The Ploegs: Thursdays with Daddy

Thursdays with Daddy are the best. Jack usually works most Saturdays so Thursdays are our 'Saturdays.' I'm first to acknowledge that there are some benefits to this arrangement -- I can schedule doctor appointments that day for me or the kids (during "normal business hours" and not have to lug around all three), we can do fun activities, like Boulder Ridge, when it's not crazy busy. On the other hand, it's a bummer in that most people DO have Saturdays off so any friends / family events that occur on a Saturday usually don't work out so well and also, I think Jack would like the back-to-back days to rejuvenate. Regardless, Thursdays are OUR day and I'm quite protective of it.

We've had a pretty nice fall of Thursdays and we've been pretty active in exploiting that. In addition to our standard "Kroc Center, Meijer for groceries, Uncle Brian over for dinner" routine, we've had some fun excursions (in addition to Boulder Ridge).

On September 26, we went to go check out ArtPrize in downtown Grand Rapids. It was a gorgeous day so I figured it would be busy, but given it was a Thursday, I thought we'd be fine. Well, we were fine but it was crazy busy (lots of school field trips). I can only imagine what weekends looked like.

Checking out the flags in the Grand River off the Blue Bridge.

Various ArtPrize fun.

Then the next week, October 3, we tried out Schwalliers Country Basket. It was such a cute place (I liked it better than Robinette's) but ... it rained -- and I mean down poured -- about an hour after we got there. We made the best of it though!

Feeding the goats.

Waiting out the rain while hiding in a barn.

The rain let up just enough for us to go through to the pumpkin patch for a few minutes.

And then today, we went to Post Family Farms and then to see cousin Tony play a JV Football game at Unity. I didn't get any photos of the game, which was super fun until the boys just lost their stamina, but here are a few from the farm!