Home from the motherland-the road trip- Part 1 of 2

Hey hey hey, we're back! Wow, what a trip! We went on a road trip to a family reunion to Moose Lake, Mn. Yes, that is a real place, for all you big city slickers :D I had a great time having the kind of old school fun that I used to have as a little kid up in northern Minnesota.

We left at 5 am last sunday and got to my BIL/SIL in Kansas city at 3 am their time. It was looooooong but we survived. Huge thanks to John and Jen for putting us up on the way there and back. We had a blast and so did the kids!



This is on the way, its in a town outside of Dalhart, TX. This is one of many cattle farms that raise beef. There are acres and acres of solid livestock as far as the eye can see. Gross. It makes me want to quit eating red meat, for about 20 minutes :D




We just had the younger 4 since Cade had gone a week earlier with my dad. We were all packed with bug spray, life jackets, air mattress, suitcases and laptop (for the in-car movies) Along with food for the week, clipboard of very important papers, and overnight bag. It was a lot to get ready, but over the years Ive gotten better at these kind of trips. We spent the night in KC and then headed up to the homeland, which was really fun. Of course, I wish I had taken 3 times more pictures that I did, but I was too busy doing the stuff we did. To avoid this becoming a monstrous post, here are the highlights of the first part:


*Time out at my Uncle Diggers for music, drinking (or actually, watching everyone else drink) and the kids playing in the pond and catching frogs. If you're wondering why there aren't many pics of Cooper, he was kind of hanging in the background. He had fun, but he was being funny about joining in on stuff.




*Nighttime at the FABULOUS little cabin that my Aunts neighbor so graciously let us live in for the week free of charge. The words "perfect" and "appreciative" come to mind. I wish we could have spent more time there, but we ended up at my parents cabin (A short bike ride away-and yes, we were provided bikes for the whole family to use......how amazing is that??) The yards there are divided by actual woods, so the boys and Mark had a blast playing "saints and soldiers" with pinecones wars. We were also provided lawn games and the kids learned to play croquet. Sort of. I realized that I didn't really take any actual pictures there, just video. Dang!

*We spent the whole day out at the dock by my parents cabin swimming, fishing, and renting these cute motorized paddle boats with water cannons. Cooper was great at maneuvering the paddle boats, but wasn't as into the fishing.

Sadie even enjoyed going out on the paddle boats for some more serious fishing, which I thought was cool.

They really felt special :D Cade, of course was in it to get the big trophy fish, he wanted a northern pike that was big enough to eat. Since we had come home, I have had been informed that he caught the one he was waiting for (18 inches long) the day after Mark and I left. He's happy.

This is actually a pic of one that my BIL Kameron caught, but I'm guessing its about the same

*We picked up my grandma and went to breakfast at the Truck Stop, my favorite all time childhood restaurant. I know, super classy :D The food is good though and my aunt and cousin came for a while too.

*Mudbogging in Cromwell. My uncle Diggers friend let us come out to his field and took us all in his monster trucks/monster bug. I can't believe how LOUD the trucks were!! I mean, L O U D! The kids thought it was cool, I had no idea Mark used to be into that as a teenager. Good times. Of course the kids loved climbing all over the old junky cars and the tractors.


Here is some youtube of our mudbogging.......fyi Kenny is a friend of my uncle who said that his jeep could mudbog as good as any old truck......LOL My uncle Glen took this video, and the kids are in the pink truck. That mud-bug was fun too!




*Back to Uncle Diggs for more drinking (ha!) where we played badminton, played in the pond some more, and I won the first annual frog race. My frog had some serious jumping ability. OK, mabye he was making a break for the pond as fast as he could, but I like to think my awesome coaching had a little something to do with it. The kids were DYING to get back to the lake and fish and swim some more, so we headed back and did more of that.






*Every night was spent at my mom and dads cabin playing Settlers of Catan. Mark hadn't played before, but the first night he tried it out and was hooked. OK well he won his first game and several after that, which is quite frustrating for us seasoned players. Not surprising, though. We had SO much fun. It was kind of like we got through our days just to pass the time until we could play. We took it home with us and on the way got John and Jens family hooked too, and played for a day and a half straight with everyone (the kids played for a whole day).

Here we are playing with the Lambs, I didn't get a pic of us playing at the cabin. I was too busy playing and eating all the yummy fish Jason was cooking up for us.

You know you have a bad settlers addiction when you are noticing that the landscape on the way home looks like "Sheep", "Wood", and "Brick". LOL Yikes. Good thing my mom gave Mark the game for his birthday, so when Cade gets home we will have enough people to play. Anyone want to come over and play?? We are super fun!!