Trip to Michigan...and even more Cousins!

This has been the summer of cousins for us--we have been able to visit with more cousins than we have seen in years!  It is awesome!

This past weekend a cousin on my Mom's side got married in Grand Rapids, MI.  We drove out on Friday, stopping for lunch at Pop's in the Chicago area.  Now, when we lived there, we used to eat at Pop's a lot, as there was one right by Trinity Christian College, where my Dad taught.  Their Italian beef is to die for.  It is a rare thing for me to get a good, Chicago Italian beef nowadays, and even rarer to get one at Pop's.  What a treat!  We also bought a couple pounds of Italian beef to bring to the cousin we stayed with.  Note:  Scott was not a big fan of the Italian beef sandwich because "the bread was soggy."  I guess if you didn't grow up in the Chicago area, you just don't appreciate the finer things in life.  But I digress...

We stayed with my cousin Jill, who is related on my Dad's side.  They have a nice house out in the country with a huge yard, and also have a 3 year old son.  It was great to see her and meet her family (I think the last time I saw her was maybe in junior high!).  It also worked well to stay there because she was not going to the wedding, and said they would be happy to take care of Laurel during the wedding.  I don't think Laurel is capable of sitting through a wedding right now, and would have just run around like a maniac at the reception.  But, she had a blast spending the day with her cousins!

Laurel started off wearing shorts.  They SOMEHOW got wet, and she took them off.  A short while later her shirt was wet, and she came to me and said, "I want to be naked city."  We let her run around in just her diaper for a while, but eventually I took her inside and put her into her swimsuit.

It's a hat full of water!

Want a sip of my pop?

Running through the sprinkler

 We spent the morning and early afternoon out in the yard.  Then Scott and I got ourselves (and Nicolas) ready for the wedding and took off.  Laurel did not take a nap, and apparently they ran around like crazy all afternoon, and were tired out by bedtime!

My cousin got married at a church in GR, and then the reception was downtown.  I wore my new shoes and got giant blisters on my little toes, which was not so nice.  But, the weather was beautiful, the wedding was beautiful, and we got to see so many cousins (and aunts and uncles)!

Nice photo bomb!

When they called for the Dollar Dance, I gave Nicolas a dollar and he got to dance with the bride.  

 On Sunday morning we went to the church where my Uncle is the pastor (although he wasn't preaching that morning).  I think I lost my Navigator's licence for the day, as we made many wrong turns and missed turns on the way there, and were a few minutes late.  

After church, all the Huizenga family members (my Mom's side) congregated at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Kalamazoo.  They live by a lake, and have a lovely house, with a lovely view of the lake.  It was truly wonderful to see all these family members, talk to them, catch up on their lives, and just be around family.  The last time I saw a lot of them was at our last family reunion, when they were all high school kids and younger, and now they are college grads and getting married!

My cousin had a baby 2 months after Nicolas was born.  We did some baby swapping!

Dad must have been telling a very exciting story!

We stayed in a hotel in Kalamazoo on Sunday night so that we wouldn't have to drive an hour back to GR that night, and so that we could cut an hour off our trip home on Monday.  My sister Lynn had ridden up with my parents (and left her 6 kids and hubby at home), but rode back with us...that was a little cozy in the back seat of the car with 2 car seats and an adult!  The kids traveled pretty well, although each way we had about 45 minutes of Nicolas crying for no reason.  We didn't stop at Pop's again on the way home, unfortunately.  :)