Huff visit part 1

The Huff family came to visit us for 10 days and we were so excited to have them come! Brian picked them up from the airport and the rest of us were anxiously waiting in the front yard.

We crammed a lot of fun in while they were here. Here is some of it!

 Lots of hanging out in the backyard. Sophie and Owen built the fire so they were quite proud (even if Brian added gas to make it start...)

 Lily checking out my big belly

 Isaac turned 4 while they were here. We spent the day at the zoo and then had a bbq in the backyard with a yummy ice cream cake Emily made.

 Lily found the marshmallows

 The happy Birthday boy!

 It was so fun having all these cute cousins around to play together! I think the entire time they were here the kids only had one very small problem over a video game with the boys - that's pretty good for having 8 kids in one house for so long!

 Sophie adored Isaac and loved playing with him and carrying him everywhere. He loved it too and probably got carried around more than usual with Sophie around to do it whenever he liked.

 Here we are at our awesome free zoo on Isaac's birthday:

Brian and I managed to collect 12 free summer passes to the Wisconsin Dells for us all to use. A radio station here gives them out every year and we went to all 3 of their events so we could get the passes. We used them and went up to the Wisconsin Dells and went on a River boat tour and to a water park. It was a fun day! 

It's fun to have kids around who are old enough to sit and play games!

We went up to UW and had some of their yummy ice cream.

 These two had a great time together.

 After ice cream we went on a walk to Picnic Point on campus. It's a long strip of land that goes out into Lake Mendota. The kids were having fun playing in the water until Nora saw a sign that said not to play in the water because of blue green algae. Oops. Luckily, no one got sick.

 Cute Emily and Lily.

 Miles, Owen and Wesley had a lot of fun together. Cousins are the best!

Summer Vacation Part 8: Road Trip Home!!

On our way home to Wisconsin we stopped at Martins Cove in Wyoming. I had never been there before. We got there kind of late but the couple missionaries were so nice and still let us see some things, and even drove us up in their golf cart type vehicles so we could see the cove. I wish we could have spent a lot more time there, but since we'll probably be making the drive from Wisconsin to Utah a lot in the future I'm sure we'll have the chance to stop again.

Kind of a funny picture with me showing some leg and Brian looking like he needs to go potty, but it's all we have.

Such a beautiful place with a wonderful spirit there. And if we could feel it with four kids there, you know it must be amazing!

My cute mama rode home with us!

The blacksmith shop. This cute man made the girls "prairie diamonds" from nails and he put Sophie's on her finger for her and said now they were engaged. The look on Sophie's face was pretty funny. Our next stop: Mt. Rushmore!!
Very impressive!
Miles crashed half way through.
Nora's idea of heaven: lots of shiny rocks! We had been telling her our entire vacation that she could get a bag of rocks at Mt. Rushmore. She was beyond thrilled.
The girls standing by the "Wisconsin" pillar, with the ice cream Naunie bought them.
The girls with their bags of rocks. It was a neat place and definitely worth stopping for. It will be fun to go back again when the kids are older and we can take our time to read all the stuff we wanted to in the visitors center. There is also a place nearby called Crazy Horse that is an Indian on a horse being carved out of the mountain. We were going to stop there but it was 20 bucks to get in so we opted out of that. We could see it from the road anyway! The Black Hills were beautiful. So fun to see a different type of country. We also stopped at a place called Wall Drug that was awesome but it seems I didn't take any pictures. I'll have to get some from my mom if she took any. Mom?
We made it in to Wisconsin the day before our stuff arrived, which was nice for cleaning/painting, but not so good for sleeping on hardwood floors. We did have quite a few blankets and a crib mattress in the trailer we hauled,we were nice enough to let my mom use the crib mattress. I'm sure she slept like a baby on it. :)
Doesn't this look comfy?
We put my mom right to work painting two bedrooms, the living room and the dining room! I'm not sure what we would have done without her here. It's quite possible we'd still be in a mess!
Hi Naunie! Looks like your almost done. No lunch until this room is painted!

Sophie cleaning her and Nora's room (this was before painting).

Painting the boys room!
Gotta love living in a mess.

Nora wearing a dress of mine from when I was little :)
Our stuff came!

We did let Naunie relax occasionally!

Lots of playing outside. It was SO HOT AND HUMID while my mom was here. And our house doesn't have air conditioning. Sheesh. It was HOT. Funny thing, the day my mom left it cooled off significantly. Wesley cooled off by taking a dip in the cooler.

We are settling in and getting to know our new place. We have some great neighbors who have two little kids and it's been so wonderful to have them next door. Our house is just a few blocks from the library, the pool, lots of parks and the girls school. We think we're gonna like it here.