Last Week's MI trip

Last week, Jenna and Micah and I flew to MI (Sun thru Sat) for my Grandpa Steenwyk's funeral. Really was a wonderful week... I feel very blessed to have been able to be there for the funeral and family events, and just to have been there for a whole week.

One fun blessing was how well Micah and Boden got along-- they had a blast! They ran and wrestled and played, and I don't think they ever fought or cried. All week long. Boden just turned 5, so they are about 2 years apart, but that didn't seem to matter too much. Maybe because Micah's used to playing with older kids? But he doesn't usually get to wrestle on the floor like he did with Boden. :) Here they are at the "brown park" (Huizenga in Zeeland)


This isn't a great pic, but it shows both of them having a lot of fun!













I just realized Jenna isn't in many of our MI pics, and that's because she took many of them!

She captured this gorgeous one of Heidi.












One thing I've always loved about the house where I grew up is being able to see some wonderful sunrises. This is the view out the front window.









We went to see one of Natalie's volleyball games-- that's her on the right. Go, Natalie!









Wed was the visitation at the funeral home. It was 4 hours long-- too long for Micah and Jenna so we hit 2 hours in the middle. Some of you who read this will have been around the Steenwyks before (meaning my dad and his brothers and sisters, etc) and you will totally understand when I say this was is a very loud group of people. Even at the funeral home. Because my grandpa was 89, in bad health, and very ready to go to heaven, people were more relieved and happy than distraught. And LOTS of people came to the funeral home, so it was more like a family reunion. There was no line-- purposefully, my dad and his sibs just all spread out in the room. I was stationed near the door (room was too small) much of the time, and it was kind of funny to see the people in line out there (long line for another viewing going on simultaneously) watching our loud group. I sure hope we didn't offend them.

Thur afternoon was the funeral at Beaverdam Christian Reformed Church, where my grandpa attended most of his life. I played piano with the church's organist (also a family friend), I also accompanied Lea Anne's gorgeous rendition of Great Is Thy Faithfulness. One uncle and one aunt got up to share memories and it was very nice. The pastor had known my grandparents for around 10? years, so he also had some personal memories to share. Probably most interesting for me, tho, was my dad's uncle Allen, who really was more like a cousin to him-- only 2 years older than my dad. My grandma was one of 13 Petroelje kids, and Allen was born after she had married my grandpa. Allen mentioned that it was always pretty cool for him to tell his friends in school that he had had a brother-in-law before he was even born. :) Allen is now a retired CRC pastor, and he did the committal at the church as well as the short graveside service. He told stories of loving to go visit Joe and Wilma's house, etc. It was a very special service.

The picture above is from the short graveside committal we had after the funeral (just for my grandpa's descendents). Most interesting part of all this... my dad had provided corn from his fields (Jenna actually helped him pick it, from the fields that are right behind the house where my dad grew up), and the kids, grandkids and great grandkids were invited to place some kernals on the casket. Rev. Allen read the scripture about how a seed has to go into the ground to produce a wonderful new plant, and then he applied it to death and burial.

After this, we went back to the church for ham on buns. :) (Always!) and then my mom had invited all the family to their house for the evening. Nice to see my cousins and their kids, and fun for Micah and Boden to get a chance to play again! BTW, Jenna was also great with Heidi-- she read her many, many books, and they had fun hanging around together. Jenna was a terrific help on this trip. She helped with Micah and played with her younger cousins. She faithfully did her schoolwork, and just was very pleasant.






Here's Logan by my mom's toy closet.












My sister, Elizabeth, who is very adept at holding multiple kids on her lap, reading to her boys and Heidi.

Natalie had schoolwork to do, and then she hung out in the corner reading a book. See the smile? She wasn't real happy about me taking the pic. :)

Caleb and Logan in their playroom. We babysat them a couple times-- once so Liz could work on the picture boards for displaying at the funeral home.

The boys are wonderful. So much fun to see them growing up. Talking more! One said, "Bye-bye, Aunt Shell!"

This is where dad and Jenna picked that corn-- see the corn in the back of the pic? Jenna was quite a bit nervous about riding thru the fields in the pickup truck, they slipped and slid a bit because of the wetness.

On Friday, I mentioned I wanted to take a walk during Micah's nap, so my dad and I went to this path-- directly on the other side of the freeway from them. Much of it was a path maintained for the owner to ride 4-wheelers.

Beautiful walk! Fall colors are starting to show there.

Nice ravine there, so we did some ups and downs, but skirted the ravine.

My dad's corn-- he rents the field from the 4-wheeler guy, who wants dad to leave a path around the fields so he can ride around the edges. Makes for a very pretty spot!

Mom's very pretty flowers.

They just got their barn painted in Aug. Maybe you can't tell on the pic, but it sure looks nice!

Micah LOVES this book of Grammy's-- 8 Silly Monkeys. He memorized it. :)

Our plane home left Grand Rapids at 5:30, but I wanted to be very early to make sure we got seats together (didn't have these on the way out-- had to ask people to trade, which they did-- whew!). The GR airport has this great play area near the Starbucks and lots of tables, plus it was very empty, so we hung out here with mom and dad for a while before going thru security.

Flight back was terrific-- more than half empty. Micah and Jenna are very good travelers. And it was non-stop to BWI.

It wasn't quite as pleasant finding our bus to the longterm parking area and then finding our car in the sea of cars there, but it went fine. And the drive home was more on the miserable side for me. It was dark and rainy and foggy on the mountains.

Boy, we sure got a warm reception upon arriving at home! Chad and Katie and Claire had made this neat sign for us. We got lots of huge hugs, and it was great to be together again!

They had a pretty good week at home, all in all. They got to eat TV dinners and Easy Mac and other special treats. Played tennis and went to Katie's volleyball games. Ate out at IHOP.

I'm really thankful that they were willing to work out that I could go!