2 favorite kids

On Saturday night I made cinnamon rolls, and Tyler helped. He had fallen asleep pretty late that day (in the car) so he wasn't tired when bedtime came around. So after putting Brynlee to bed, it was just me and him hanging out, waiting for Kenny to come home. We played candy land, read books, and talked over warm cinnamon rolls and cold milk. I went to bed that night feeling so grateful that I get to be his mom, and Brynlee's mom too. I am humbled by it, in fact, because they have such wonderful spirits and they're such beautiful children inside and out.

Everyone always says how fast time goes and before you know it your kids will be out of the house, so try to enjoy every day with them, etc. Right now I have a hard time even imagining having one of my children old enough to go to school, so having them grown up and out of the house seems really far down the road. But in any case, I'm going to continue recording how they are at each stage and the funny things they do and say, in hopes that I can somehow preserve them (or at least remember them) as they are now.

Tyler is 3 1/2 now and quite the big boy. He has a very inquisitive mind and is always asking me LOTS of questions, some of which I don't even know the answer to. I often wish someone else were around to here the things he asks me every day, even if just to help me answer him!! He has such a kind heart, and still is very sweet to Brynlee, although he has turned into more of a tease (just like his father) since she's old enough to give more of a reaction. He loves books more than any child I know. I can't wait until he learns to read as it will be a great relief to me and him! He's always asking me what things say, and pretending to read signs, tags, etc.
He loves to show off and crack jokes--he thinks he's hilarious! :) He's excited to be a big brother to two little sisters and often asks me if "the baby's coming out yet". We have a smaller mouse for the computer that fits really well in his hand, and he has become quite the little computer game boy and loves to play game on pbskids.org and nickjr.org, etc. His favorite sport is soccer, and he loves to just run everywhere.
The other day I overheard him telling Kenny that the night before he had had a dream about Jesus Christ. I don't doubt it for a second, this boy is special.

Brynlee is 18 months and is very independent. Here in the picture, she had gotten into the cupboard, pulled down the goldfish, opened them up and helped herself. She does it often. I just love the stage she's in because it is so fun watching her learn and grow. I love being able to witness little milestones all the time. She plays very independently on the playground, just climbs up and goes down the biggest slide (forwards now, not on her tummy like she used to) and will do it over and over again. She stacks blocks, does puzzles, sings songs, and just tries to copy everything she sees (much to the enjoyment of her brother). She knows more signs and animal sounds than I care to count and surprises me every day with what she knows. She's really good at communicating what she wants. She always tells me "poo poo" or "potty" before she goes poop in her diaper, which makes me very hopeful for potty training her early! This morning she ran into her room and said "night night" and proceeded to try and climb into her crib. I followed her in there to see if she was serious. I asked her if she was tired and wanted to sleep right now? (It was only 10:30, but she had gotten up at 6 so I knew she was tired) She said "yeah, night night" so I put her in her crib and she laid down and fell asleep!! And when she woke up she hollered, "all done!" haha. She still climbs everything and gets hurt a lot because she just can't hold still. She is such a sweetheart and I love her strong personality.

Long post of our week

I kept meaning to get on here earlier this week, and now here I am at the end with a long update. But here it is anyway.

Monday: recovered from the trip: Laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping. FHE

Tuesday: dry cleaners for all of Kenny's suits (i love coupons). Brynlee had her 18 mo. Dr. appt. in the a.m. She's 33 1/4 inches tall (90th %) and 24 pounds 12 oz. (50th%) she got some shots that made her not feel so great the rest of the day, but she didn't even cry during them. She's one tough cookie. I'm so grateful for healthy kids, and for mine and Kenny's health too. Afterwards we stopped at the library. I found out that my sister Steph had an emergency C-section the night before. She was not quite 38 weeks, but her heart wouldn't stop racing so they hurried and did it. Welcome to the world baby Dean Perry Webb!! He's a beautiful little boy and although it was a very scary experience for Steph, (read the crazy story here if you'd like) she's doing much better now and they're both home. I've been feeling very helpless this week as I'm too far away to help her out. My sisters and mom are able to go take turns staying with her for a while...if only I were closer.

Wednesday: We made a trip to Target first thing in the morning to get some more bins and organizational stuff. We spent the next while at the park as it was such a beautiful morning and we couldn't go inside when it was so cool outside!! We are SO excited for fall. At least the mornings are cooler now, so I do know that it is coming :). Spent the rest of the day cleaning out closets and moving more clothes to the garage. I feel like I am constantly re-arranging and moving clothes around. Between seasons changing, my children growing like weeds, and me changing sizes between normal me, chubby me, and finally maternity clothes, I never stop changing clothes in and out of rooms. That afternoon my phone came in the mail!! Thank you to my mother-in-law for sending it so quickly. Boy it was frustrating to not have it.

That night was Kenny's first night of going to Young Men's! I don't think I mentioned it yet, but he got called as the Young Men's President! That's going to be one busy calling, but he's very excited about it.

Thursday: We had a presidency meeting in the morning. I always feel bad for the kids that I have to drag them around to all those things, but they're pretty good about it. That afternoon I took the kids with me to go look at two houses (duplexes actually) in town because I really wanted to move since they keep extending our end date here. But that's a whole other post on its own. We stayed around and had dinner, then took Tyler to his first class of the new semester at The Little Gym. It's a sports class and he's so excited about it. He asks to go back all the time. Kenny worked late and we all met up and went out for custard afterwards. YUM!

Friday: Went on a long walk and spent a couple hours down at the beach in the morning, swinging on the swings, building sand castles, and just soaking up the beautiful cool weather. That night we went bowling as a family because we had two free passes. We had a great time!!

I thought it was cool that all the balls had my name on them! (Linds) They must use the same brand as the Fat Cats in Provo, UT. That's the only other bowling place I've seen them.

Tyler just really liked his shoes. It was a little sad when he found out we didn't get to keep them, he just thought they were the coolest colors!

Saturday: Kenny mowed the lawn in the morning then got ready and left for the day by 10 a.m., not getting home until almost 11 p.m. He was lucky enough to go down to St. Louis with the youth and listen to John Bytheway speak!! He said it was so awesome. After that they all went over to the stake center for Stake Priesthood meeting or something and enjoyed that too. He felt very spiritually uplifted, and also tired, by the end of the day.

The kids and I just got to hang out like any other day at home. We made a car for Tyler out of a big cardboard box. We painted it, decorated it (he put a lot of star stickers and a colored picture of Lightning McQueen on it), and he drove it around a lot! We made a paper stop sign and talked about the shape, octagon. We also made a stop light with red, yellow and green. Instead of playing red light, green light, he wanted to add "yellow light" since that's technically correct. It was pretty funny to watch him run in slow-motion for yellow light. :)

We had a great day at church today. Kenny had meetings before and after, and is finally taking a nap now :). I still can't get over how much I enjoy having both kids in nursery! I feel much more uplifted when I'm able to actually listen to what goes on at church. I know that's selfish of me, but it's true. Well this post is long enough, so I'll be done now.

Weston Family Reunion

What a trip!! Kenny and I have dubbed ourselves "Road Trip Masters" because it's true. Other than truck drivers, I've never met anyone that does as many insane road trips as we do.

Wednesday the 18th: We left around 3:00 p.m. (if I remember correctly) and drove through the night of course, switching off every few hours. We got to Bear Lake--which is on the border of Idaho and Utah--19 hours later. We made pretty good time, and we were tired. But there's no time to rest when you're at a family reunion with people you only get to see once this year! We had a wonderful time the rest of the weekend, mostly just playing at our private beach :). We rented a house for the weekend, although it was so old and stuff I felt like we might as well have been camping but we still enjoyed it.

It was so nice to see the mountains again! Oh I miss those so much. I had also forgotten how dry it is there!! Holy cow. The temperature got so cold at night and in the morning, which is also something we forgot about. It felt so nice! I haven't wished for a jacket in months. I only wish the water at Bear Lake was a little warmer, but other than that it was perfect. Kenny's parents bought a boat beforehand so everyone enjoyed that, and they rented two jet skis for Friday and Saturday. Kenny got to kneeboard and wakeboard, and I got to ride in the boat :). Good thing I won't be pregnant two summers in a row. Tyler and Brynlee were in heaven the whole time. Cousins to play with, and on a beach no less! Brynlee is our fearless little water baby and had no regard for freezing temperatures. She just continually dove in head first until her lips looked blue and she was shaking from being so cold haha. She had a blast. I took so many pictures of her, I just couldn't help it. She's so darn photogenic.

Tyler and his cousin, Josh, who is 6 weeks younger than him. These two were inseperable, as they always are when we get together. It is so nice for him to have a constant little buddy!

The weekend was full of family, food, and fun. Oh I forgot to mention that we went to the Picadilly Playhouse and saw a cute little show.

On Saturday night after dinner we said our good-byes and headed out. We were beat from being in the sun for 3 days, but had no choice but to drive all night again. We switched on and off every few hours again and made it back safely. There were a few mishaps; like me forgetting my phone (it is terribly inconvenient) and me missing a turn on the way back and adding an hour onto our time. But there were also a few miracles. Like how Kenny's ipod lasted 7-8 more hours after it was on the "red zone" in battery life, and it helped whoever was driving stay awake as it lasted through the night. Also how a deer was on the side of the road and though I started to slow down as soon as I saw it, had it chose to run out I would have hit it for sure. Thank goodness it flinched forward, then turned and ran the other way. The kids were troopers, and we were all in bed by 9 on Sunday night :). We are glad we got to go--it was so good to see family again. Can't wait till next year!

Cooling Off

It has been severely cooling off this week!! As in, yesterday it only got up to a high of 86!! It is beautiful and we are definitely enjoying it. Every time the garage door opens, Brynlee immediately goes and climbs into her stroller and says "walk". Or she climbs into the trailer that's attached to my bike and just sits there until I either take her on a bike ride, or take her into the house screaming and crying. Thanks to the cooler temperatures, there's been less crying on her end, and more activity on my end :).

Sunday we had over a cute couple from our ward, Bryce and Audra Sever. They are expecting their first baby, (a girl too!) and due 3 days after me. And she sews! We loved getting to know them better and are wondering why in the world we waited so long to do so.

Monday I had another dr. appt. I have one more in 4 weeks, and then we start going to every 2 weeks. WHAT?! That's coming so fast. Also on Monday I finally got to go to my Aquacise class again. I didn't get to go at all last week because Kenny worked late every day. I don't think I've mentioned that on here but I love that class! A couple weeks ago I was running, and it wasn't working so well. It took me about 11 minutes to just do one mile, and I was really cramping at the end. So I said, well that's enough running for this pregnancy. Kenny talked me into swimming, as in laps. But I have this oxygen problem when I swim. Anyway, I found this class at our gym that does a water aerobics class every day but Friday and it's the best thing for me right now! Me and all the old ladies hangin out in the water. It rocks.

On Tuesday, Tyler had his first preschool group at Miner Park. It only meets once a month, but it was really fun and there's other boys from the ward that are his friends so he enjoys it. Brynlee had a good time too! Oh and good news! We found Donald (our duck) yesterday at the lake! We haven't seen him in a while so we thought he had died or something but there he was! It was so exciting for Tyler. He recognized him immediately. He was our last and only survivor of all our pets. I'm glad he pulled through.

Today we are leaving for Bear Lake in Utah! Kenny went into work at 4:00 this morning so he could get off early. Probably not the best start for an all-night drive, but I guess that's where I come into play haha. Speaking of which, I better go finish packing. Till next week!

Kenny's First Triathlon!

Saturday, Aug. 14th Kenny participated in Wood River's 25th Annual Sprint Triathlon! He did great! The event: Swim 1/4 mile, Bike 12 miles, Run 4 miles. There were around 500+ contestants. They started at 7:00 a.m. and had one person start swimming every 15 seconds. Kenny's start time was 8:38:45 or something like that.

Here's the kids waiting for it to start. They were great cheerleaders!

I didn't get any pictures of him swimming because I recorded the whole thing. (I was short on hands keeping track of these two anyway!) But he did awesome. Then for biking and running, they had a 2 mile loop that they did both on, and everyone at the same time. So he biked pass us 6 times so I was able to record some and take pictures sometimes. Then I recorded the running both times we saw him, including his finish.

I love this picture of him giving me a smile during the biking because it's so like him. I am not a smiler while competing like that.

He did it!! Final time 1 hour 24 minutes!! We are so proud of him. Hopefully the next one he does will have cooler temperatures for him, it was hot! We were tired just watching him :) I'm looking forward to doing one with him next summer.

There were a few other people from our ward that did it too, like his friend Jason Hasquin and the Eldridges. It was fun to see them too.

Way to go Kenny!!

This was a great even to participate in because it was such a good deal! It was a 40$ fee to participate, and he got the standard t-shirt and a cup. But also, after the event they fed the participants and their families!! So we got a yummy lunch, and then they gave us all free admission to the Aquatic Center where it was held. So we had a fun time swimming afterward too. They have 2 big waterslides and we held the kids on our laps to go down--they loved it!! Especially Brynlee, as soon as we'd get to the bottom she'd turn around and say "again!" haha It was a very fun morning.

When we got home, the kids and I took a nap. Kenny should have, (he's the one that deserved it!) but instead he went outside and changed his brake pads and roters (how do you spell that?) on his car. Then he showered, had dinner, and went to a Rams vs. Vikings pre-season football game. Thanks to Justin Porter for the ticket! He had a great time with the guys. It was a long, full, and very fun day.

Yesterday

Forts are the funnest and this is one of our favorites. It's the easiest to set up and take down, and it doesn't fall apart like all the ones I try to make with several small blankets and lots of chairs/couches, etc. I just threw the quilt that's on my bed (it is a King size quilt so it worked great!) over our table and they loved it. Throw in a few flashlights and markers to color a cardboard box and they had a real party. Stuffed animals and a snack ended up in there too later on.

Tyler dresses himself, and is a little confused on what "matching" really is. But he is a great architect. Brynlee is a great destroyer of his buildings too :)

Oh to be young and naked.

"Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer!"

This is going to be a long and random post about just stuff that's happened lately.

Kenny has recently developed somewhat of an obsession with pickled eggs. I had never even heard of them, but some guy at work introduced them to him and now he is hooked. He came home several days in a row with new kinds of peppers and stuff to add to his jars of pickled eggs. I think the whole thing looks (and smells) disgusting, but hey, he likes it.

Our fridge now looks like some freaky science experiment. I think this would be a good thing to do at Halloween and make the eggs into eyeballs or something. That's how gross it is to me haha.

Speaking of crazy things Kenny does, he decided to go on a bike ride on Saturday. That's nothing new, but this time he was gone for almost 3 hours! I was scared to death because of how hot it was outside, and he didn't tell me he would be gone for so long. At one point (after 2 hours) I got the kids in the car and we drove around for a while looking for him. I realized while we were gone that it was probably a stupid idea since I had no idea which direction he had gone or how far, and he was probably fine. He finally got home and had ridden like 42 miles or something. He had one very numb bum.

This next picture was taken on Sunday before church. Tyler is growing so fast (okay so they both are) but we had to get him new pants and a new church shirt because his arms and legs were definitely too long for his other pairs. He looks so grown up! (And Brynlee was playing the maracas of course) It's fun to have them in nursery together. I think it makes Bryn's transition a little easier. Only 4 more months of it though, and then Ty will be a sunbeam! wow.

Remember the last post where I was saying how bored we were? I want to first explain myself a little. It wasn't like we hadn't done anything else that day. We had already colored, played legos, and indoor soccer, and danced to music, and read a lot of books, and done puzzles, and watched a movie, and and and ya know? I just get tired of always having to find something to do instead of just saying, let's go outside and play. But anyways, that's my little disclaimer. Well this was our solution that afternoon: make cupcakes. Then we decorated and devoured them, spoiling our dinner :). But it's okay to spoil your dinner on leftovers night.

Some of us enjoyed the decorating part a little more than others...

(Check out that tongue of concentration! A true Andersen trait)

While others enjoyed the devouring part a little more...

The face of pure delight :)

Yesterday my friend Terra was kind enough to get us a free pass to go swimming with them at the YMCA. That was SUCH a nice break from the heat. Rochelle was there with her kids too so we had a great time.

Last night while Kenny was at a Young Men vs. Elders Quorum softball game, I took the kids to McDonalds for dinner and the playground. Classy, I know. Anytime someone said the word "McDonald" Brynlee sang "E-I-E-I-O!" It cracked me up. She also went on the playplace for the first time (we haven't been there in a few months) and she got stuck at the top of one of the slides. Thankfully Tyler was helpful enough to go help her down. There was a man there with his grandson who looked at my belly and said, "I sure hope she doesn't really get stuck because you can't get in there to get her!" I was almost hoping she would so I could prove him wrong. I am not THAT big yet!!

But anyway, that's a little update for my increasingly lame blog.

Hurry Up September

The kids and I are bored. As I type this they have given up on coloring and are now littering the house with colored pencils, crayons, and markers like you wouldn't believe. I finally said, "I don't care if it's hot, let's just go outside." But then I stepped outside and changed my mind. It is HOT.

I just looked up weather.com to see if it really is hot, or if I'm just being a baby. It says: Current temperature 96 degrees, feels like 112!! "Dangerous heat index. Outdoor exposure should be limited." Awesome.

Time to really get creative.

Is August almost over yet or what?

To Write, or Not To Write

I've been doing better lately at keeping my own journal, just writing a little something in it at night before I go to bed. This blog is intended to be our family's record, but I often end up writing things as if it were my very own. I don't mean to, but I'm already writing, and typing is always so much faster for me, and I'm already going at it, so it just happens. But now that I'm back into my own writing habit, I am always thinking of "oh I want to write that down" but then I have to decide if it is for the blog, or for my own journal. Who would have known I'd put so much wasted thought into it? But anyhow, that is my dilemma.

Nothing too eventful happened this week. Tyler had another Little Gym camp, a Ninja camp, on Tuesday and Thursday from 9-12. He absolutely loved it, as he always does. The next semester of classes starts this week and I just can't decide if I should put him in again or not. I am always going back and forth. It seems like the world (or at least our country) is so competitive in every area and people are starting their kids in things younger and younger. On the one hand I say, but that doesn't make it necessary to spend so much money when they're so young, lots and lots of people grow up just fine without it, I don't need to join the rat race, I can be a mother who knows and not add unecessary activities into our families lives etc. etc. But then I also have thoughts about how he loves it so much, and he's not in preschool so maybe this is fine to have his only other "social outlet" source (is that even necessary either at this age? people make all these claims but I wonder how much it's just moms needing the break more than the kids needing outside friends...) and if we can afford it then why not provide the best possible opportunities for him, etc. etc.

Does anyone else have this problem? I go back and forth all the time and I just wish there were a clear cut answer.What are the best things to involve them in, and when? I know it's a decision that each family has to make for themselves, I just wish I felt more confident about one way or the other.

Our A/C went out one day this week. Kenny fixed it all when he came home, but by then our house was 86 degrees. I will tell you one thing, I would not be a good pioneer. I love air conditioning. I took my clothes off and was walking around in my you-know-whats for hours. There's no way I could handle those long, hot dresses. Anyway, it sure made me grateful for a normally very comfortable house.

Brynlee has been a real challenge the past few days as she has more teeth coming in, at least that's all I think it is. She acts like she's dying most of the time and we're all pulling our hair out by the time those dang teeth come in. It seems so much worse for her than I remember it being for Ty.

This weekend I was feeling really tired and like I had had a rough couple of days. You know, the worthless self-pity kind of thoughts. I was being negative about having to clean things that I swear I had just barely cleaned and just having a rotten attitude. Then I stopped and had some thoughts come to me. If these are my biggest problems in life, having a house to clean, children to take care of (even teething ones at that), and one hot day in the house, I have it pretty dang good. Honestly the things I was overwhelmed with are the biggest blessings in my life. I am blessed enough to have a home that needs cleaning, and to have children who are teething, ya know what I mean?

When we were in Adam-Ondi-Ahman we ate lunch at the Perman's little missionary home for lunch. (They were the ones giving us a tour around the place.) I just loved Cherilyn and her positive attitude about everything. I had never met her before so I don't know what she is always like, but she seemed to have just such a clear perspective. I remember her saying after lunch when cleaning up, "There's just something about being here, I don't even mind doing the dishes. I just love it. It doesn't bother me anymore." That really impacted me. I don't think I have to wait to go on a mission when my kids are grown to understand that same big picture. I can be happy about doing my own dishes and serving my own family, remembering what we're doing here and what our eternal goals are. Just some things I was thinking about. My life is wonderful, and I am so blessed.

Sweet Brynners

Oh I love this girl's smile!

Here's a few things about my Brynlee as of late. She'll be 18 months in a few days and I can't believe how big she is already!

I love how she's a big girl going to nursery now, that sure makes church nice.

She would eat string cheese for as long as I would give it to her

She has pretty good pitch and although she can't say too much, she loves to sing

2 of my favorites: she does the "E-I-E-I-O" very well and

she also knows the "he-e-e-e-y" parts in the song "Hey Soul Sister" and it cracks me up

Thanks to Brynlee, she makes my life very exciting by never staying still for a second, and makign me chase her all over the place. It just might be boring if my kids were the same, so she makes sure to be very different from Tyler!

The longer she's outside in the humidity, the curlier her cute hair gets

She sticks out her tongue in the cutest way, and she knows she's adorable

She also has quite the temper and can be very feisty

She knows a ton of signs and is saying new words all the time. She jibber jabbers a lot and looks at you like she knows exactly what she's talking about.

My favorite word she says is "peek-boo!"

Although she tries to act like a big girl, she loves to be the baby and I'm anticipating a harder adjustment with her becoming a big sister, than I had with Tyler getting a sibling

She is still really good at giving snuggles and kisses, and I hope she never grows out of it!

It's Finished!

After several months of working on this darn thing, it is finished! I'm talking about the sailboat quilt I made for Ty's bed. It wasn't originally intended to be a quilt. I started out with the large sailboat in the center as a fun thing to make. But I loved the fabric and stuff so much that I kept making up the pattern as I went. Kenny's help was enlisted several times! He would draw up a little graph on Excel to see how much fabric I needed, what measurements would work, etc. He was very helpful! So was my mom who I called on several occasions with different ideas and she, with her wonderful foresight and experience, would say yes or no haha. It took well over a month to get back from Utah where it was being quilted, but it turned out SO good! I think it is so beautiful, but probably just because I put so much work into it. I finally finished binding it last night after the kids went to bed and I couldn't wait till Tyler woke up this morning to put it on.

p.s. I apologize for all of the pictures below, none of them turned out very good to say the least. But just imagine it looking wonderful :)

I bought this shelf for toys a while back when I started "re-doing" their room and it has been so great in there for organization! And I love the other sailboat decor on top.

This little table was also an addition. I haven't bought the matching chairs yet because I was floored by the price. So we'll just use some mismatched chairs that we already have in the meantime.

Our trip(s) in a nutshell

Friday, July 23rd: Scott, (Kenny's father), Carolyn (Kenny's mother) and Michael (Kenny's youngest brother) flew in for a visit. We met them at the airport and headed out to Adam-Ondi-Ahman that very night. We stayed at a lovely little place in the middle of nowhere called the MaryDale Inn. It was a B&B and I just had to laugh remembering Gilmore Girls (anyone know what I mean?). The whole day Saturday was spent touring around this beautiful place. We were lucky enough to have special tour guides. Merrell and Cherilyn Perman live by the Westons in Rockland, Idaho and they are currently serving a mission in AOA. So they were so kind to tell us lots of neat stories, and take down the "service road only" ropes to take us back where not many people get to go. It was quite the experience and I will never forget it. I fell in love with the Perman's--they are just the neatest couple. I really look forward to serving a mission with Kenny. It was a really special place. We also got to check out Jamesport, Missouri which is the largest Amish settlement west of the Mississippi River. I loved their fabric store and bought 8 yards of minky material in different colors as it was about $15-20 cheaper per yard.

Sunday, July 25th: After Sacrament meeting at the little branch we drove out to Far West, Missouri. All that's there is the old temple site with 4 cornerstones sealed in big glass cases, and a large monument. There was still a special spirit there, and it was humbling to think of all the horrible things that happened to the saints there.


From there we went to Liberty Jail. I've been there before, but it was still amazing and I learned more and had some neat impressions there. What trying times they went through!

We then headed over to Independence, Missouri and stopped at the Visitor's Center. They have a really cool film thing on families. We tried to go across the street to the Community of Christ visitor's center, but arrived about 7 minutes after they had closed. Bummer.

We got back home late Sunday night!

Monday July 26th: Relaxed a little in the morning. Took them on a walk down to the lake because that's the kids' favorite spot. We picked up Kenny from work and drove out to St. Louis and went up the Gateway Arch. What a view!!

After that I took the kids home to put them to bed, and Kenny took his family to the outdoor Muny theatre to see The Sound of Music. They really enjoyed it and got back pretty late.

Tuesday July 27th: We drove out to Belleville and went to Eckert's. We picked our own peaches, took a break and had custard (their first time eating custard) and then picked our own blackberries! The sun wore us out though, so we decided to forego the rest of the activities of the day and head home. I made a yummy peach cobbler that night and we played games.

Wednesday July 28th: In the morning, Kenny's family left for Nauvoo early and took Tyler with them. That was a weird moment for me when I realized Tyler is in fact old enough to go do things like that with other people. He doesn't need me like Brynlee does and there's no diapers or anything to worry about. My little boy is growing up so fast. But anyway. I picked up Kenny from work that evening and we drove down there with Bryn, arriving around 8 p.m., just in time for the Nauvoo Pageant! We loved it, of course, and headed back to our hotel exhausted. The next day we did a lot of fun things, the Trail of Hope on Parley Street, toured lots of the houses, did a session in the beautiful temple, went to the fun activities they have before the pageant, and Kenny's parents and bro. went to the pageant again that night. I opted to take the kids back to the hotel and put them to bed. Poor things were so so tired.

This is our family standing in the Mississippi River at the end of Parley Street, where the Saints crossed on Feb. 4th, 1846. I never tire of Nauvoo and its beauty and wonderful spirit. It's such a neat place. We stopped at Carthage Jail on the way home, but for some reason I didn't take a single picture. That is really cool to visit (I'd been several times before, just like Nauvoo but I still love it.) but it is such a different feeling, and focus than Nauvoo. Still good to experience though.

We drove home Friday night and it rained the entire way home. We watched the Mississippi River flood even more than it already was, and enjoyed the scenic route. :)

Kenny's family left on Saturday, the 31st around noon. It was great to have them here and go see all those wonderful church history sites with them.

The rest of Saturday was spent taking the kids swimming, and preparing my lesson for Relief Society. We are still recovering and getting back into our little routines.