Vacation!

It feels so good to finally have a night home after returning back to Iowa last week. We are all still exhausted after a very fun and long two-week vacation...over many states and many, many hours in the car (Amos figured out it was about 80 hours total..not sure how that's possible?) It was a vacation to remember. Here are some details if you are interested-

Here are the highlights of how we stayed busy-

We drove through the night the first night and drove down to East Texas to the Hounsel's house. We were greeted by Rebekah's family. Micah took the boys down to the barn right away... he was so excited about showing off the animals. The boys spent a lot of time in the barn during the weekend. I couldn't get enough of my newest nephew, Briar. He is beautiful! We had a great few days spending time with a lot of extended family. The cousins had fun swimming together, going on 4-wheelers, playing with all the animals, and eating. Thanks for hosting Julie and Ken!

Our next part of our Texas trip was stopping at the zoo in Tyler, Texas. We used to go almost every week with our friends when we lived there as children. They joined us also. Besides the miserable heat, the cousins had fun together.

We drove to McKinney, Texas after that and stayed with my Uncle Sy and Kelley. They have two kiddos also so that added to the fun of the chaos. We enjoyed playing outside in their backyard. During that portion of our trip we had a wonderful meal at the Jacob's. I got to show Amos the house I grew up in, which sadly just didn't look as good as it did many years ago. Thanks Hamby's and Jacob's for hosting and feeding us all. I know it was chaotic but we appreciate your hospitality!

The next stop was Las Cruces, New Mexico. We got to see Amos' brother Nathaniel and two of his beautiful girls. We had fun swimming and spending time with them for a few hours. Wish we lived closer..sweet girls.

The next long day of travel finally got us to San Diego! We were so incredibly happy to be there after so much driving. We got a mediocre hotel, but were all content with the palm trees and beautiful weather surrounding us. We got to see Ryan's new college campus. I think he will really enjoy it there. I know he will miss me terribly though. :) We got to meet Ryan's new roommate, Micah. He stayed with him last week until soccer started yesterday. We also enjoyed time at Coronado Island a couple of the days. The boys loved the sand and birds. The water was a bit chilly so I didn't venture out there like Amos and Ryan did. We ate at some great restaurants, enjoyed a day at Sea World, and slept very little. We left San Diego and ten miles out we ran over a big board which took off our front bumper etc. We were so fortunate that it didn't come through our windshield or anything worse. My handy husband was able to keep it together until we got home which was great. Even though we loved the city, we didn't want to stay there any longer. We made it to the Grand Canyon later that day. It was beautiful but happy we didn't need to stay there all day.

The next day was a long one. We drove from Flagstaff, AZ to Rebekah's house. I'm so happy she had a great meal for us when we arrived. We had a lot of fast food which I'm so sick of. We left the next day and after hitting construction and accidents in Nebraska, we finally made it home! We are so blessed everything went well and we had a great time. Our boys did very well for being in the van for so long. So happy to be home!