A catch up in the middle of June!

Well it is almost the middle of June, and the last time I posted was when we arrived in the states! Sorry everyone! Our time seems to go by so fast when we are here, we are halfway through our stay here in Minn, and I know that the rest of the time will go by just as fast.

When we arrived in Minn the weather was not the best, rain... wind... coldish... I was wondering where the summertime weather was! We settled into the cabin (or rather the garagemahall as Greg named the garage where we stay) with relative ease. Lily is sleeping in one of the new bed cubbies, and she loves it. We put glow int he dark stars up on her little ceiling. Oliver is in a crib, kindof... The child is just like his Dad and is a climber, most of the time when I come up for bed I find Oliver asleep on the floor either in front of the door, or under his crib, with all the stuffed animals and blankets from his crib around him! He is not ready for a cubby bed, so I just keep picking him up and putting him back. Silly Boy!

We all got sick here, the kids ran fevers, Oliver got a cough, I got a bad stomach virus, Jordyn and Mum got colds and fevers... There went a week of our vacation. Mum still has a bad cough, and is more than ready for it to go away.

The weather has gotten nice since we were all sick though, summer is arriving. The boat is in the water, and we almost hit 100 degrees a few days ago. We took the boat out for a spin on the water, thinking that Oliver would love it, he did not. The combo of the boat and the life jacket makes for an unhappy boy. I will try one more time with him, and then it is no boat until next year. Lily on the other hand loved it, loved the wind in her hair and going fast. Thats my girl!

We are keeping ourselves fairly well entertained here, there is a small fisher price slide that the kids LOVE, and we filled a turtle sandbox with water so they can climb in and out and get a little cooler. They love being outside, and need some outside time every day or they are CRABBY! There is also a great minagerie of riding toys around for them to play with. A little bicycle, a tricycle, a big red fisher price car... if we left it all outside it would look like Mum has started a daycare!

Lily keeps us on our toes, she can open all the doors... the other day I put her in the garage for a nap, and 5 min later she was back in the cabin, I never heard a sound on the baby monitor! Oliver just learnt how to open the screen door, and that is actually the one we need to worry about more, Lily pretty much knows to go back and forth from the cabin to the garage and doesn't go to the lake or the road, or the neighbors, but Oliver is easily distracted by the cat wondering off, or the neighbors dog, or the fluff floating in the sky, who knows where he could end up if we don't stay on top of him! Luckily I came with two kids, and two still remain!

On the potty training front for Lily, well can I call it a front when the war is won? I still mistrust her at times (like long car rides) but I shouldn't, she is very good and I believe we can safely mark down a victory for that one. We just have to work on night, and I am going to give that one a rest for a while, maybe sometime after she turns three! I am very proud of her though.

We have gotten to see lots of family while we are back, including Marks family who came out from the black hills for Caseys graduation. Everyone has grown, I can't believe how big the boys are! It was really good to see them all.

Well I think that is enough catch up for now, oh wait there is one more thing, Jake... Lillian has her first crush, and it happens to be my cousin Jake! She turns silly and flirty around him, its pretty funny. I hope she reads this in 20 years and gets a kick out of it!

Thats it for now!

Back in America

We made it! The kids and I are back in the USA, and very glad to be! I had forgotten about all the choices in the grocery stores here, and I have already had a taste of my favorite items that I can't get abroad. The kids are doing great here, already getting into trouble at Mimi's house.

A recap of our journey

We left Melbourne on Wednesday the 18th, at 9:30 in the morning. Greg dropped us off at the airport, our two bags and two car seats got checked at baggage, and then the stroller got checked at the gate. I got on the airplane with two kids, Oliver in the backpack, a large carry-on, a purse, and then of course the kids little backpacks full of toys. The airplane was big, and we were on the second floor in the back. The flight attendant moved us to the very last row where we got an extra seat for Oliver, which was really nice. The kids did really well on the flight, Lily watched a lot of movies, and I kept Oliver pretty busy. Getting off in LA was pretty hard, we were the last ones off the plane (our level). Lily and Oliver were sound asleep when the plane landed, and Lily rallied pretty well to walk through passport control, and then helped with bags. The baggage claim in LA was the worst part of the whole deal, soo many people trying to get backs and get out at the same time. We finally made it, and we were so happy to see Debbie at the end of it all.

We spent a good few days at Debbies, and my friend Erin came up to spend time with us as well. We kept the kids (and me) up for the day, walked to the mall, and had some good mexican for dinner. The kids were more than ready for bed, and fell asleep soon after their heads hit the pillow. The kids woke up in the middle of the night, but they went back to sleep 45 min later. The next day was a bit better, we went to see a Noah's Ark exhibit which was pretty cool, and then we went down to Santa Monica to get some ice cream and hang out. All in it was a great few days.

We got on the airplane again on Friday morning to come to Minnesota, the first flight went pretty well, the kids both took little naps. We had a quick layover, which turned out to be a long layover, and then a quick 45 min flight to Minneapolis. Mum and Jordyn were waiting for us at baggage, We were the last ones off the plane again, so our bags were already there for us. We were finally here, and we are so happy to be here!

No jetlag anymore, and it was not as bad as I had anticipated. The same about the trip, it was hard, but it could have been a lot worse, and in fact went smoother than I thought it would go.