Danesatopia

Dayna had a project at school to make her own country... Here is her commercial.

Zylstra Skiing

If you click on the OHIO Z's you will see our thanksgiving pictures see links below

5th grade band

Dayna has achieved a life long goal of playing the saxophone. Here is the You Tube video. It is not very good. But when the back row stand up, Dayna is the 3rd from the left.

Painting

Happy Fall/ Autumn

Happy falling leaves season to all of you that have it and even to those who don't. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm cold and damp and will probably be so for the next 7 months. I do like red leaves though!
Dayna won a limo ride through selling magazines and here are some photos.


















We have had other exciting events such as discovering a giant mushroom in the "ravine" behind our house.




















and.... Kiera's 1st invite to a princess birthday party

1st day of school/ soccer

The first week of school went really well. they all seem to like it. I don't quite know what to do with 3 whole days to myself J/k)

The following pictures are Kiera playing goalie and Dirk playing soccer. you can't tell from the picture but it rained the whole time. It's a little adjustment to coming home from a soccer game in NM totally fried!

New kidz on the block/Michigan activities?random thoughts

One thing that has been a huge blessing is the number of kidz on the block. We live on a cul-de-sac which is awesome for our kids to bike and play games in. 6 out of 10 houses at our end of the street have kids around the ages of ours. There are 3 girls around Dayna's age, 1 who is Kiera's age and a couple in between, (we had 8 girls in our basement the other day playing fashion show) . There are 2 boys the same age as Dirk and a couple of boys in sixth grade who like to rope in the younger boys for games. All within spitting distance. And we have the gully in our back yard which provides Dirk and his friends ample opportunity to explore and catch frogs. SO AWESOME. Oh and did I mention that they all send their kids to either Catholic or Grand Rapids Christian school? Rockin' I don't have many photos of the kids but here's a couple of various things we have done.
I probably won't blog again until the kids are in school. This is their 14th week of summer vacation. I think they will have forgotten everything they learned by the time school starts again. Kiera will start kindergarten this year M-W-F all day. I'm so excited I have a huge list of stuff I need to do yet associated with moving. Send me an email sometime!
sian

New house

We live on a pretty cool street. Lots of trees, gully in the back yard. Our new house is 2X as big as the one in Gallup Huge basement with lots of room for people to stay when they come and visit (hint hint). There are a couple of things we'd like to work on like the paneling in the living room and the cinderblock shower in the basement, but it is pretty cool. Here's a slide show.

update

I know I've been a slcker and haven't updated a thing so here we go with 3 updates. 1. trip 2. new house 3 new kidz on the block

GR

Hi,
I don't have any pictures yet but we had an awesome trip to Mesa Verde, Boulder, Mt Rushmore and the Badlands. Dayna, Dirk and Kiera are currently in Chicago enjoying some Nanna and Grandpa and Leys family time.
Jason and I have been doing all the things that you need to do when you move like banking, mortgage, kids soccer and figuring out how garbage gets picked up etc.
I went into our new house for the first time yesterday and liked it. Jas did a good job picking out a house for us!
laters,
sian

New House

We have some big news. We have a housee in Grand Rapids. It is on Rolling Hills dr se. No bites on our house yet however. We close the end of July and Jason and I will fly back to NM to pack up our house :{.

Grand Canyon

On our way to Phoenix we stopped at the Grand Canyon for a day.
Dayna was 4 and Dirk 18 mos. the last time they were there.

It was fun to show our kids such an awesome part of God's creation.

Miscellaneous May Events

May has been a pretty busy month for us it started out with us getting our house ready to put on the market. A short trip to Grand Rapids to look at schools and houses followed by the last week of school for the kids.

Here is a picture of Dayna's hands she was 4 when we put these on her door.


Mom and Dad graciously agreed to come up from Phoenix and paint.

1st grade field trip to Ft. Wingate fire station and McGaffey





4th/5th grade civil war play

We had Kiera's 5th Birthday extravaganza on a really windy day at the park.









Snow on May 22!!

New Mexico

As our time in New Mexico draws to a close we have been trying to fit as many trips in as we can. Here are a couple of Z Fam photos from around New Mexico.

Family hike to Church Rock


Church Rock

Angel Fire

Rio Grande Gorge bridge near Taos

Santa Fe

Ixtapa Pacific (ah)

We had an awesome time at club med in Ixtapa. we had tons of fun with our family and we enjoyed the activities and separate activities for our kids. I got to do a celebrity work out with Harvey someone from VH-1. Look on my sisters bog a glimpse into our lives for the details. It was wonderful. I don't know what I liked best. Well maybe the buffet but fortunately I did 2 aerobics classes a day to offset the effects of that. Dad and Mom thank so so much for the awesome time.
The Z Zam

Jerusalem

To all of you out there with no Dutch CRC connections whatsoever, Jerusalem is the other name in Dutchie circles for Grand Rapids, MI and come the end of June it will be the new abode of the Zylstra family.
When we started our job search process back in September we said, "wherever God wants us." So after visions of overseas jobs, Grand Rapids came as a bit of a, "Huh? and a Yes,but...?" It comes with many blessings though, our kids will get to live by Grand Parents for the first time in their lives, my sister and fun family live in Chicago and Mom and Dad will be there too in the summer, we can afford a house there, GR has some great Christian schools, my good friend Jess lives in Holland 1/2 hr away, we will no longer have a 4 hr round trip to the airport and orthodontist. Last but not least, we know that all good CRC people are drawn back there at least once in their lives and so we will see all of our Rehoboth friends again. So now we are getting ready to put our house on the market we're going through all of our belongings WOW, it is a little overwhelming. It's just not quite the adventure I had hoped for but maybe that's a good thing......
sian

Easter Sunday Fun in New Mexico

No, the kitchen is not finished yet. It still needs to be painted. BUT. We had a lot of fun yesterday. We went to the sunrise service up on Ressurection Rock, Easter Egg hunt, lunch at Ippels and then the crevice hike. And the piece de resistance! A ride in a car down a dune which is the you tube link. Enjoy!





Sunrise service at Ressurection Rock.





the three amigas





up there?







"oh, I get by with a little help from my friends."



cute new mexican kids














wedged in

just like michigan



just like michigan