Visiting Jonathan

We took a little trip to visit Jonathan's family.  We were there for 3 days and these are the only pictures I got.  Sigh. I'm terrible. More terrible because the only photos I took were the first three, with the pool.  The rest were surprises only phone. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

 

Summer happenings

What is one of our favorite things about being in the US?  FRESH FRUIT!  And having fresh strawberries and whip cream on waffles for breakfast whenever we want.  Marian went for a triple decker.

Miranda was a good mom and took her kids to the lake.  The very very HIGH lake (as evidenced by that pavilion roof there).  She was thoughtful enough to take Marian and Delaney with her, and even more thoughtful to take this photo.

Dad talked me into doing something I have never done before. I went and gave blood for the first time! It wasn't as horrible as I thought, and I felt very virtuous about it. 

Rylee found this super-sweet macaron shirt at the thrift store and was quite delighted.

There was a tree needing some chopping, and a group of family went out to help.  It turns out a family of woodpeckers lost their home in the process. Callie rescued these two baby woodpeckers and brought them home.

Look how healthy they are!  Callie made sure they were fed round the clock for 3 days, before we found a vet that would take them and help them out.  They were very cute.

The kids were thrilled to find this turtle.  The turtle was less thrilled.

This was a marvelous $2 find at the Walmart clearance section.  Rylee and Samantha had a blast putting it together and decorating it.... and nibbling on it.

Marian enjoyed spending time at the pond and brought back a friend.

Isn't he sweet?!

Dad spent some time replacing the old deck with some lovely new decking.  

 Marian and Aaron had a little too much fun with this kiddie car.  I laughed and laughed.

A little tractor adventure

Dad had a little incident with the tractor while he was mowing the neighbors yard.  The grass was a bit too soggy from the season's rain and it bogged down the tractor.  It became quite stuck in the mud.

I know, it doesn't look bad.  But trust me.  If the tractor can't get out, it IS bad.

We were resourceful and used some of the old deck planks to try to give it some traction.  It was insufficient.

Dad brought out the chain and we hooked the tractor to the truck and put it in 4 Wheel Drive. 

Miranda manned the truck.  Dad manned the tractor.  I manned the camera. .....and watched for oncoming traffic.  There was some smoke from the truck tires.  There was some fishtailing from the truck.  There was some movement from the tractor.  Then, in an exciting explosion, the tractor was off! It bounced and jounced across the ditch and was briefly airborne before it hit the road.  Whoops and cheers went unheard amidst the noise of the engines.

The sweet-sweet view of success.

I need a bird

When we got to Dad's house, Miranda was there with her family as well.  So you know it was a party!! Even more exciting is that Miranda had brought her bird.  The bird (a lovely Sun Headed Conure) was the life of the party and everyone wanted to hang out with him.  So we did.  Here are some of my favorite photos with the bird.

 

Traveling!

We flew out just after Callie's an my birthdays.  So when a friend asked if she could do anything to help our move go any better, I said a cake would be amazing.  She brought over this delicious  masterpiece and I felt loved!

We were ready to go, all bright and early.  We checked in at 6am and then waited and waited. It was fine.  That's what most of traveling is, waiting.  

We flew from Okinawa to Seattle and spent the night in Seattle.  The next morning we saw that our next flight was delayed, which meant the hour connection we had would not be sufficient to make the next flight.  We had a lovely long chat with the nice lady working the United counter and she hooked us up with food vouchers and a hotel in Dallas for that night.  And we got on the delayed flight and went to Dallas.

Once at Dallas, we had to wait a bit for the shuttle.  The kids were amazing for the whole flight.

Something amazing happened in Dallas.  When I got to the hotel I explained that i had a voucher from the airline, but I was traveling with 4 minors and I would really love to have a room big enough to fit us all.  The super nice man opened up a room for us that they had closed down (due to fewer numbers of travelers apparently they shut down a chunk of floors and didn't use the rooms).  It was a super awesome double room suite!!  It was AMAZING!  This is the second room.  The first room was a traditional room with two queen beds and this room had a pull out couch.  They even brought a rollaway bed in so that the girls could sleep in their own beds.  It was such a great blessing. 

This is my happy face!

One of the really cool things about our room was that it was on the 12th floor and you could look out the window and see this!

Seriously!  How fun is this?!

They did change our destination airport from Springfield to Fayetteville, but that was definitely not a problem for us!

We arrived safely and it was delightful to be greeted by family that was excited to see us.  Hooray for getting safely to our destination!