Summer 14 Roadtrip: Days 1-2

Day 1: Drive from Home to Sioux Falls, South Dakota with lunch at Wall Drug Store

We left home at 4:30 am and drove all day in what we slept in. We stopped for some breakfast and gas in Hardin, MT around 7:30 then drove through South Dakota to Wall Drug for lunch around 1pm. The kids had a blast at Wall Drug!

Here's daddy ordering lunch at the Wall Drug cafeteria.

YUM!

Made sure to get our free ice water!

Niles, Heidi, Addie, Ammon, and James at Wall's "Backyard"

Heidi on a Jackalope

Addie and Niles on a Jackalope

James, Heidi, and Niles with the Wall Drug T-Rex

James, Addie, and Heidi at the shooting gallery

Cutie Ad

Niles and me hamming it up at the shooting gallery

Wall Drug had a fun toy store and arcade where the kids got their wiggles out, and we headed back on the road after about 90 minutes. It was a scorching hot day, and we drove all the way to Sioux Falls with a big black rainstorm right behind us. We checked in to our hotel and had Panda Express for dinner around 8pm. The girls ran across the street to the mall and bought Dr. Who paraphernalia at Hot Topic. We had a great sleep and took off around 9 the next morning.

 

Day 2: Driving from Sioux Falls across Iowa to Nauvoo, Illinois

Sunday was a driving day with no fun stuff planned, just "car church". We had to drive the northern route through Minnesota because the highway down to Vermillion and across Iowa was washed out by the previous week's storms. So we drove over near Albert Lea, MN, then turned right into Iowa (our GPS got us lost looking for our chosen lunch spot, so we never actually made it to Albert Lea. When we got back into civilization, we were at this Iowa welcome center and we ate at the Burger King there. Stupid GPS!)

Niles and Ammon at the Welcome Center where we ate lunch.

We stopped in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa for some groceries in a huge rain storm. We drove on through Ft. Madison to Nauvoo and checked in to our hotel around 8:30pm. We were SO GLAD to be out of the car for a few days! Our hotel was actually a little house that was once the home of the manager of the Motel Nauvoo, adjoining the motel. It had two nice bedrooms and a bathroom, plus a kitchen, dining area, and Living Room with pull-out sofa, so everyone had a bed and space to stretch out and relax. We loved it, especially for the price of a regular hotel room.

The End of School and Beginning of Summer

There were many activities the last week of school...

James had his second grade track meet on May 28th.
 Here he is doing the long jump.

James' friend, Kinnick, doing his long jump.

James and his classmate at the track meet.

Sweet little Ammon was almost 3 weeks old

Crazy Niles...

Bring on the swimming!

Addie's final choir concert on June 2nd--it was GREAT!

Zoomed in

Heidi had her fourth grade track meet on June 2nd.
Here she is doing the ball throw.

Taking a second shot.

I love how Ammon is watching Niles play pbskids
on the iPad in this picture!

Ammon snuggling with Niles

Daddy and Ammon on Sunday, June 8th

All my handsome, freshly-shorn boys!

Ammon and Niles

 

James, Ammon and Niles
 (it looks like we live on our master bed...we do have a whole house,
 we just never take pictures out there I guess)

The moonrise on June 15th

See how the mountains are cloud-capped? Beautiful!

Happy 43rd Birthday to Rich on June 18th!

Niles helping Daddy make a wish.

Aunt Marti arrived at midnight June 16th and took our sweet Grandma Lyn home on the 18th. I am sad that I have hardly any photos of her visit, I just had my hands so full with the new baby. We are so grateful she could be with us for a month. Ammon and Niles especially loved the extra attention, and I just loved having my pal around! Thanks Marti and Ralph for making that sweet visit possible!

Mid-May & Niles' 3rd Birthday

We went to the ranch for our first official outing with Baby Ammon on Saturday, May 17th to celebrate uncle Mike's college graduation. I wish all the timing had been different so I could have thrown this party for him--he did so great, but I missed the ceremony and festivities giving birth and all ;) Mike did a great job, we had a good time.

Ammon hit his ONE WEEK OLD mark as we arrived at the ranch for Mike's BBQ.

Mike and The Ansoteguis enjoying some BBQ along the river

My mom and Mark arrived shortly after the BBQ around 8pm on Saturday, May 17th. Somehow we got ZERO photos of Nana (I hope she took some!). But here are her knees! Ammon relaxing with Nana on May 20th.

Niles LOVED having Papa Mark here to give him some extra attention and birthday love! Mark was so helpful in so many ways. His dad had a stroke while they were visiting and I know he was worried, but he stayed in good spirits and did so much to help us...we were very grateful!

On Monday, May 19th, we celebrated Niles' 3rd Birthday.

The day started with early morning brother snuggles in mommy's bed.

Then Grandma Melin called us from Missouri!

Niles opened his card from Grandpa and Grandma Melin while he was on the phone with them.
 He was SO EXCITED! It was a great start to his special day.

Daddy cooked Niles and birthday breakfast of French Toast and bacon
 and he got to open one present...Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood figures!

DANIEL!

Later, we got a sundae at Western Drug with Nana and Papa.

SILLY BUG!

Monday Night we had brats and dogs for dinner and invited the Johnsons and the missionaries over to celebrate with birthday dinner. I made chocolate zucchini cake for Niles' birthday cake and then he opened his cool presents. We didn't get a picture of him opening his cool beach play-doh set from Brody, but he loved it.

Nana and Papa brought this awesome remote control car

The family got Niles this basketball hoop, which was a big hit
with James and little Colton Johnson, too!

Rich snapped this pic of me and Ammon napping on May 20th
(I stayed in bed all day because I was recovering from a sever case of mastitis
which came on, conveniently, during Niles' birthday party).

James skipped a day of school just to snuggle with Ammon.

On May 21st, Grandma Lyn and Aunt Mart arrived. Grandma stayed with us for a whole month while Marti stayed for 2 days, then flew to Georgia to help Cousin Kevin and Katie have their baby girl. They overlapped with Mom and Mark by one day, so Mark prepared this amazing BBQ dinner on the night we were all together. It was really sweet. The next day Mom and Mark left to visit the Helena kids, and we got Gram settled into her room at our house. She had an injured knee and was immobile for the first week of her visit, but she was such a trooper! We loved having her with us, and Ammon loved the extra snuggles.

S'mores with the missionaries! Rich found this fun at-home s'mores kit
 at the thrift store for $1.25! We love it!

Elder Curtis and Elder Brock love it, too!
(These good Elders are ON FIRE; they have a baptism almost every week!)

My dear girlfriends planned a fabulous shower for me on May 10th at Kim's house, but I spoiled everything by having a baby that day! They rescheduled the party for Saturday May 24th. Lots of people were out of town for Memorial Day weekend, but we had a great time together. I felt so spoiled and blessed to have all these good women in my "tribe."

Diaper cake from the cute Kirby girls

Our hostess, my partner in many a crime,
my gorgeous sisterfriend, Kim Strupp.

Lynners came!

Addie came!

Of course we passed the baby around...here he is with Angie Kirby.

You can always plan on awesome food at any Kim party...
Jessi, Robyn, and Kim did such a great job welcoming Ammon to the world!
Love them!