three busy weeks.... part 2

the week after heather was here, the kids and i went back to minnesota with her and stayed at my parent's house for a week. we left tuesday morning, july 1st. it was a nice LONG trip, but thankfully we can drive it in a day. the day after we got there was COLD! i never know how to pack for MN in the summer because what is nice to them is now cold to me! but other than that the weather was beautiful while i was there.

yea.... almost to gramma's!

tired from a long trip

a day or two into our stay ryan got sick. i thought he might be teething, but i think it was just a cold because he hasn't gotten any new teeth lately. he wasn't feeling well, so we didn't go do a whole lot during the week besides shopping, of course.

ryan hanging out under the couch

the strawberries in my parents' garden were ripe so we got in on the action. samantha enjoyed picking them and then eating them! YUM! they were good!

picking the strawberries..... mmmmmmmmmm they were good!

two days later we got over twice this many -- strawberries galore!

on saturday morning becky and her family came. we had a tea party lunch for samantha's birthday, so the girl's got to eat inside with all of gramma's nice dishes, and the boys had to go outside on the porch with papa. then that night we had a pre family reunion at the dam, then came home and samantha & ryan opened birthday presents and we enjoyed cake and ice cream. one of the most fitting presents samantha got was a hat from auntie becky that said "little miss chatterbox" on it. if you know samantha, you know that it suits her well!

sunday we went to church, then came home to get ready for the family reunion. it was a little crazy because a lot of stuff was miscommunicated and not planned the greatest. but it was a gorgeous day and it was nice to see family, even some that i haven't seen in 20 years!

monday we went to see my friend's new baby, then it was a packing day! we all had to get everything ready for the trip back to kc and heather had to pack for her trip to alaska.

tuesday morning we left for minneapolis/st. paul. it was nice that we could take our time and didn't have to get up super early. we didn't have to drop heather off at the airport until evening, so when we got to the cities we stopped at subway for lunch, then went to the como zoo. it's a great little zoo. it's not too overwhelming to kids and you can see everything in a couple hours. it's cheap too....! :-) it was fun. samantha enjoyed seeing all the animals, especially the baby orangutan.

lilly pads at the como zoo. they were incredibly huge.

mama orangutan and baby

i love how the giraffe's are all lined up..... like the kids waiting to get measured at gramma's!

after the zoo we dropped heather off at the airport and continued south. we stopped just inside of iowa for dinner and gas. when we were about 10 miles from the exit dad said he didn't think we'd make it because the gas light had come on. i asked him if it had just come on and he said "no, it came on over 30 miles ago!!" i don't know why he hadn't stopped before, but at least we made it there! we got home to kansas city at 12:30am. the kids were so excited to see daddy, as was i. ryan didn't go back to sleep until 2 - 2:30. then we crashed!