Surprise!!

For Memorial Weekend, John and I decided we wanted an adventure- after little thought, we decided a road trip to Michigan! The catch was, each of us promised we wouldn't tell anyone we were coming! :) We left right after work that Friday afternoon and began our trek! I used to have quite a bit disdain for road trips, but the longer John and I are married, they continue to grow on me! I had quite a bit of work to get done in the car, and John loves to drive- so it all worked out! The day before we left, we told John's sister Jayne that we were making the trip- we figured if we were going to drive 12 hours, at least one person in Michigan should know! :)

We arrived about 12:30 am Saturday morning, and we knew everyone from John's family was at the lake, so we broke into his parents house and helped ourselves to bed, a shower and some food! I had called my brother on the drive up to chat and after some indirect questions, figured out everyone was going to be home Saturday morning. So after John and I caught a few hours of sleep we headed to my parents house to surprise all of them! It was SO fun to see their reactions!! Steph & my dad were downstairs when John & I walked in- Steph said she heard someone at the door and figured my dad was going to get the paper but when she looked at the door she saw the lock switch and my dad was nowhere in sight- so she had a look of fear/shock when we walked in! :) My mom and Dyl wrere still sleeping, so I woke my mom up and then headed to Dyl's room. I snuck in and started singing a song we used to sing at camp to wake each other up- so he knew exactly what was going on and tackled me for a big hug out of a dead sleep! :) We had Skyped with my family on Johns birthday and led them to believe we were going to be with Phil so nobody suspected us to show up on their front steps!!

Fortunately, nobody had plans for a few hours, so we grabbed breakfast with them before heading out to Holland to surprise the Jonker family- who was equally surprised to see us! We were texting with Jayne on the way over and she said she was going to round everyone up in the kitchen. We arrived about lunch time and somehow, no one saw us through the windows, so we walked into the kitchen with everyone getting lunch ready and everyone had intense looks of shock/confusion- especially Jill! It was SO much fun to surprise them- it took a few minutes for them to realize it was real life and we were really there!

It was a fun filled afternoon that began with the first bike ride of the year to the General Store!! It's crazy how much older all of the kids seem this summer- even compared to the last time we'd seen them!

The Herweyers, Shatto's and Jeff were out at the lake for the weekend- it was so much fun catching up with everyone and spending some time on the 'best lake in the world' in John's words!

Monreau was an AWESOME trail behind bike partner! If that sweet face isn't in the front of the pack, she can do some hard core peddling!!

We weren't planning on the boat being in the water, so it was an added bonus that Jeff had already taken care of it! In addition to an awesome bike ride- we got the first boat ride of the summer as well! John squatted down to get a quick photo with McLleyton on the dock and he mimicked John for this sweet shot! :)

I feel like I have a shot like this every time John & McLleyton are together- it's always fun for me to walk a few steps behind them listening to the conversations they have- I love the fact that these two just gravitate to each other. It's so fun for me to watch!

It also wouldn't have felt like the beginning of summer without a trip to Pronto Pups in Holland! Stennson, Jayne, Shaelyn and Poppy enjoying the sunshine! It's so fun to see how much Stennson has grown up- he's so much more engaged with people and what's going on around him! We loved our time with Jayne and Shaelyn as usual- and had so much fun with a happy, healthy Poppy!!!

As we were boarding the boat from Pronto Pups to head to the beach, we ran into my sister!! Steph was  in Holland with a couple of her friends- it was so great to get some sister time with her!!

I know this picture is a little blurry, but we woke up one morning the three little girls delivering us breakfast in bed!! :)

We hung out at the lake until Monday and then headed back to Grand Rapids with some time with my family. The day that we arrived, my grandma had a stroke and my saint of a mom spent every day/night that weekend with her- so we took the time that she could sneak away on Monday night.

My cousin James, Missy and Jaxson came over to grill and it was a laid back night of socializing with some of our favorite people!

It was so fun to watch Dylan and my dad play with Jaxson- he is such a cute, happy little guy!!

How can you not smile when you see this picture?! :) It was so great to get back to Grand Rapids and spend time with everyone. We have some pretty awesome friends here in Greensboro, but definitely miss our families back in Michigan! We are so thankful to have two sets of families that love and support us unconditionally- that's a blessing I don't think we acknowledge often enough! 

John's 27th Birthday

So I'm a little behind on getting theses pictures up, but John is officially 27 now! It's crazy how time flies!! There were birthday festivities the weekend before his birthday and the weekend after, so we just did a birthday dinner at Mellow Mushroom with a couple of friends on his actual birthday!

John's best friends in Greensboro- Phil & Brad. It so fun for me to watch John's relationships with these awesome guys grow- I am so so thankful for them!

Love him!

Singing 'Happy Birthday' while he blew out his candles!

My parents had sent presents in the mail, so we Skyped with them while John opened the gifts they sent!

Boogity, Boogity, Boogity, Let's Go Racing Boys!

Last weekend was John and his friend Phil's birthday weekend. As some of you may know, since moving to North Carolina, John has become quite the NASCAR fan, so what better way to celebrate a birthday than a NASCAR race with friends!! Last year, we went to the Coca-Cola 600 race over Memorial Day, which was soooooo long (600 miles to be exact!). We decided to go to the All Star race this year which was two official races, but broken down into 5 sections, which made it more fun to watch! The first section was to qualify for the actual race and the winners of the next three sections started first, second and third for the final leg of the race! It kept everyone on their toes!

Somehow, we talked a few of our friends into joining us for the race and tailgating ahead of time- we are so so thankful to have such awesome friends who are always up for an adventure with us!!

The two birthday boys, Phil & John! Not only did we get our friends to come along with us, but they took the idea and ran with it so we were all decked out in order to fit in with the crowd! :) We tailgated out front for a couple of hours and, naturally, we picked up some friend chicken and rolled our our ladder golf game! As the competition intensified, the group tailgating across the dirt road yelled over to us "your losers play our losers!" So we merged our tailgating parties and had a few intense games of ladder ball and bean bag toss!

My sweet friend Danielle- I am so so grateful to have this girl in my life! I love that she can roll with the punches and is always up for an adventure!!

It's hard to believe it's been a year since we went to our last race- a year since we moved to North Carolina. I love all of the spontaneous adventures John & I have found down here- I'm a pretty lucky lady!!

The NASCAR gang! The race was fun last year, but it was definitely more fun having so many great friends to join us and completely embrace the culture!

We felt like we knew the ropes better going into the race this year so we had our earplugs and coolers ready! It was kind of ironic that the majority of our group was from North Carolina and had never been to a NASCAR race before- John had a lot of fun educating them! :)

The people in front of us told us it wouldn't be a true NASCAR experience unless a fight broke out, and sure enough- a few rows ahead of us! The bike cops were called and people were escorted out- needless to say, it definitely fired up the people sitting in our section! It was a true first race experience for our friends Danielle & Jon!

Last year, the race was fun for John because it was a total culture shock and it was hard to believe that everyone who attended the race was very serious about the entire hoopla. This year it was fun because John will occasionally catch a race on tv and now pays a little more attention when ESPN runs the NASCAR highlights! :) It was definitely a fun birthday part 1, we'll have part 2 coming soon!!

Pilot Mountain Exploration!

Last Sunday was kind of an overcast day and what better thing to do on a day like that then find an adventure! Spur of the moment we drove to Pilot Mountain and Mount Airy to check it out! We had never been before- and being only an hour away my dad has been strongly suggesting we go- because who wouldn't want to check out the home of the Andy Griffith Show? :)

When we got to Pilot Mountain we had the option of climbing from the bottom, or drive 3/4 of the way up and explore the trails. Not knowing what we were getting ourselves into and wanting to see the view we opted to drive up and then explore.

It was the perfect day and not humid at all!

This was one of the views from where we drove to and John wanted to figure out how to get to the top of that peak- so we went hiking to figure it out!

The trails were beautiful! None of the picture I took can really do it justice! We ran into a couple groups of people who were rock climbing! It was pretty cool! But John and I sat down to take a break on one of the rocks and park ranger came walking by asking if we had seen someone fall! As we continued our hike we ran into several other people who were looking for the same person but nobody ever found him while we were there! We read in the newspaper the next day that someone was out for a run on the trail, had tripped and fallen down a 50 foot embankment- pretty scary stuff!

Despite all of the chaos going on, we were still able to enjoy the rest of our day- all of the rhododendron's were in full bloom and it was beautiful walking through the tunnel that they made and enjoying the birds eye view of the surrounding area!

As if hiking wasn't enough (being the outdoor kind of girl that I am), I decided to show off a bit and hold up the mountain....

and John wanted to make sure I knew that he was strong enough to do it as well :)

We got so caught up on the trails and how beautiful everything was, and shortly after I took this picture we realized we didn't know where we were anymore! We whipped out the iPhone (because that's supposed to help us out in every situation right?!) and due to lack of service we weren't able to figure it out! Yikes! So we spent a little more time on the mountain than we anticipated but really enjoyed the time with each other!

Our friend Taylor lives in Mount Airy and was meeting our friend Phil to play golf so we made plans to all meet for dinner. John & I had some time to kill after hiking so decided to check out what Mt. Airy was all about! My dad may have dis-owned me had we been in Mount Airy and not swung by the Blue Bird Diner- to his dismay, Juanita must have had the day off! :)

We also discovered that Mount Airy has the world's largest open faced rock quarry and it happens to be a granite quarry. So the story goes, the man who purchased this piece of land in the mid-1850's thought it would be a piece of land great for farming. He was extremely upset when he found that it was all rock so demanded the seller refund his money- so he got the land and was refunded the price he purchased it for! Not many states have a state rock- but the Mount Airy Rock Quarry has been designated the state rock of North Carolina! All the fun things we're learning on our adventures down here!! :)

Adventure Season!

So I'm a bit behind on blogging, but with the weather here constantly being close to 80, adventure season has officially begun!! We kicked it off two weekends ago with a trip to the Lexington BBQ Capital Cook-Off! Lexington, NC is known for it's BBQ and people travel from near and far to get a taste of it! They have an annual BBQ festival in the fall (this year will be the 29th year its been going!) that hundreds of thousands of people show up to! The event that we went to was the second annual BBQ cook-off where 50 or so teams show up (some are international!!) and compete for who can make the best BBQ- it was definitely a type of event we had never experienced before!

This tent had signs saying they had won numerous BBQ cook-offs so we figured it was definitely worth checking out! Our good friend Ashley tagged along as well- it was fun to introduce a North Carolina native to one of festivals that NC is known for!

Ok, not the best picture, but I realized after the fact that it was the only one I took of us together on this adventure! Ashley thought we were driving to Lexington just to grab a BBQ lunch, so she was in for a treat when she realized it was an actual event! It's so fun to have friends who are up for a spontaneous adventure with us- but we were on a hunt for an ATM when I snapped this one! :)

We spent all afternoon trying to figure out these conflicting signs- the white one says "$7 a dozen" but the cardboard sign on the window says "2 for $1"

There were several live bands and country artists performing, and BBQ Pitmasters from the TLC channel was in attendance as well, but our favorite part of the day was.....

Life-size Jenga!! One of the teams had finished cooking all of their BBQ and were sitting around having a few beers playing this Jenga game that they had created the pieces for! We asked to join in and had so much fun! The higher the tower got, the more people began to gather around- so the pressure got pretty intense toward the end! Ashley played her piece well here and fortunately one of the guys who created the game lost- and barely escaped a toppling pile of two by fours! :) 

We're already had a couple more adventures so I'll make sure to keep the posts coming! 

Captiva Island!!

Who ever said that spring break is only for kids in school?! John and I were pretty spoiled Easter weekend and were able to take a trip to Captiva Island, Florida with half of the Jonker family! John's parents rented a house down there and we got to join in on the fun with his parents, the Shattos & Herweyers! It was so great to be able to spend so much quality time with them- after being in North Carolina for almost a year now, it's unbelievable how much the kids change each time we see them!

We had one day with awesome waves- definitely not suitable for the kids (without life jackets) but the adults loved it! Jill, Darren, Jayne, Matt, John & I got to play in them for a few hours in the afternoon- I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard! We got tossed around and bruised up a bit, but it was totally worth it! :)

The house we were at was the perfect location for a lemonade stand- which the kids did an amazing job of for a few afternoons!! How could you say no to these cuties?

John LOVED his McLleyton time and I think it's safe to say MC enjoyed his time with John as well! They are great buddies and it's so fun to watch them interact together- John loves this picture where they are walking in sync

I love these boys! It was so fun to see how much Jacob had grown up since the last time we saw them and how much more he is talking! Jacob and MC are starting to become good buddies! 

I just loved this pictures of Matt & Stennson on the beach! How fun!

These kids are all so great- and only half the clan John and I have been blessed with as nieces and nephews! Each of them have their own unique personalities but I can't imagine what life would be like without every single one of them!

There was a great pool at the house, and uncle John was good for a few good tosses every day! It always blows Johns mind how adventurous Monreau is!

That sweet girl can definitely hold her own! She's turning out to be more of a fish than John is!

I am SO thankful to have such a wonderful husband who loves spending time with family as much as I do!

Jayne set up an awesome Easter egg hunt for the girls (what an great mom!!!)- it was so fun watching them read the clues and work together to do a little sleuth work to figure out where the next egg was at!

Stennson was so ready for his picture to be taken! It was so much fun to get some quality time with Jayne and see how much Stenners personality has developed- he's a smiley little guy!

We were so glad that Poppy was able to come too! 

Thanks Nanny & Poppy for such a wonderful spring break!!!