Visiting the Shaffers

It's that time of year again—the August trip to Michigan!

We headed to Michigan last week for a fun-filled couple of days with the Shaffers, Grandma B., and Gigi. Elsa was SO excited to see Carter and Mia, and Claire seemed happy about it too, as evidenced by the fact that she screamed "Baby!" about 500 times. And that was just the first night we were there.

Carter and Claire were quite a pair during this visit. Claire just seemed to love playing with Carter, and Carter was happy to play with her. He's obviously such a good big brother to Mia! It was really sweet. It made me wish Claire had an older brother, since she was obviously enjoying that dynamic.

Meanwhile, Elsa kept telling us throughout the entire weekend that she "wanted to do everything Carter does." And she meant it, no exceptions. (Well, okay, there was one exception: Sleeping.) That's my little follower!

On Wednesday morning, we gathered up the whole gang to terrorize the employees of Field's Fabrics go shopping for material for Ellen's window treatments. On Thursday, we all (even Gigi) made the trip to Meijer Gardens, since I didn't get to see the whole thing when we went in April.

They also have a Dale Chihuly glass exhibit there right now, and I really love his stuff.

The Chihuly exhibits were especially interesting in the beautiful garden setting.

And the older kids got to feed the fish in the koi pond ...


... while Mia and Claire watched from their strollers.

We also had lots of fun playing on the Shaffers' newly-paved driveway.

Mia tried, in vain, to teach Claire to walk (although Claire has made a huge amount of progress recently and I do think she's very close to taking those first steps).

And we went for ice cream at Sundaes at the Cottage, near the Shaffers' house.

Everyone enjoyed their treats.

Elsa wanted a "sluggy"—actually a "Little Slugger" cone, which was an ice cream cone with a face and a baseball helmet.

We had a great time at the Shaffers' house! We miss you guys so much!