Okay, now before summer is too far gone to tell the tale, this summer was a crazy hectic roller coaster that went by way too quickly. Here is a recap of some of our favorite adventures.
First, we bought a new house at the end of May, and then
went out of town for annual training for most of June, so we moved a load here
and a load there until we were able to get everything moved to the new house.
Jillian and DJ spent June and Fourth of July with their mom travelling all over and enjoying their vacation. David and Mason spent most of June at their dad’s place
in San Antonio, Texas, hanging out with him and playing basketball in the
driveway.
My friend, Alisha, came for a visit and to help us move
(although she did not know about that last part until her tickets were
purchased) at the beginning of June so she went along for the ride to meet the
boys’ father in Texarkana the first weekend in June. That is when we solved all the world’s
problems that were worth solving, to include changing all the state capitals to
coincide with the state’s names (for example, Nevada City, Nevada or Missouri
City, Missouri). We figured this would make
things a little simpler for immigrants and third graders (and anyone else who
cannot remember what they learned in third grade. The one exception to this rule would be
Arkansas, because once we arrived in Arkadelphia, Arkansas there was no
escaping the fact that it needed to be the Arkansas state capital. I am not sure if we were slap happy from lack
of sleep or from standstill traffic through Little Rock, but this all seemed
like a fantabulous plan at the time.
The water tower says, "Akadelphia, A Great Place to Call Home"
(Sounds like a great state capital to me...)
After dropping the boys off and then finding a hotel room
in Arkadelphia (of course), we woke up to hotel waffles (the best!) and then
detoured on our way home to visit Graceland.
While we were there we signed the sidewalk outside of Graceland,
took
some pictures,
and did some souvenir shopping before stopping for lunch and
finishing out trek back to Millersville, MO.
The rest of the month went by extremely fast between
moving, annual training, and mobilization assistance in New Jersey. There was a restaurant next to our hotel that
was absolutely delicious called Three Brothers (Best Pizza EVER!).
While I was in NJ with Agnes and Brother
Jeremy, we had an opportunity to make our way to Philadelphia (not to be
confused with Arkadelphia),
and tour the Masonic Temple...
We also had the opportunity to take the train into New York City our last day before heading home, where we took the boat tour around the Statue of Liberty, visited the 9-11 Memorial, enjoyed lunch, and did some people watching.
At the end of June our 2010 Ford Flex was wrecked when an accident crashed into us while we were at a stop sign,
so we began the ever-tedious task of finding another vehicle unexpectedly. During this adventure we also went to pick Mason and David up from Texarkana, head to the cabin with the family for the Fourth of July, pick up Jillian and DJ for the rest of the summer, and help DJ look up and identify every bug, insect, spider, frog, and lizard he could catch and examine in our new yard.
Thank goodness we have not found any snakes in our yard yet...
In August we took a mini vacation to St. Louis our only free weekend before school started. We took all the kids downtown,
up into the Arch, out for Ted Drewes Frozen Custard,
and then stayed the night at a hotel with an indoor pool for the kids to swim and play and swim some more. Then we spent all day Sunday at the zoo...
School started WAY too soon this year, and before we knew
it David and Mason were back in school and Jillian and DJ were on their way
back to Arkansas to get ready to head back to classes as well.
What a grand adventure…
-Mom-
