Summer Vacation 2010

We just returned from a wonderful family vacation. Per our kids' request, we went to visit my Uncle Keith and Aunt Leanna for five days and five nights. Actually, the kids wanted to stay a full week, but I think we sufficiently tired out our hosts in five days.

Great Uncle Keith treated the kids to games on his Ipad, first driving lessons, combine rides, bee collecting adventures (he has an alfalfa field), fishing, and plenty of yummy drinks from the little coffee shop in town. The kids thoroughly enjoyed playing at the "best playground ever," swimming at the community pool, playing with (or torturing?) the family dogs, Ari and Libby, watching crop dusting planes and seeing the trains and trucks blast through town (small town excitement at its best).

We watched a couple of Ma and Pa Kettle movies from Netflix and ate way too much Schwan's ice cream. We attended a small town blue grass festival (featuring a local girl and her siblings) and also got to see Grand Coulee Dam. Grace rode shotgun in a wheat truck driven by a nineteen year old girl who was homeschooled. They became fast friends. We stopped to see my grandparents' grave and the kids climbed onto the old tank at the cemetery. Paul was disappointed that he couldn't get the hatch open. Lydia wore (clean) underwear on her head at night so that she could cover her eyes and not wake up too early in the morning, which was a problem the first couple of mornings of our vacation.










We also visited two small town museums during our stay. We got personally guided tours at each one (since we were the only ones there). Elizabeth spotted a very old bedspread at one of the museums. It was made of two thousand fabric yo-yos that were stitched together entirely by hand. Liz got excited thinking about all the possibilities with yo-yos, so Aunt Leanna showed her how to make her own.

God treated us to an awesome display of his majesty one night when several thunder and lightening storms traveled right over us. Amazingly, Jude was the only one of our children who was awakened by the loud peals of thunder. He lifted his head off the pillow, looked out the window, saw a huge lightening streak flash across the sky and said, "Whoa!"

Matt was tickled pink to finally purchase an accordion. He's been looking on Craigslist for months, trying to find an accordion for Elizabeth to play. Saturday morning we stumbled upon a yard sale put on by a former accordion instructor and Matt thought he'd died and gone to Heaven. Aunt Leanna dug through the basement and found her accordion and she and Matt played a couple of accordion duets together. Then Jude got up to the piano and did his best Ray Charles rendition (head movements and all) to add to the impromptu jam session. A grand time was had by all. Aunt Leanna is letting us borrow her accordion, so we'll have to start a family polka band or something.


We went to church on Sunday morning. Matt asked an old woman whether anyone ever sat in the pew that is second from the front. She replied with a good Lutheran answer, "No one ever sits that far up." We did. The neglected pew finally got a good work out. Our family almost doubled the number of congregants that morning. Just kidding, but only slightly.

We arrived home to "the house with the white bricks," last night. While on vacation, we stayed at the little red brick house next door to my aunt and uncle's house. They purchased it a couple of years ago and use it as a guest house. Near the end of our time there, Joel kept saying, "Mama, me want to go home to da house with da white bricks." I guess he thought we'd left our own home for good. He and Jude were so excited when we pulled into our driveway yesterday evening. Jude was reunited with his beloved yellow rubber boots and Joel was so happy to have his own bed to sleep in once again.

For my part, I couldn't have been happier that we returned home with only one small bag of laundry due to the fact that the Uncle Keith and Aunt Leanna's guest house has a washer and dryer. Our chickens fared well while we were away and so did our garden. The kids harvested almost a dozen gargantuan zucchini squash today. Hats off to Uncle Keith and Aunt Leanna for providing our family with a terrific vacation.