We all survived! The drive
to Iowa was actually A-MAZ-ING. Really. Hardly a peep from any of the kids. There was a minor incident when we were about 2 miles from my parents house. Owen decided he was hungry (uhm, he was screaming - he doesn't do that) and I didn't want to stop to feed him, so I made the conscious decision to speed to just get there already! And a wonderfully nice County Sheriff decided to drive by. And I got pulled over - literally 1/2 mile before the turn to my parents house. Literally. I may have cried, but I did not get a ticket. Whew!
We had a great time on the farm, with my parents, my sisters and all the cousins. It is best described with photos, so enjoy!
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| Leaving all the smoke in Colorado! This is the plume of smoke behind our house... a few days before we left for Iowa. I was hopeful that we would come back to no smoke, but there was a lot of smoke yesterday from a fire in Wyoming. Sigh.... |
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| YAY! Sleeping with one of his "prizes" from the Dollar Store. He ate precisely 2 bananas and 1 million cookies on the drive to Iowa. But he did not cry. Success! :) |
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| My sisters and all the kids (minus Owen). |
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| Elijah on the slip and slide. A big hit with the "oppressive" heat and humidity in Iowa. "Oppressive" was the description used by the meteorologist on the news there. |
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The "big" cousins taking a break from the slipping and sliding for a photo opportunity. :)
Morgan is the only girl.... then there are the 7 boys that follow. |
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| The water guns and pool were also a big hit! |
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| We had an early birthday party for Elijah so he had a chance to celebrate with his cousins. |
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| Crazy clouds on my parents farm. We just don't see clouds like that in Colorado. |
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| Owen and his cousin Kyle. |
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| Dalton playing his DS and Elijah watching/soaking it all in. |
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| Derek & Kyle (brothers) doing the same thing. |
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| Morgan and Gavin watching TV. |
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| Another day of TV watching and snuggling. |
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| Grandpa worked on teaching Elijah to drive the Oliver 66. I mean, he is almost 6, so he really needs to master this skill. I believe I was driving the tractors by myself around the age of 10. |
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| Gavin watching and waiting for his turn on the tractor. |
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| All the kids! Kyle, Dalton, Derek, Elijah, Morgan, Owen, Alex & Gavin |
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| Alex. He is just too cute. |
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| I took the big kids on a geocaching adventure. It was all fun until we got to a point where we were supposed to go back into those weeds behind them. Uhmmm.... no thanks. |
That sums up the trip! It was a lot of fun. The drive back to Colorado was significantly less fun.... turns out the kids were tired and didn't want to spend numerous hours buckled into their carseats. But we made it home without incident. Looking forward to adventuring back again soon. :)
