We have had an eventful last 3-4 weeks here. We spent the last 2 weeks on vacation, and the week before that we had no internet, hence the lack of posting.
Jon's parents came down a few weekends ago and got our garden started. We have potatoes, onions, radishes, and lettuce popping up. There's plenty more to go. We have beautiful lilacs and many plants and flowers that were previously planted. The yard looks very nice.
We won't be going anywhere this summer with the baby coming, so we decided to take the opportunity while we don't have kids in school to go somewhere. We left 2 weeks ago Tuesday for our vacation.
We drove down through Missouri and stopped in Hannibal the first day, home of Mark Twain. We ate lunch, walked around the old buildings, went to the river and played in a park, and then had some ice cream. Finn had a diaper blowout at lunch, so thankfully we weren't sitting in the car. It was on to St. Charles from there, which is just north of St. Louis. We headed to the St. Louis zoo on Wednesday. Free admission, folks! I think the boys enjoyed it. Ben knows lots of animals now and we thought it would be a lot of fun for him to see them for real. I think he learned a few more. Finn liked it just as much, I think.
After the zoo we made our way into Arkansas. We followed the river with lots of winding roads and hills. Ben got car sick twice. As we were on "the scenic route," there were very few places to stop. The first time he got sick, we were searching for a gas station when a lumber truck pulled out in front of us and we slammed on the brakes. Just as I was thinking of some choice words, Jon and I both noticed a gas station down a bit from where the truck had come. Had he not pulled out in front of us, we definitely wouldn't have seen it-it was not a gas stationey building. So a blessing in disguise. We got to clean up Ben and let Finn run around a bit. The second incident wasn't quite so bad. We just pulled over into some abandoned driveway and picked more clothes out of the trunk. This is what plastic bags are for, I guess.
Thursday morning we headed out for Little Rock, where our good friend Glenn lives. Ben had a diaper blowout in the car, so into the shower he went as soon as we got there. Thankfully the carseat was spared and we didn't have any major cleaning to do. We did, however, do a load of laundry that night at Glenn's so we could dress the boys. We had beautiful weather in the 80s but had to split our clothing allotment between shorts and jeans given the time of year.
We had lunch with Glenn and in the afternoon we walked along the river downtown and had ice cream. There was a fountain coming out of the ground that some kids were playing in, so we took off the boys' shirts and let them run around a while. Glenn cooked us a great supper. He fed us well the whole time we were there. Friday we headed to Hot Springs, which is a national park within a city. They had old bath houses where people used to go for healing, etc. Some famous people frequented these. Saturday we headed to the Clinton library and museum by the river. It was pretty neat to see. It's hard to read things in great detail because the boys get bored quite quickly, but very interesting nonetheless. The boys had a lot of fun at Glenn's. They could go in circles through a couple doors. I think Ben's best memory is having Lucky Charms. We don't have them at home anymore because he would only eat the marshmallows.
Sunday we went to church and ate dinner with Glenn. We headed out in the afternoon on a bit more scenic route through Arkansas, stopping at Fort Smith. Monday morning we went to the actual Fort Smith, which changed hands a few times during the Civil War, then became a jail and court for a large area for many years. They still had a couple of buildings and the gallows. We then headed north to Pea Ridge, which was a Civil War battlefield. This was a driving tour where you could get out and look at various sites they described for you. They have fences and cannons set up to help visualize the battlefields. Very interesting and brings it a bit more to life. We hit these on National Park Week, so this stuff was free for us! That was a lovely surprise.
We stayed in Kansas City Monday night. Our hotel was in a beautiful part of the city, and some day we would like to go back and just spend some time there. If we had more time, we would have walked around a bit. Tuesday we went to the WWI Museum in KC. That again was very detailed, and some people could probably spend a couple days in there. The boys weren't very excited about this stop. We did go up in a tower, though, and we got a great view of KC. The boys got to see a couple of trains and ride in an elevator. That's Ben's favorite new thing, besides going on bridges. He's still talking about the elevator (elegator) at the hotel.
Tuesday we headed to Minnesota. We ended up meeting my parents there for supper after calling my dad with a car problem. We headed to Jon's parents that night. We ended up having the struts replaced on the car. Thankfully it was nothing worse than that and God gave us safe travels the whole 2 weeks. While in Edgerton, we made a couple trips to Jon's grandparents, and his mom and I did some rummaging. I was very excited to find a changing table, which I have had in mind for a while. I also found a queen bed frame for our guest bed.
We headed to my parents on Friday. My sister and her kids got in late that night, and Finn was very happy to see baby Robbie (who is 5 months old) on Saturday morning. Finn loves babies and points them out. He calls Ben "baby," but he seems to know the difference. I somewhat learned to play pinochle. I have a ways to go but got the gist of it. We just bummed over the weekend and headed for home Monday morning.
So here we are on Wednesday night. Finn and I both got a stomach bug last week and are pretty much over it now. I haven't had a lot of ambition. Jon's mom is coming down tomorrow night. We are stripping the wallpaper in the baby's room and painting. I got the paint today and stripped some wallpaper. I cleaned the stuff out of the room except for the bed. Jon and I did some cleaning and rearranging on the third floor, which will now be the guest suite. I'm very excited to be preparing the baby's room. The most I did before was rearrange closets and drawers to make room for the baby stuff, so now I get to do a little bit of decorating and readying a bedroom. I didn't miss it before, but now that I can do it, I'm looking forward to it. And I'll spend a nesting period unpacking all the baby stuff and rearranging. I really am excited to have a changing table. And if anyone wants to give me a glider rocker and ottoman, I am accepting donations.
So that will be our weekend. Now that I've written a novel, I'll give you a few days to read it.
