Our Trip to Greenville

We spent time at Gramma and Grampa's boating and fishing and catching a mess of golf balls.

Then on Thursday we took a day trip to Greenville.
We played in a Children's Garden:

Explored the downtown river walk:

And finished by celebrating Elliot's birthday at P.F. Chang's with some gluten free Chinese.

Elliot Turns Two!!

A Cincinnati Ghost Mall

We stopped at the Cincinnati mall on our way down to South Carolina.  To our surprise it was a GHOST MALL!!  There were so few cars in the parking lot (for a Saturday afternoon) that, at first, we even questioned if it was open.  It has a few anchor stores that are doing okay, but inside the mall itself there was only one open store, two open eateries in the food court and about a dozen patrons total.  Most of the escalators were turned off, there was one janitor and one mall security guy (riding around on a Segway) whose main "job" seemed to be shooting the breeze.  It was kind of nice - we got to park very close to the door, the kids could run up and down the halls without being in anyone's way, the play area was pretty much empty, etc.

Watching Daddy Chain Saw

Sick, Sick, Sick

This whole house has been fighting a stomach bug.  First Elliot succumbed, then Peter, then Doug and finally me.  It was messy and unpleasant and necessitated about a million loads of laundry.

We spent a lot of time occupying the boys on the easily-cleaned hard wood floor.

Peter, being Peter, was especially thrown for a loop by being sick.  Physically I think he is fine now, but behaviorally he is still recovering...I hope.

Our One Week of Spring

Spring didn't arrive in Grand Rapids until the second week of May, and even then it didn't last long.  We took full advantage of our warmer days...

Our Trip to Aunt Vic's