Spring Break

Ok, I put these pictures in backwards, so the story of this spring break adventure will start at the end and end at the beginning. . . Please go to the bottom of this blog to start reading for it to make sense.

We were on our way out the door to the huge international airport of Souix City. The airport was only about 20 minutes away, very nice. I was so glad that we were blessed to be able stay to be there for some of the time when my parents were there. They arrived very late Wednesday night and we were able to stay until Saturday and have time all together to visit. My schedule is extremely flexible and of course with my flight benefits we can pretty much come and go as we please.

Derek, Brandt and Eli. Derek became such good friends and so close with all the boys and Finley. I hope to be able to visit again in a couple of months. The flights were wide open from Souix City, about 20 seats open and about for the Minneapolis flight. We had about 2 hours to spend together in the Minneapolis airport before our flight home. We looked at tourist shops that had the baseball team, Twins, and the football team, Vikings. Mostly we looked at them because I am a twin and because my ancestors are Vikings. It was fun to just be together and have a nice sit down lunch together. We ate ate TGI Friday's and Derek was able to watch baseball.

Grandma had a great idea to help Eric out with their house. Unfortunately the soil was up against the house where the wood was and was rotting the wood. She had us all (her included) dig a trench around the part of the house that had the problem. It was great to see all the kids very eagerly help out. My Mom has always been great at helping others out, she is a great example.

More at the Floyd Boat Museum

This is at the Floyd Boat Museum

Another "place" photo. This is the Missouri River.

We found a Souix City Iowa sign. This was to go to a boat museum of a man that was with the Lewis and Clark expedition but died. They made a museum in his honour.

Here is a Welcome to South Dakota sign and Eli and Brandt are with us.

I have wanted to take the kids on as many adventures as I can and to as many States as possible. Kelly told us that they live very close to Nebraska, and South Dakota. She was very kind and helped me with my wish to take my kids to as many states as I can. Here is Nebraska

More of the creation unfolding. . .

Aunt Kelly is EXTREMELY talented. She taught Hannah to paint. Hannah is quite a talented artist already and loves to be creative. She has not painted yet. Kelly had Hannah find a picture of scenery on the computer that she liked, then had her draw it on a canvas that she generously gave to Hannah. Kelly was so patient and excited to teach Hannah. It was wonderful to watch their excitement. I got Hannah's creation on video and photos and the progress unfolded.

Derek and his little buddy playing "old school video games". He was playing Ms. Pacman.

Derek and Asher. He is quite the cuddler. He loved to be with everyone and do everything. We loved to have him around.

This a typical mood of Finley. She is quite a happy little girl. She is very lucky, she has a happy house to grow up in. There was such a nice sweet spirit in Uncle Eric's home. We all loved being there and loved the spirit we felt in their home.

Hannah loves little children. She wanted to help with Finley as much as possible. This is quite a cute photo. We captured little Finley as she was sneezing.

Derek and Brandt getting their Easter eggs done.

We all dyed Easter eggs together. This was so much fun. I am glad that Aunt Kelly helped us to carry on the tradition of Easter eggs even far from home and even if it is a different way of doing it. It is great to have some sort of "sameness" in traditions. It gives a sense of comfort and belonging, a sameness in a world that is ever changing.

Here is the finished product. Eli and Hannah (along with everyone else) loved it.

Hannah and Aunt Kelly made a strawberry pie that we ABSOLUTELY LOVED! We now have the recipe and have vowed to only make once a month. As we would both eat an entire pie if we could. Hannah loved to cook with Aunt Kelly. We got quite a few more tastey recipes from her. This is another tradition that we get from our travels to our family members. Yet another tradition to love. We can't wait to try our new recipes at home. We also got the recipe from Aunt Kelly that is a sweet childhood memory for me. We had homemade pancakes. The wheat was even homemade, ground at home. I made a batch that I didn't just double, I made it 5 times bigger than what it called for! They freeze great and the kids love them. I am so excited to try them out at home to bring more great memories at home from my home as a child. I think it is so important to build and focus on great memories.
There sure is something magical about candy!
Aunt Kelly took us to a very old candy store/factory. It was another place of wonderfulness for kids. I love places and ideas that are wonderful to kids. Their appreciation and excitement are a treasure I value very highly. It is an experience I truly love to be a part of.

At Uncle Eric and Aunt Kelly's house in Sioux City.
Hannah and I with Dora the Explorer and Diego
Right outside of wonderfulness, the "Lego Store". We went to an Easter movie here at the mall called, "Hop". I really enjoyed it, I think even more than the kids. . . We also were able to find a Minneapolis snow globe and some Christmas tree decorations to keep up with our tradition of getting memories from each state we visit. I sure do love this tradition. I love happy memories and I love to help keep happy memories alive.
Derek at the Lego store in front of the Lego "Death Star"

This is a Nickeloden (sp?) theme park of rides, in the mall!



More huge Lego wonderfulness
Derek arm wrestled the store clerk who said that he could have his Legos for free if he beat him in arm wrestling. The clerk was about 6 feet 7 inches, need I say more.
Derek and Woody from Toy story, a favorite movie of ours and we LOVE Disney.
Here are some of the Lego creatures
This was Derek's expression the whole time he was in the store, mixed with a whole lot of smiles. It was wonderful to see. I love seeing kids so happy and amazed. It is infectious.
Next we went to the Lego store. It was 4 stories tall! Derek was in heaven. There were creatures made out of legos all over and very big.



We went to the Mall of Americal the next morning, at the moment of this trip, it is the biggest mall in America. We were hungry and decided to have brunch at the Rainforest Cafe, a restraunt that we have been to in Washington, California, Florida and now Minnisota. In the restraunt they had rainbows, stars, shooting stars, all sorts of wild animals, vines, a tropical storm with lightning and thunder. We had mud pie for desert with gummy worms. YUM.

We have been on a new adventure this week. The kids & I have come to visit my brother & his family in Sioux City Iowa. Th trip started out setting a record I do NOT want to break or come close to ever again. We were going to try for a 5:00 pm flight. It looked good just a couple of hours prior to the flight. I looked again when we were going to leave and for some reason the number of seats available went WAY down. The kids hate waiting around the airport when we could be home so I told the kids not to worry about leaving right then because the seat availability went way down and that we would catch the 8:00 pm flight. Just on a whim (more like the Spirit prompted me) I looked at the seat availability on line at 4:00. (Remember, the flight was to take off at 5:00 pm) The seat availability was way up again, plenty of seats! I told the kids, so we raced and got the car packed and I changed back into my Flight Attendant uniform and we left the house at 4:10. Derek and I dropped Hannah off at the airport to get us checked in. If we didn't we wouldn't have made it. She had to get us checked in (passengers have to be checked in 30 minutes prior to the departure time) while we went to park the car at the employee parking lot. Derek and I RACED to drop the car off and get our luggage and on to the employee van that was right there. Hannah called me when she was getting us checked in at the ticket kiosk in the terminal. There were only 3 minutes to spare before the 30 minute window would be expired and we would not be able to check in for the flight, There wasw something wrong with the info and she needed more info, the flight number, which she did not have. While Derek and I were racing, hands full. I felt like we were defusing a bomb and had only 3 minutes to save the world. And. . . we did it. Hope to never have to do it again!

We decided to stop over in Minneapolis & spent the night. The next day we went to the Mall of America. The kids have never been to Minnesota or Iowa so this has been even more fun for them. It was perfect, the hotel was only about 5 minutes away from the airport. We got in and settled in. We decided to have a movie pizza party. We ordered in and got 2 big pizzas, soda, a complimentary cheese cake and cuddled all together on one full size pull out bed and watched a very snowy "National Treasure II". (The T.V. had pretty terrible reception) We thourougly enjoyed our cuddle and pizza and time together.