Vacationing in NW Iowa...

Emily & I picked a good week to go on vacation! We left Austin and all the flooding behind and headed to Hull, IA on Monday to visit Grandpa & Grandma Boote for the week. Here are some of the highlights:

• Emily loved chasing the kitties around the farm. She never was able to catch one, but it sure provided a lot of entertainment! We also visited all the animals on the home farm. Emily was not so sure about the calves/cows and pigs. She would have loved to get closer to the "horsies", but it was pretty muddy.


• Emily also got to play with Nika and Milo a lot (Courtney & Abbie's dogs). Emily repeatedly asked about "My-o" but only called Nika, "Cheney".


• Emily ate a whole ice cream cone for the the first time. See the funny video in the June player.


• Emily did awesome sleeping away from home--the best she's ever done. She did, however, figure out how to climb out of the Pack 'N Play on a couple of occasions. Luckily, it was usually after a solid afternoon nap. One time we found her bouncing up and down inside her laundry basket full of clothes on top of the big bed.


• We attended the Rock the Block benefit event at American Reformed Church on Wednesday night. Emily loved listening to the band music. She also discovered it "tickled" when she lifted up her shirt and rolled her wooden bug car across her tummy and told everyone about it. This would have been much more amusing if it hadn't been in the middle of Betheny Bousema's emotional talk on faith & ministry!


• One night we went out for pizza at the Pizza Ranch to pre-celebrate my birthday. Then we went to the Kids' Kingdom park to play with "Gram-pin" and "Gramma". Emily now has two distinct names for grandparents.


• I took a trip down memory lane when my mom & I washed up and dusted off some classic toys from my childhood including a Fisher Price record player and all the Fisher Price "people" sets.


• On our last night we went up to Rock Rapids to Island Park. They have a fun "mini zoo" that I remember as a kid. Emily called the goats "puppies" and all the birds "chickens" even though most of them were species of pheasants. She loved the bunny but didn't care for the peacocks. The river was really high and we couldn't get across, but we found a place to drop in a fishing line. Emily had enough sit in her to take one quick picture, but she mostly just enjoyed digging in the sand with sticks. I haven't held a fishing pole in years and was proud to catch a little baby bullhead. :o)


• We left Hull early Saturday morning and headed to LeMars to visit Austin's family. It was the only Saturday in June where we didn't have 2 parades scheduled, so Emily & I watched the LeMars Ice Cream Days parade with Great-Grandma Freking and Great-Aunt Patty. Aunt Brandi & Cousin Asher were walking in the parade with the MOPS group. I decided it's easier to be in the parade with a wagon than to contain Emily watching a parade. She got a lot of candy and a smiley-faced blow-up beach ball. We all loved the gaggle of marching geese. :o) Later we ate lunch with Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Lorenzen.

Emily was a stinker and hardly slept on the drive home, but we made it. We had to go around on Hwy 20 to get over the river, so it took a little longer. Thankfully, Denver and our house were spared any major water problems. We had a little bit of pooling water in the basement from seepage in the foundation similar to what occurred a few weeks ago, but that was only one day. Our new sump pump has kept up and everything else is dry. Our hearts break for so many others, including friends, who have not been as lucky.

Below is a slide show of pictures from our vacation. There are a couple videos in the June player. Enjoy!