We're back -- Picture overload

We've been on vacation for the last 9 days, so hopefully that explains the lack of posting. I'm happy to say that we are home safe and sound.

We left last week for our stay in D's hometown of Fairfield Iowa. Four of the five boys and their families all came along too, so we needed a bigger house to fit us all. We stayed at this enormous house bought by some members as a vacation home for when they came to visit Nauvoo. I think someone said it was 10,000 square feet -- indoor and outdoor pool, bowling alley, 7 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, two laundry rooms, two offices. . . basically we all had plenty of space. This could be a little scary at times, though, because we never knew where Nate was. We just knew if the house was quiet too long, he and his buddy Wyatt were up to trouble.

So you're probably wondering what we did for 9 days in a small town in Iowa! Well, here goes:
*Crunch Cones -- For all the talk, I thought they were over rated, but the kids loved them. Basically they're soft served ice cream cones with some sort of crunch concotion sprinkled all over the top. I think we went on a Crunch Cone run almost every day we were there.
*Swimming -- not only at the house pool, but also at the public pool which had a rockin' water slide.

*Pool Relays -- the source of a heated debated.
*Parks -- For a small town, Fairfield has a zillion parks. We visited quite a few. Nate and Ellie even got to go down a slide that was still there from when D was a kid.

* Bowling

*Hide and Go Seek -- in a house that big, Hide and Go Seek was definitely one of my favorite games we played all week.
*Ooga Booga -- so I can't tell you what it is since it's a secret initiation, but I can post some pictures and tell you the kids thought it was hysterical.


*Ratatouille -- super cute movie.
*Cars, Barbies, movies, crafts, Wii, pool, playing with cousins . . .


*Fireworks -- Poor Nate was injured by a sparkler and is now paranoid of heat even more.


*Books -- I finished TWO this vacation, plus two trashy magazines, and the end of my Sudoku book.
*Matching shirts

*Running and walking -- One of the few times D and I got to work out together.
*Too much food
*Barack Obama -- I'm not even kidding. He was in Fairfield for a speech on the 3rd of July, so my sister-in-law and I went down to the square to listen. I guess it pays to be in Iowa during election season. It was pretty cool to see him in person and he was a very dynamic speaker. (PS not my picture below -- he was much more "cas" when we saw him).

* Art Walk and Street Dance -- small towns are happening on a weekend
*Fishing -- Oh yeah, the house was on acreage with a fishing lake.
*Fire fly catching
*Growing up -- While we were in Iowa, Sadie decided to grow up. She started on sweet potatoes, she starting sitting up better, starting sleeping without being swaddled, started putting herself to sleep, started scooting large distances. . . it was a sad week for growing up.

*Getting into trouble -- Remember early when I said we knew the boys were up to no good when it was quiet? Usually they headed straight for a bedroom since there was a room full of mirrored closets that they loved to run in and out of, so one morning we realized how quiet it was and set off to our bedroom. They had crawled into Sadie's Port-a-crib (and woken her up the stinkers) and were loving all over her.

*Late night games -- Chris always has the best games and I stayed up too late too many nights.
*Sheer exhaustion -- the kids worn out and we're looking forward to trying to relax today.


The whole way to the airport (a 4 hour drive), Ellie cried that she didn't want to leave Iowa, so it was definitely a successful trip!