The Winny-anna Vacay

So, here's the rest of the story of the trip with my parents to Indiana (or Winny-anna as my niece used to say) to visit my brother's fam...

This post is going to take the rest of my life, because I'm uploading a million pictures, but I took 10 million pictures, so consider yourselves warned.

I wish I could say that we had a completely uneventful drive down, but NO! The rental car company wouldn't add me to the rental, because I only had a temporary license with MN and my WI one had just expired 10 days before. Well, the lovely Minnesota somehow doesn't think there is a possible way to generate a license number until they send you the real thing in the mail. I guess having a number on the application would be too simple. Anyway, I had to go to the DMV and get them to give me the number, because obviously they couldn't do something like that over the phone, right? So, after then going back to the rental place to add me, somehow that put us two hours behind our planned start time. No worries, right? Ugh.

We also stopped for a picnic lunch and a number of bathroom breaks, plus I was in the back seat with the kids, so it was kind of a long drive! I slept a lot, which made my mom think that then I'd fall asleep when I drove back alone with the kids, which I didn't, of course. I just enjoy sleeping I guess.

Anyway, we evidently brought the rain with us, but we still had fun. We went swimming a couple times, and John got to the point where he was comfortable "swimming" by himself with a life jacket on and Sara was doing well with floaties, too. It was so fun to see them having so much fun without clinging to me for dear life. I've got to get them in lessons. John even jumped in by himself--I can't believe he's so big!

Of course I only took pictures when we first got in, so they weren't doing anything too exciting by this point. Dangit!



We also went to the amazing children's museum in Indianapolis, which had a ton of dinosaur stuff, so John was in Heaven. Just check out the pictures. There was also an interesting Egyptian culture exhibit, so that was fun and lots of other cool stuff. It was such a fun day to watch Sara and Maggie glued at the hip. Sara loves her Maggie so much, and I'm so glad she has a little match! Yay!

Can you imagine John's face when we drove up and saw this?
This guy had this thing magically suspended between his hands (I wish I knew how) and he let John do it. He told him to wiggle his fingers. Afterwards, John was so impressed with himself. He said, "I didn't even know I was magic!"

Told you these girls couldn't get enough of each other.

They were not in the mood for posing...
I'm a paleontologist for real now!
And a dinosaur, too!

This carousel was fun, too!
But Sara looks like she's a little nervous!
Evidentally, this is what cars are like in Egypt.
And this is "my" new baby Eva the Diva! Love her!

Saturday we played and had a photo shoot of the girls in their new goodies from Grandma. Look at those happy girls in their tutus and all. They were pretty silly in them, but they totally loved them!!









And this is what happens when you give John such a large thing to draw on--a life-size velociraptor!
Oh, and we've got to do the photo shoot again with the baby now! Love her expressions...


We had a lot of good food and now I'm totally inspired by my sis-in-law to get more into canning and gardening. She is amazing and hasn't even let student life--or having a baby--keep her from all things domestic, which was the excuse I've used forever (the student one, not the baby one). They had a community garden plot they did this summer and a ton of stuff on their deck, too. It made me miss my Topsy Turvy. Sigh. Since she suggested I start with a food dehydrator, I guess she must not think I can hack the real deal yet (jk Meg, it was good advice). I just might get into all this!

Sunday of course was the blessing, which was beautiful, and then they had a lovely luncheon for the family--my parents, the kids and I, and Megan's parents, who had flown in the night before. Sunday was a perfect day, so we were outside for hours, just enjoying it all. The kids played and played so well, that they pretty much left us alone, which was nice to be able to chat. I even got a little sunburned, which will undoubtedly be my last since the day before it had snowed in Minnesota. Jared texted me this tragic news, and I texted back that he was on his own, and I'd see him next summer. Seriously, snow on October 10th? Really? That was hard to go home to.

I didn't take too many pix with my camera, since there were three others out and the kids just were not too cooperative. Do I even have a picture of my brother on here? Sorry, Jus! I'll have to steal one off your blog.

Monday morning my parents flew their separate ways--wait, what was that you said? Yes, seriously, but just because my mom was going to Salt Lake to then fly to New York the next day with a different sis-in-law to go visit their friend and party some more. So, anyway, the kids and I were on our own to navigate to Kenosha--no prob! Luckily, they still think McDonald's toys are amazing, so they are easy to bribe. I had decided to take the drive back in two days thinking 11 hours was too much, plus it'd be fun to see Kenosha again for 2 seconds. It's not that far from Indianapolis to Chicago, so I decided to "enjoy the journey" and stop and show the kids the Chicago temple. I tried to make it a reverent kind of thing, but they just thought the fountains were fun and wanted to throw pennies in, which I don't think is the expected behavior, and I didn't let them. They did agree it was beautiful. Anyway, we got back in the car and headed to visit our "old" friends the Johnsons.

In about 3 seconds, the kids had their basement in tatters, and they were so dang loud, Julie and I could hardly hear ourselves! But it was cute to watch them so excited. I had to earn back Chloe's love, who had either forgotten me or not forgiven me for leaving.




So, for those of you in for the long haul that are still reading, I've about reached the end here. We totally wanted to see more of our K-town friends (and our Milwaukee fam) and wish we could have gone to church or something to see everybody, but of course, by this time, we were ready to get home. So Tuesday morning after cupcakes for breakfast, we quickly said hello to the Hawleys, well, baby and Mama, who had just gotten back from Minneapolis, and then headed back to the frozen north ourselves. And where yes, we were greeted by snow, oh and one happy Jared. He had even cleaned for us. Sweet!