/c there were new lifeguards there and she passed easily giving her lots of opportunity to jump and dive.

Steven also took off swimming on Friday!

For dinner on Friday night we headed to The Beach Tiki Bar & Boil in Walled Lake. Jason was in Chicago so it was just the 5 of us. We haven’t been here since early fall. Eating by the water also makes me happy.

Wandering on the beach while we waited for our table.

Sammy and I each ordered a pound of king crab for lunch. It was so good and, between us, we ate almost all of it.

We wrapped up the evening with some rock & shell hunting on the beach.

Bedtime shows…then bedtime!

We had a packed day on Saturday, spent at Kensington Metropark. We started off with a paddle boat ride on the lake.

It was a lot more work than I expected! Amaya was a fierce peddler, holding herself up by her arms on the seat to get enough leverage to peddle hard and fast.

Next up was the Farm Center at Kensington. It’s been ages since I was there with the kids and it brought back a ton of memories. We had lunch and then visited the animals.

The kids called this a “Sheep Cow” because of it’s face lol.

We wrapped up our day at Kensington with a visit to the beach splash pad, which also has two big water slides. Steven and Amaya loved the water slides. They went again and again. (So did I!)

While we were on the water slides, Sammy and Nana went down to the lake to skip rocks.

Sunday started with a return to Nana’s weekend Starbucks tradition with SSA. Yay!! I love this so much.

Our morning and early afternoon was spent cooking & baking – Triangle Tacos, made with filo dough, and lattice berry pie.

Constructing the pie

Word games on our phones. We all love Spelling Bee.

This afternoon we met up with MayMay, Mikey, Taco and Eden at a playground. The slide here is huge. All the kids loved it and even I had to try it.

Climbing Bobes

MayMay!!

It is so, so cute and special to see these kids play together.

Amaya and Nana practiced and shared a magic coin trick. First Amaya made the coin disappear and then she found it behind Nana’s ear!

The whole gang, plus a friend Amaya made at the playground – who’s name is Anaya! Go figure!

In this picture, Taco is wearing pants that had been Amaya’s. Eden is wearing a shirt and shorts that had been Amaya’s and the shirt actually goes back to Charlie! <3

It was a great week and a GREAT weekend. We’re all so glad that Nana is back visiting us in MI.

I’ll leave you with this vide of Steven and Lindsay singing a song they made up.

Have a great week!