Fall festival ?>

Fall festival

Yesterday, we didn’t do anything. Well, that isn’t fair. We sat outside at the campsite, doing art, playing at the playground. It was nice to relax. Then we drove. I was so excited because I found a fall festival happening in Amish country on our drive for today, September 23. Deon worked while the kids and I went in. But no Amish. Lots of things for sale, but no genuine culture. We did glean some good from it, as we…

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Happy birthday to me! ?>

Happy birthday to me!

I always say that birthdays are great, as long as you are happy with where you are in life. I would say I’m pretty happy, but this birthday (40!) was a little hard to swallow. For aunica’s birthday, she requested a trip to a pumpkin patch. I hadn’t gotten around to that, so I researched and found one in Des Moines. We spent the day at Center Grove Orchard. So fun! I had never heard of a corn pool before….

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Full day, full hearts ?>

Full day, full hearts

Whew, we packed a lot into this day! We were very generously invited to attend our new friends’ homeschool co-op this morning. We were late (I’m sure you’re shocked), but still made 2 hours of it. The 4 big kids took off to their classes, so I will just have to give you their word for it that it was fun. I stayed with the 2 littles in the 0-3 class. There were probably a dozen kidlets and 6 adults….

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Zoo again! ?>

Zoo again!

I am so excited to say we were able to spend the day at the zoo again today! Our new friends were kind enough to get us in again, giving Deon and Aunica a chance to experience it! We did most of the same things again. Everyone except baby K and I rode the skyfari, we walked though the butterflies and the aquarium. We were given tickets to 2 more IMAX films, but Aunica, Kieran and I skipped one (in…

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Fighting something ?>

Fighting something

We were heartbroken this morning to have to back out on an invitation to lunch at our new friends’ house. Dimitri had been very under the weather last night, with a sore throat and general exhaustion, but when baby K threw up in my bed, that was the nail in the coffin.  So, no church, which would have been stake conference. We did run some needed errands, including finishing up getting aunicas phone fixed! I broke the screen a few…

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Birthday girl!  ?>

Birthday girl! 

First up, my oldest had a birthday today! She turned 13, officially a teenager, and that makes *me* officially the mom of a teenager! We have a rule in our home that you must be 13 to watch PG-13 movies, so for her birthday she wanted to stay home with her dad and binge watch The Hobbit movies. Sounds like a teen to me. 😉 Now is when I have to share a story. We have come across many nice…

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Downtown Omaha  ?>

Downtown Omaha 

What a great day! If you haven’t realized yet, I am an eternal optimist. Every day is great, even the days where I don’t get any sleep or my kid pukes on me or whatever. This wasn’t one of those days, it really was great.   It did start a little weird. We had pulled in to our second choice of campsites, since our first was ful. We did notice some riff-raff, and some of the dirtiest restrooms I have…

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Back to Nebraska ?>

Back to Nebraska

All of my kids have negative feelings about Nebraska. They are really unfounded; they are a result of a massive heat wave the only 3 days they have spent there. I am hoping I can erase those feelings, and today was a good start. We left the campsite and headed north to Lincoln. We arrived around 2 at pioneer park nature center. I knew we would all need to stretch out legs after being in the car so long. It…

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Doing nothing ?>

Doing nothing

Every day we learn some. After being forced to take a break Sunday when we popped a tire, Deon and I had a little talk. He felt so much better after an evening doing nothing, in a nice campground, by the water, and so did the kids. It was time for a little break. So last night we returned to the same campground and paid for 2 nights rest. Today, we did nothing. The kids played at the lakeshore for…

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Take me to the fair ?>

Take me to the fair

Today was satisfying, in fulfilling a yearly tradition while 2000 miles from home. We went to the fair! It is a bigger fair than ours, but a lot of the similar things. We saw horses, cows, chickens, pigs, and rabbits. Aunica requested to see the pig races, so we checked that off our list. We saw two canine shows, one police (a little dull) and one called jump. We watched a man carve a wood sculpture with a chainsaw, petted…

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