End of July

 We took Edyn in to have her umbilical hernia evaluated. She's had it since birth and it has never really changed size. We found out that they usually shrink on their own but they will look at it again when she's around 4 to see if she will need surgery. Hers is fairly good size but she's too young for them to operate on it and its not bothering her at all so we will wait. So in the meantime, she has a very prominent outie belly button that she loves to poke all the time.

 We have spent a lot of time at the pool with our friends. Lucy is definitely a fish, she would stay there all day in the water if I let her. Isak likes swimming but also likes to lay out on his towel and eat snacks and gets cold easily.

 Pioneer Day was the end of July and our stake had a few activities out at the playground. They encouraged the kids to dress up in pioneer attire and Lucy picked out this dance outfit to wear. Its pretty fitting for Lucy. They had a little parade and Lucy and Isak rode their scooter and bike in it..

 Lucy was pretty proud of herself during the whole thing. She even rode the right way most of the time! I sure love this little girl. She definitely adds a lot of fun to our family!

Lousiana

Kevin and I had a chance to go down to Louisiana in July and we also got to visit my brother while we were there. Kevin had a work conference in Lake Charles and Aaron drove up from Texas and spent  few days with us. We visited a Mardi Gras museum while we were there which was fascinating and incredibly creepy all at the same time.

 The costumes were pretty over the top and very elaborate. There was also several talking sequences that would start when we walked into a room that would come out of a mannequin or weird large alligator statue.

 By far the weirdest was this giant talking baby that was very creepy.  The Lady Liberty costume was one of my favorites.

 The lady there was telling us that all the costumes are custom made and start at $1,000 on up. They take about a year to make and people go all over the country getting sequins and beading for the costumes.

 Aaron showed us the latest animal costume head he was working on. Its pretty amazing what he can do. The jaw moves when you talk and he hand makes the eyes and has the fur sewn on. He's made some pretty awesome costumes.

 We stayed at this great resort that had a giant lazy river surrounded by a few different pools.  The water was so warm and I had such a great time hanging out in my inner tube and lounging by the pool while Kevin was in meetings. Definitely a great break after the 3 week trip we just took with our kids!

 We also tried out some local cusine and had an authentic "pough boy" sandwich which was super yummy.

 As Kevin and I were leaving on the last day we drove down to the gulf about an hour south and took the gulf coast highway into Texas. The water was so warm, it felt like bath water!   We were flying out of Beaumont, Texas so we drove along the gulf into Texas and then headed north. It was fun seeing a different part of the country and great getting some time with just Kevin and I.

Drive Home

 We drove home through Iowa and South Dakota and along the way found this great park called the Porter Sculpture Park. It is visible from the highway and the guy that runs it lives out of his RV at the park Memorial Day through Labor Day.  We talked with him a while and he told us about the other stuff he is working on. His stuff is definitely very "artsy" but its all pretty awesome.

My kids especially loved this guy's dog who let them pet him and rub his belly as long as he wanted too.  He also gave them all Hershey Kisses.

 This Egyptian sculpture was the biggest there and it was all made mostly of railroad tie plates.

We also visited Corn Palace which turned out to be super lame. Other than the corn that was plastered all over the building, I couldn't figure out why this was such a big tourist attraction.  The inside was pretty disappointing and just had a lots of places to buy random souvenirs.

One of the favorite things we saw was the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. It was an amazing sight and the rock formations were gorgeous.   We drove down into the park and the kids got a chance to climb on some of them.

 They also had several fossils displayed of things they had found around this area that were dated back to the dinosaurs. Isak found it fascinating and insisted we go through and read each one.

 Our next stop was Wall Drug which we started seeing signs for 200 miles before we got there. There was a TON of billboards for this place so we knew we had to stop. It ended up being this kinda crazy mini indoor shopping mall with a bunch of separated stores.  It had several random statues and Lucy insisted I taker her picture with the "pretty lady"...

 This antelope was one of my favorite that we saw, Lucy calls it a "rabbit reindeer", but it was a great place to take a picture.

 There was also this giant Trex that went off every 12 minutes. We waited what seemed like forever and sure enough, it rises up and makes some very scary roaring sounds and shakes its head back and forth. It was pretty frightening.

 There was also a splash park at this place (pretty random) that the kids could run around at as well as a Sacajawea cut out that Lucy posed for me in.

There was also the horse and buggy for the kids to pretend to ride. We found a few souvenirs here for our trip and Lucy found a pretty great glow in the dark unicorn shirt.

 We also made it to Mount Rushmore which was also pretty cool in person. Our kids were completely exhausted by this point and so were we.

Poor little Edyn looked So tired. But our eventful day wasn't over.  Shortly after we left Kevin stopped to get gas and forgot to unplug the gas from our car before driving off. We had to fill out some incident report form and leave our insurance information.  The next day we had about 13 hours if we wanted to make it back home and we decided to plow through. About 30 minutes after getting in the car Isak threw up. Then he proceeded to continue for the next while. Luckily he hit the bag every time.   Lucy was also sick, only she was feverish and just wanting to sleep in the back of the car the whole trip. We knew we had to get home at this point before anyone else got sick. I made it to Missoula before I fell victim as well. I slept the rest of the way while Isak kept Kevin awake. We were so glad to see our house!

Our trip was a lot of fun, I would totally do it again in about 3 years when I don't have a baby. Isak and Lucy did great but it was a little hard on Edyn. But, hey, she won't remember any of this either while Isak and Lucy will remember most of what they did and the fun they had with their cousins. And, Kevin and I both noticed that Lucy and Isak became better friends on our trip and played together much more than they have in the past.  I don't know if the banshee yell will leave my memory any time soon but it was definitely worth it getting to see so much of our family!

Michigan

 We spent another five days of our trip in Michigan visiting Kevin's brother and his family in Michigan.  Claire and Lucy took a dance lesson from Vicki (Lucy's dance suit found at the Dig N Save!) and we hung out in the hammock a lot as well.

 Kevin celebrated his 32nd birthday while we were there and enjoyed several great gifts from our kids, handpicked from the local dollar store. His brother and him went and bought new suits for his birthday but declined our request for a picture in their "birthday suits". Kevin's last suit was 8 years ago when we were married so it was very much needed.

 Vicki and I enjoyed some serious thrift store and consignment kid store shopping while we were there and found several treasures. The kid clothes there are amazing and I found several items for a $1.  We also visited this treasure called Value World which was more amazing than I have words for. Best part? They gave us all our stuff in black plastic garbage bags, there are no changing rooms so you just put your clothes on over your clothes, and everyone that was working there was in sweatpants. It was so cool. I found the best stuff!

 We took an evening and walked around this local lake that is filled with ducks and tons of lilly pads.  We saw several swans and their babies and Lucy collected several bird feathers.

 We also went to the botanical gardens which has a great kids area that has several things for the kids to explore.

 Edyn and Ella were born 3 months apart and had lots of fun saying "hi" to each other over and over and laughing at each other.

 The greenhouse part of the gardens was one of Isak's favorite parts and he loved seeing all the different plants that we don't have back in Washington.

 We also visited the Henry Ford museum while we were there and got to ride a train around the village. We saw glass blowing, rode a carousel and saw tons of great stuff. Everyone that works there walks around dressed in early 1900's attire and acts the part. We even took a little ride in a carriage which turned out to be really hot...

 There was also an inside portion of the museum which was HUGE and had so much stuff inside of it, we didn't get to see everything. The trains were really cool to look at the inside of as well as several of the cars that have been made over the years.

 There was an exhibit where kids could put themselves in a music video and it would project them onto a screen.

 And of course the giant Oscar Mayer weiner vehicle and the kids tried to make themselves into a hotdog.

We were also there for the 4th of July and they had a nice little parade in their town and their ward also had a breakfast and let the kids ride their bikes/scooters around.

 I attempted to get my kids in one picture for the 4th since I actually put them all in patriotic colored outfits. This was about the best I got.

 We had a lot of fun in the afternoon playing in the pool and then we had dinner outside.  Since there a lot of fireworks available in Michigan compared to Washington, Kevin had fun buying a bunch to set off that night.

                                                                     Lucy and Claire.

 The kids loved the fireworks and we could only set off some of our bottle rockets due to their enormous range and we weren't sure where they were ending up. Our kids were exhausted at the end of every day and for the most part, went to bed really well.  I am campaigning for everyone to come live by me and pled my case at Valerie's as well at Jason and Vicki's house.  I'm hoping it works!