Saturday, June 30, 2012

Where did June go?!?!


That's a good question. Let me fill y'all in.

June started on a Friday, and I got some exercise videos I ordered. I'll be telling you about that in a different post.

June 4-8 was VBS at our church! The kids learned about the colors of the church year and what they mean. I missed the first few days, because I was home with Andrew who was sick with some virus. We had a short service on Friday where the kids sang the song they learned. Judah sang great for that, but Andrew, not so much. On Sunday, they sang the same song, and Andrew ended up dragging Judah up to the front of the church and sang the whole song looking oh-so cute, but Judah just stood there looking extremely sad. Stage fright? Who knows...
VBS projects in a line

We had a few days to get our house in order before our guests, the Gullixsons, came on the 12th from southern California on their way to synod convention in southern MN. We got to show them our "farm" and went to a state park where we hiked and picnicked. They left to head north on the 14th, while we quickly got things around to leave a day later to also head north. We stopped at my parents' in central Iowa on the 15th for overnight, then up to Mankato to stay with family for the annual ELS convention.
Outside the Runge Nature Center with Abel (3), Judah (4) and Andrew (2)
A hollow tree on our hike
You're a little lopsided...
The Gullixsons and Merseths

During that synod week time, in one 3 bedroom, 2 bath house, we slept 11 children and 8 adults. (For those of you who know me, that included me and Jeff and our 3 boys, Jeremy and Angie and their 4 kids, John and Steph and their 4 kids who live there, and my parents-in-law John and Lorena! James and Danielle and their two kids live elsewhere in Mankato, so they didn't need sleeping quarters.) This was the first time we've all been together for about two years, since Jer and Ang moved out to Oregon. So it was a great time of family togetherness! All of us even got to go up to "the farm" in northern MN and spend time with Great Grandma Merseth.
Fun in Mankato. Playing outside in the city is much different than playing outside in the country. Adult supervision required! Once I discovered that Andrew had wandered outside by himself... thankfully he was just playing behind the house.
Cousins and waterguns. Enoch's in the wagon. A hot day!
Up north family photo
Grandma and Grandpa Merseth with their 13 grandchildren
Enoch riding high
A little Polaris Ranger fun.
Andrew: Hey guys, wait for me!
Judah slept in a bunk bed one night... he fell off during the night. No more bunk bed without sides!
This was just too cute... Andrew put on his cousin Amber's shoes.

On the 26th we started our trek back home, but without Judah. He got to go to Ohio with three of his cousins to visit Grandma and pa Merseth. We will be going to pick him up at a half-way point in a few days. On the evening of the 26th we made an overnight stop at my parents' again before continuing on to our house the next day. We arrived in the afternoon of the 27th to a dry, brown landscape and hot hot temps.
One of our pit stops...

The next several days were spent watering the garden. We came back to an overgrown jungle... well, almost. It was really weedy. You'd think with no rain while we were gone, the weeds would've died out, but not so.

We also were pretty exhausted after all our driving. Just a lot of car time... the boys did okay, but there were some times when they were crying to be let out. Andrew would beg to get out and walk. It's taken me a while to get things back in order (well, sort of in order...). But it feels so good to be home! And it really does feel like home! Home is where the mess is, right? ;-)