OH boy, where to start. We're back! And its good to be back. We had a jam packed busy week but hey-that's the way we like it. Saturday Isaac helped load up a truck of stuff for Grandma Kenworthy (she's moving to St. George) then came down. We tried to hit the indoor pool in the morning for one last fun play day with Ann and Elsie-but it wasn't open until noon. So we went up to Lory's to swim there but FROZE...so we hit Wendy's and then the indoor pool :) It was pretty fun! After naps Isaac got there, we ate snow cones and then went up and said "Hey" to Poppa Great. He hates being in that home but he's so much better off there because there's always someone there if he falls, they make sure he's all cleaned up and so on. But it was a little hard to say goodbye...ya just never know. I borrowed his car the last couple days when we were going our own way doing our own thing and when I walked in his house to put the keys back I think that's when it hit me. It was just empty and everything was the same...but it was that imminent-everything is different, and he will move on. He could live 10 more years, seriously, with that Hafen blood you never know. But the other thing is he's outlived everyone in his family, it will be a happy day for him to go. His wife, his daughter, besides all his brothers, and parents, Anyway...such is life....and the end thereof.

Sunday after church we hurried and ate packed up and hit the road! We were going to stop at Nathan and Melanie's on the way up but both kids were zonked out so we drove on past and crashed at Levi and Stacy's place Sunday night. It was good to see them, their kids have grown a TON and Shredder was a hit-as always.

 

Monday Isaac met with the statistics professor and he felt like it when well. The boys and I went and said Hi to Miss Carol from last summer. They boys were crazy out of control but it was so fun for me to get to visit with her for a few minutes. Sister Russell was out of town so we missed her :( but we asked Carol about all the friends we could remember from the 16th ward. (And I bribed Cannon in to showing off and telling her the articles of faith that he knows.) It was really fun and her yard--even more beautiful than I remembered it! We grabbed Isaac and had a little picnic and then I took the boys back to Levi and Stacy's for naps. The plan was to watch Jacob's little league game that night. But it was pretty rainy and cold so we scratched that and headed for Ogden to see Blake, Annie, and their girls. It was SO FUN.  Cannon and Ayla were little best friends reunited! (Annie did remind me of the day when we couldn't even carry on a 2 minute conversation because they fought over EVERYthing-glad those are behind us.) We had so much fun though it was just great to visit and catch up. Cannon was fishing for Blake and Ayla, Isaac read stories to the older two just like old times. Colt was introduced to princess toys such as high heels. HAHA. Really Colt and Eden pretty much steered clear of each other but we did talk them into a parting hug;)

 

It was so fun!...and then we were off through the night. The next morning along with our trusty old (and mandatory) McDonalds with a play place we found a tractor Museum in Lincoln Nebraska. It was cool-more for Isaac than for me because he understands engines and torque and horsepower and such.

 

 

I had a good time taking pictures of the boys all over different tractors until the guy told us that "technically they weren't supposed to climb on them" then it just got hard to try and keep them off. And of course Isaac was like "They're fine, he said 'technically.'" Oh brother. The other thing was that it was dang cold. They had more outside (that I was more willing to break the rules and let them climb on) but we didn't last long in our wimpy little jackets and shorts! So once again we were off! I fell asleep and when I woke up Isaac had aborted the freeway plan for a "more direct route." So we toured southern Iowa. I will admit it was pretty cool though I kept seeing these signs that said "Mormon Pioneer" on the top and "Auto Tour" on the bottom. (Isaac hadn't even noticed them.) I don't know why you'd want to do an auto tour...but apparently we're not the first!  He assured me it wasn't really a slower route because he was speeding -great- but really it was pretty cool. We loved the little town we stopped to eat in, we were the only ones in the place and we blasted the worker with questions about the area-she was nice and it was fun. And hey-there's a town called Lamoni in Southern Iowa-crazy. (not the one we stopped at but it wasn't too far away) Cannon loves the story of Ammon -the great servant- in the Book of Mormon so we asked the workers how that town got its name...we got quite a different story than the one we later read on Wikipedia but whatever we had a great time. And eventually we made it back to Kirksville, were we got a room for the night. Holy Cow it feels good to actually lay down and sleep after doing the in the car thing! But we took the boys swimming, they LOVED showering off the chlorine together--probably stayed in that shower longer than they were in the pool! We ate popcorn (and dumped it all over floor-it was a race between me trying to pick it up and throw it away and them trying to eat it off the floor- now I'm not a germ-a-phobe but a hotel room floor, I'm going to draw the line!)

 

The biggest thing though was we secured a place to rent for this fall!!! Such a huge relief (for me anyway) we both liked it and we'll count it as a blessing that we were driving to the house we picked and we called to make sure that it was even still available and the gal said "I'm there right now, I just showed it to someone." So we got to see it too-right then. It's not perfect but its going to be great for what its for! It has a YARD -no more having to go to the church if we want to have a squirt gun fight!!! The landlord was also willing to work with us and do a little bit shorter lease, that was nice! Anyway that was huge HUGE HUGE and really the whole reason we went back through Kirksville so--mission accomplished. YAY. We were out of there and on our way around 2-ish. Which put us in (or rather near) St. Louis for rush hour traffic...great. I was totally wishing we would have done the back road scenic route thing again. Oh well I didn't speak up so, my fault. And really we just stopped at chic-fil-a when we saw it on an exit sign because we knew it had a play place and we waited it out!
And now we're back. In the past I have not always been so thrilled to be back but this time I am. We can kind of wrap up things here before we move on.
Jenna's little family is in the process of moving :( but dealing with all the headache of packing/loading up she took her kids to the park yesterday for a break so we got to meet them there and have a little bonus play date, we loved that! Cannon said getting to play soccer with Rylee and JD was his "High" for the day and that his other high was that "Me'n Rylee win'd" And that's saying something because he also got this little surprise yesterday. I bought him some used rollerblades while we were in Utah-he was with me but distracted-but when found them he was pretty pumped! It thought it was a pretty well spent 5 bucks until the trip to the mailbox yesterday took 40 minutes-oh and I have to lace them up for him and I've done that about 40 times. Oh well. He's having fun. The cutest thing was when he asked if Colt could have some too. I said yes if we could find some more for $5 but ...we'll see!