A long, sad vacation.

Hello my loyal blog readers,


I bet you are all thinking that I have fallen off the face of the Earth. Close...I just returned from spending the last two weeks back home in Indiana which is so vastly different than SW Kansas that it feels like another world. And I already really miss Indiana. I've only been back in Kansas for a day! 


DR and I didn't plan on being gone for two weeks. No, we planned on leaving on the 18th of May, visiting my family in northern Indiana and then seeing DR's family in southern Indiana, attending a high school graduation and being back home on Memorial Day, the 28th. But our stay was extended, unfortunately, and we didn't make it home until the first of June.


While we were in southern Indiana my Grandpa Asa passed away and we stayed the few extra days until his funeral. What a time it has been, both wonderful and terrible. It's terrible that we lost our grandpa but wonderful that he was promoted to Heaven and no longer suffering from the effects of Parkinson's. It was wonderful to see so many of my family and friends that I rarely have the chance to see on our short visits home but terrible that it had to be a funeral that brought us all together. 

We'll miss you Papa Asa. He was buried in his bibs and seed hat too. He wouldn't be my grandpa without them :) 


Our family packed in a lot in two short weeks. Two weeks that felt as though it went on forever but also went by in the blink of an eye. Although it was sad that we had to attend a funeral, all of my siblings were together. That rarely happens. 

I think it's been a couple of years since we've all been together. 

We visited Grandpa just a few days before he passed away and were able to steal Grandma away long enough to enjoy some time to the zoo. 

Some AWESOME shooting time with Papa Doug. The boys shot muzzleloaders and shotguns for the first time and boy, are they hooked! No matter that their shoulders hurt a bit...they weren't going to stop. 

Yahoo terrorized a couple of kittens who finally learned to hide from her! 

Attended a graduation! Congrats Cousin Evan :) 

We couldn't make it out of Indiana without visiting DR's alma mater, Purdue University twice! We spent sooo much money on Purdue clothes because, as DR puts it, "I'm just dang tired of seeing all the Kansas State purple!"

Oh, we are posed holding our town paper. They like to publish photos of people traveling with a copy. Funny because the owners are University of Kansas fans. 

DR and I even managed a couple of date nights. 

This isn't a great picture of anything other than being a good reminder that we were kidless :) 

Uncle John Deere was awesome enough to rustle up a bunch of sparklers to play with. This was especially appreciated by the kids since they couldn't have fireworks last summer. 

This is just a sample of the tons of photos from our trip home which I'm trying to load up on Facebook right now for you family but I'm not sure how successful I'll be. There are a LOT of photos. 

Our trip was great. Long and sad but great nonetheless. I'll be forever grateful that we were able to be home and say goodbye to Grandpa Asa. I have so much to be thankful to him for. He was a wonderful grandpa not just to me but to my kids too. He reinforced the value of hard work and to deeply enjoy any and every moment to the fullest. I love you Grandpa and we'll miss you terribly. 

The Giraffe

We went to the zoo yesterday and had a just fabulous time.

There were the normal attractions; elephants, bison, snakes, etc

but the best attraction was the young giraffe.

Boy was this little guy friendly.

And hungry...or maybe he was just curious. But he was up on that fence LOVIN' the attention from all these little kids. HA! A blue tongue...cool!

And boy was Yahoo enjoying this giraffe too!

Yap got a bit to close and got a bunch of giraffe slobber as a souveneir.

Yahoo REALLY wanted to pet this giraffe and she wasn't about to let something as little as a fence stop her!!

Thanks Mr. Giraffe! You were, by far, the most popular attraction at the zoo yesterday!

Photo of the Day - Hunting for Shade

Hunting for shade at the zoo.

Pretty sure this poor mama goat was pregnant and not moving from the shade even to get away from toddlers!

Little tree, little shade.

Are we there yet?

Yes!! We made it to Kansas. All in one piece and no children were lost along the way! There were some bumps along the way and some change of plans but we are finally settled. All the boxes are unpacked and we are starting to live "normal" as Yap puts it :)

Here's a quick rundown of the last few weeks for those of you who are interested in hearing about our little adventures.

The movers had us all packed and loaded on Tues., July 12th. They gave us a window between the 17th and the 22nd of when they would arrive in Kansas. Since they weren't in a hurry, we weren't either. We were planning on arriving late the evening of Sunday the 18th.

So 10:30 pm on the 12th we rolled in to St. Louis and crashed. After a big breakfast the next morning, the 13th, we took off for the Arch! The boys were quite impressed and loved being able to see all the "ant" people below. At the Museum of Westward Expansion I kept teasing the boys that this would be our new home...

...a sod house. They weren't impressed.

After the Arch we headed to the Grant National Historic Site just down the road. If you enjoy history this is a great place to go. I learned lots about Ulysses S. Grant I never expected. Did you know grant never wanted to be in teh military? He wanted to be a horse farmer.

After leaving St. Louis we drove to Stanton, MO and Thursday, the 14th, morning we visited the Meramac Caverns. I had visited these caverns when I was five years old with my grandparents and wanted Yip and Yap to see them too. They weren't nearly as big as I remember them being, but still pretty impressive. Yip was afraid there were werewolves inside!

Thursday afternoon the truck driver hauling all our stuff and told us he thought he'd make it to Kansas by Sat., 17th, at noon. Could we be there?

You bet!! I was excited we'd be able to get settled sooner than expected. We decided to speed up the trip and get to Kansas Thursday night. We stopped at Ft. Scott about 4 pm, an hour before they closed to take a look around and a well needed break from being in the car! Ft. Scott was SO interesting! I really want to check it out again someday because there wasn't nearly enough time to see all I wanted to see.

Friday morning, July 16th, we left Eastern Kansas and drove to the Wichita Zoo. Neat animals, very hot (100 degrees) and a good stopping point after a long morning drive.

After leaving Wichita we still had a 3 hour drive until we made it to our new home. With only an hour to go before we arrived at our final destination, we received another call from the driver......plans had changed....

....to be continued.....

Photo of the Day - Wallaby

Wallaby at the zoo....furry little critter isn't it?

What a life. All this little guy has to do is sit around, look cute and watch crazy people all day. Ever wonder what she's thinking about the strollers? I mean, here come these SUV strollers down the path, at every zoo, packed with baby and essentials.

I bet she's thinking, "Dude, where's your pouch? Glad I'm not a human"