Our first destination was Ottawa, KS to celebrate my Granny's 90th Birthday. We took highway 50 vs. I-80 through Nevada. Turned out to be a wise choice as the landscape was actually green and scenic through Nevada going this route. After a pretty successful day in the car with both kids (for the most part), we promised Leah an ice cream cone at Mc Donald's. We stopped just inside Utah and of course the Mc Donald's ice cream machine was broken. AARGHH! Luckily, the young man suggested a local joint down the road that sold ice cream cones.
This ended up being a good choice. The kids got kid-sized ice cream cones and Scott and I got rootbeer floats. While we were enjoying our treats-we ended up chatting with two grandparents who came over to compliment us on our cute, well-behaved children. They were on their way home from a 2 week camping trip with 13 of their grandchildren. Every summer they take all the grandkids over age 11 camping for 2 weeks, without their parents. We had a very nice chat with them, perhaps it was even nices since we'd been talking to a 4 year old & almost 2 year old all day! We stayed Utah the first night and went swimming with the kids to expel any excess energy from sitting in the car for 9+ hours.
We travelled through the rest of Utah and Colorado the next day. We made it to the first town inside Kansas-Goodland and stayed the night in this town. Once again we used the pool to tire the kids out. Back in the car on Friday and reaching our destination about 6pm that night-Granny's House. Several family members arrived later for a visit and it was another late night for our kids. We spent Saturday visiting with relatives and then travelling to my cousin's farm for the BIG celebration for Granny's 90th! We left the farm just after 7pm as a big thunderstorm was headed our way. On the 30 minute drive back to Granny's house we listened to tornado warnings for the towns we were approaching and pulled over to watch the ominous clouds as the tornado almost touched the ground! If my mom had not been in our van-I think Scott would have become a "storm-chaser".
We stayed for church and dinner on Sunday with family and headed out after breakfast Monday morning for Chicago. Our 9 hour drive took 13 hours because of a semi-truck accident. We were stuck for 2 hours between 2 off-ramps only 3 miles apart! Needless to say we arrived at my sister's house around 10pm and promptly went to bed. We enjoyed our brief stay in Lisa and Ron's new home and took the kids to the nearby park and the Field Museum. And although it was the hottest 2 days Chicago had seen all summer (and since-according to my sister), we enjoyed our visit and I do believe I've convinced Scott to travel to Chicago for another visit sometime in the future-just not in June!
Job Update:
No real news yet. Scott is still working for Centex-soon to be Pulte, but will hopefully have a better idea by the end of August whether he will need to look for new employment. Scott is not stressed about it at all and is confident that if he does get laid-off, he'll have no problem finding work.
Kid Update:
Nolan is Mr. Chatterbox and surprises all of us with new sentences frequently. He has started the "tumultous two's". Though I know we dealt with these with Leah; Nolan's appear to be more frequent and volatile. Head-banging, throw his whole body on the floor.....I would laugh at him if I wasn't so frustrated with him.
Leah-She is so easy right now in comparison and sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. Scott and I both try to spend one-on-one time with her. She like to write her "letters" and "read" stories to Nolan. She is such a great big sister.
That's pretty much it. We have a camping trip coming up next week and in August is the Rescue Fire Dept. Hot August Nite Fundraiser-which Scott is still in charge of cooking for the event. We'll be going camping again in October-crabbing in Bandon, Oregon.
Thanks for reading and have a great rest of summer!
