Today Is Sweeter: a tree and the beach

Hello again! We're gearing up for some extremely hot weather this week in Michigan! So I thought I'd share some pics of our beach day at Millenium Park a few weeks ago. We loved the man-made beach almost as much as our trips out to the West Michigan shoreline, and the splash pad is UH-MAZING! Most of our beach pictures are of Blake (we don't really take pictures of "us" much these days!). He's getting really good at making anything into a hat- including his sand bucket- and he insanely loves the TASTE of sand. BLECH!!

First though....a sneak peek into our backyard. No, I've not been planting flowers or weeding (any volunteers??). Just a rundown of our "excitement" for the week!

Monday was a weird exciting day. An early morning thunderstorm had us being lazy waking up and Blake and I finally got out of bed around 9am! About an hour later I was standing at the kitchen counter clipping a coupon and I heard a loud CRACKKKK....the only thing I could see out the kitchen window was tree branches! I grabbed Blake away from the slider door and stared out the glass in amazement....our big Redbud tree had completely fallen over. The roots were sticking way up in the air and the only thing we can see off our deck now is tree =)

Blake of course kept saying "Whoa...wow!" over and over, and when we called daddy to tell him about the tree Blake had a very long jabbering story to tell. I'm thankful that the tree only hit the deck and that we don't have much damage. I'm also more thankful that the tree didn't come through the house and that we weren't hurt!

Small blessings in disguise....because the tree landed partially on the deck, our insurance will pay for most of the removal and repair costs. We also will have some room now to put in a playset for Blake next summer. God's good even in the midst of the strange and unexpected things that "fall" our way!