Our Week in Kansas

Since my parents couldn't come here, I took the boys, my sister and her dog to visit them after my dad's surgery. We were so glad that we could go see them and spend so much time with them.

The boys did great on the drive there! We left a little before 5am and since I remembered my wallet this time we were actually there by 4:15.

Just in time for dinner, a little bit of ice cream...

And Tyler's first Root Beer Float!

For some reason this boy thinks it's so funny to sleep in small places. He tried to take his naps here multiple times.

And since we were welcomed to Kansas with 107 degree weather, we spent time almost everyday outside in the pool. This is Tyler being "So, so, so brave," sitting in the deep water all by himself. :-)

Hanging out with Papa Joe!

These two are out of control. Who needs a playground when you can just climb on a step stool in the living room?

Carsten slept well for the most part, but he was still exhausted. My children do not fall asleep in their food. But he did. And he slept through me cleaning him up and changing his diaper, and his brother telling him a very sweet, loud, and animated story and praying with him once he was in his bed.

Of course we made our regularly scheduled Orange Leaf stop.

And this... well it's just awesome. That's all I have to say.

On our last night we had a campfire.

And s'mores!

Or plain graham crackers.

Right before we left my dad gave Tyler a mustache because well, he really wants whiskers!

Tyler made sure to put it on right before we pulled into the driveway to surprise Carl. And then he played a little tennis before we ate the delicious dinner Carl had ready for us.

Since my parents had planned on being out of town that week, they had nothing going on and we were just able to spend lots of great time with them. We played lots of cards and just enjoyed the time we had together all around.

Let the Travels Begin

We have done a lot of driving lately. First we drove to Eau Claire just for the day for Samson's baptism. We were glad we were able to be there for it. And Tyler (who is continually "baptizing" his brother) got to watch a real one. :-)

My parents had planned on being here for the baptism and were going to camp for about three weeks. We were planning on camping with them for about two(ish) of those weeks. But my dad was diagnosed with kidney cancer right before their trip, and (thankfully!) was able to have surgery almost right away. He had his kidney removed and they seem to have caught it and removed it before it had a chance to spread. Praise God!

But they had to cancel their whole trip. Instead of camping with them we went to the Milwaukee area like we had planned, but didn't camp. We bounced around from a hotel, to great friends' house, to Carl's brother's house. We spent the first evening at the hotel hanging out and taking the boys swimming with our friend Kristina and her little boy, Ben.

Then we went to the Haas' house where the boys had a great time playing with Ellie and Josie while we spent time with Noah and Katie. And we were spoiled with delicious food. :-) 

And finally, we headed to Kenosha to see Matt. We've wanted to visit him and Janelle for a long time and we were so glad it worked, but we were sad to miss Janelle while she was out of town.

The motorcycle and the beach were definitely the highlights for the boys. And fyi, Carsten loved having his legs buried in the sand. He didn't so much love being unburied. :-)

Our few days went way too quickly, but we had so much fun and were so glad we got to spend time with people we love and almost never get to see.

July.

I laughed when I came on to write and saw that my last post was titled 'Less Busy'. Because then it took a month for me to write again. July has been very, very busy - full of birthdays, holidays, lots of unexpected plan changes and lots and lots of traveling.

I'm going to have to break this month down into parts. Because well, I take a lot of pictures. :-)

The month started off with my birthday and my brand new chocolate fountain of awesomeness.

It was delicious.

It was fun.

It was crazy.

And Tyler totally conquered it.

Now we need to have some chocolate parties. :-)

These are just a couple of random pictures that were just too cute to skip. These brothers are best little friends.

Tyler putting Carsten to bed.

The boys sitting under the table reading their teeny tiny Bibles from VBS while I made dinner. They stayed there like that for a loooong time!

A few days later we enjoyed every minute of the 4th of July weekend. On the 4th we went to a parade, had a picnic with our friends, the Sutherlands, and watched fireworks. And the next day we had dinner with the Zehrs. It was busy and crazy and lots of fun.

There was a waterfall behind them, so there was no hope of getting Carsten to look at me.

Ready for his first parade!

Waiting for the fireworks! Carsten was resting up. :-)

This guy loves fireworks and was so excited about them.

I worried about the noise scaring Carsten or hurting his ears. But he was mesmerized by them. He absolutely loved them. And clearly the noise didn't bother him because he fell asleep towards the end and slept through the very loud finale, all the way to the car and home. What a day for these boys!

Next up: Soccer, two trips to Wisconsin and one trip to Kansas!