"Daddy, can you help us look for it? Our eyes are smaller than yours."
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"Daddy, Alex and I bumped heads and it was harder than we usually do and we were both crying!"
This weekend James and I were blessed with a few days away for a late anniversery trip combined with our retreat for our Kenya team. We dropped the boys off with Grandpa and Grandma on Wednesday and drove out to West Virginia. Two of our team members own a Bed & Breakfast and they hosted us for the weekend. James and I got there late Wednesday night and enjoyed the next two days of relaxation and exploring (and eating REALLY good food). It was so beautiful, I took tons of pictures. I know they won't show it as amazing as it really was, but it gives you an idea of it.
Where we stayed, at North Fork Mountain Inn:
View from the Front Porch:
Other sites seen:
The bus was converted into a weekend camping trailer (we assume, it was by a group of trailers) for hunters or fishermen.
Then we drove out to see Seneca Rocks:
Then we went to Blackwater Falls:
We got to go down 214 steps to an observation deck that was near the top of the falls. The water falls 5 stories.
Oh, we also enjoyed feeding the deer from the front porch:
Once the team arrived, we did planning and team building activites:
The area the Inn is located in is called Smoke Hole. Legend says it's called that because the Indians smoked meat in the caverns. But after it rains, the clouds gather in the valley and it looks like smoke is in the hole:
My one disappointment of the whole trip was that it rained on Saturday and we couldn't take our hike up to the top. So we'll have to go again! It was a wonderful time to relax and recharge, and we also had a good time getting to know our future teammates bettter. The boys had a fun time at Grandpa and Grandma's–they got help Grandpa unload gravel from the truck, pour concreat and plant flowers as well as go to the park, the petting zoo and Burger King's play area! They also made Easter Bunny cookies (Grandma got them on sale after Easter) and they got to bring them home–that made them the most excited!
I'm embarrassed to put the before pictures up. I will say, in my defense, I took the pictures before I'd do a normal clean up–I wanted the WORST possible to make the after look that much better!
Before, on the left, we have where the crib was, and once it broke, the sad little crib mattress (note the tote of Winter clothes he was using as a bedside toy table). On the right is the messy corner where some of the toys are supposed to go (plus the closet full of clothes I need to sort & put away or get ready to give back to family members). I liked how we had boxes for things on the shelf, but we had a number of larger toys (like the truck you might see in all the mess) that would just stay on the floor.
After, once we had the bunk bed and could put away the crib mattress. We moved all the toys OUT of the playroom/office/guestroom and back into the boys room. I was thrilled with the white shelf you'll see below because it's a place to put the big toys so they're off the floor. In the future, it can be used as a bookshelf, or we can get more canvas totes to put more small toys that I'd like to hide if we need to. (Hmmm…like how I switched ways I took the pictures here?)
And on the right you see how the book shelf normally looks when picked up. The closet door is closed because I have not organize that yet–that will happen after this trip. I may take a picture later just to prove to you I did it! 
(I HAVE to, most of those clothes are going back to their owners in July–consider yourselves warned, Shari and Tessa!)
The boys like the room. They know where toys are supposed to go, and so far are doing a pretty good job putting them back. Granted, we haven't been home much!
Finally–yes, Alex can climb to the top bunk:
Last night we found him asleep in bed with Will. Guess the thunder scared him. He later woke up, climbed down and came out to me fussing about a bad dream. Two and a-half and STILL waking me up at night!
I meant to come up with a few more ('cause there were a bunch of funny ones) but saved this in drafts and forgot about it. So you're getting it a week later with some of the really funny ones forgotten and not included.
We got to Teri & Rachel's and one of the first thing Alex says is "Mommy, where are deir doys?" (Where are their toys?). Um, sorry bud, that's why we brought our own–unless you want to play with dog toys!
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Will: Freeways are called Freeways because you're FREE to go FAST on them, there are no stop lights. You can go fast unless there's road construction, the you have to slow down.
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Alex has taken to calling his blanket "Blankie Miles".
Friday we went up to stay with my parents. This was an effort to make Saturday easier (we needed to be up there rather early) but I think the boys stayed up late enough & woke us up enough that it didn't really matter. But Saturday was still a fun day. James got to go golfing. I got to scrapbook. And the boys got to play with a friend of theirs–Fun for everyone!
We came home Saturday night and it was nice to still have one more day in our weekend. Sunday we celebrated Fathers Day by "letting" James take us out to lunch (that was the boys idea, I promise!) and then letting him watch his race. His gifts didn't come until today (though I got a small stand in, some "beers of the world" for him to try. He enjoyed one during the US Open). He got a book and a game from the boys.
Last week I said this week would be even crazier than last–and it is with the start of VBS–or Kids Camp. This year they're doing a science theme that is REALLY cool. I'm sad we only get to be here for the first two days of it. (So is my partner in the craft room. I figure if I'm going to take the kids out there, I might as well stay and help out. Last year and this I have loved working in the craft room with a friend from our Sunday School class–my best VBS experience yet!) The boys both enjoyed their morning at church. Wednesday the boys are going to Grandma's house while James and I go off for a retreat with our Kenya Team for our January Mission Trip. The retreat is the weekend, we're going a few days early for our anniversary. After this, our schedule kind-of settles down, and I think we'll be enjoying our lazy days of summer. (I say kind-of because I remembered we'll have a visit from GrandmaLo and Grandpa Miles and a summer wedding to look forward to in July!)
Once again, it's a busy week–and next week looks to be even crazier! After that we're going to settle into our lazy summer days (or so I tell myself)! (In reality, it probably won't happen until after Karl and Cori's wedding…and then I'm going to "get" to start working on potty training Alex. <sigh>)
I hosted a Pampered Chef show on Tuesday, so I spent Monday and Tuesday cleaning for that. It was nice to enjoy a clean house Tuesday evening. Sadly, by the next day it had seemed to fall apart. Stupid entropy! (Yes, I know that applies to energy, but it also applies to my house–if no energy is added to keeping it clean, it spreads out and becomes a mess. Quite annoying.)
Yesterday we did story time at the library and played on the new computers for preschoolers. I was pleased with how well the boys behaved at story time. Even though Alex likes to run, he could sit still for the stories (or at least sit on my lap and watch the other kids running around). We went to the computer area and discovered they had NEW computers specifically for preschoolers with smaller mouses/mice and many more game options. Since we've approaching our third year at the library and the 3-5 games the kids could play, I'm kind of liking the new games–though now I need to pay a bit more attention and help the boys with the new ones. Alex surprised me with his matching skills. One new game had him matching a key with a letter on it to a train car with the same letter. He was sorting those out with no problem. Guess I should start actually talking about/teaching him his letters.
Today we went to a play time at the park with people from church. Sadly after being there only about 45 minutes Will fell and scraped up his knee pretty badly. He kept crying and crying. At one point when I was holding him he said "I can't stop crying!" (it did make me feel bad when he sobbed that out). He kept wanting to go home, so we finally did. When I told Alex we had 5 more minutes he said "Oh MAN!" Made me laugh. This afternoon I put together a shelf for their bedroom and moved all the toys over from the playroom/guestroom back to the bedroom and we'll be making that extra room the office/guest room again soon. They like the layout and the new shelf. I'll try to put up some pictures soon, maybe once we have the desk out of the living room and back into the office.
Yes, they are excited.
And, another night of them not going to sleep until after 9.
Oh, and that light will be moved tomorrow. I hadn't realized how close it was to Will's head until I saw it in the picture!
So Friday afternoon we headed out for St. Louis to visit my sister and James' brother and sister-in-law. The main goal of the trip was to get the other half of the bunk bed Heidi and I used growing up (we split them to twin beds, I kept one, she got the other). Will's been using the one I got, and we figured we could pay her for the other half and get a matched set for less than buying a new set. She was very willing to do that with us.
During our drive we got to drive through another round of storms. Later we found out those storms caused tornados and major flooding in Indiana (since we'd already had so much rain earlier in the week the ground was saturated. Add 10 inches to that, and it was BAD.) We stopped in Effingham for a break and saw the dark clouds to the west. James' brother called us to warn us about the bad weather just as we were starting up again. We listened to the radio and heard about the storms and tornados being sighted, but that didn't help us much since we didn't know the area at all. Thankfully we just drove through heavy rain, that's all. 
We got there around supper time and enjoyed tacos with Teri and Rachel. The boys went down and we opened up the game and started to play. I must be prideful for a moment and say I won the first one. It was a great feeling, since I very rarely win a game (unless it's against Will). Of course I was playing against two people who'd never played before, but I beat James too! We stayed up too late talking and playing the game. The kids woke us up too early the next morning. Pretty par for the course for family vacations!
Saturday we went with Heidi to get her bed. Then we went back to her place and took the old bed down to the van. Alex was so tired from the early morning on Friday, only a 45 minute nap on Friday and then staying up so late, he fell asleep coming home from lunch. I took him out of the carseat and upstairs and laid him on Heidi's couch–he slept through the whole thing. He slept through us moving the bed through the living room/down the stairs. He slept through us putting him back in his carseat. He woke up right when we got to Teri's. And he didn't go back to sleep. He and Will had a "quite time" upstairs while James napped and I read. Because of all the bad weather, Teri had to work and Rachel had to pick him up. They came back, Heidi joined us, and we had a wonderful supper of bugers and hot dogs. That night we played James' game again, and Heidi won!
Will had fun playing Jenga, as well as building castles/towers with the pieces.
Sunday we went to the zoo. Since we managed to go the hottest weekend of the year, so far, the goal was to leave early and see the zoo before it got to hot. Of course we didn't get there until 10 and it was already getting pretty steamy (I had forgotten how bad humidity can be. We have NOTHING like that in Indiana usually!). We got tickets to ride on the train, and that was the boys favorite part.
We stuck around to see a few animals but soon got too hot and hungry so we headed to the van. We enjoyed a picnic lunch in the shade of a big tree, had fun feeding the birds and then hit the road to come home!
My dad had called us the night before to warn us I-70 was closed for a streach because of the flooding from the storms. Thankfully, by the time we came through, they had opened up the road. We made it home in four and a half hours and Alex slept for over 2 of them.
Tuesday my parents and brother came down to visit us. They were taking Doug to the airport to fly back to Arizona and we enjoyed a last bit of time with him. During the time they were hear a strong storm came through. We had the windows open, and one thunder/lightening combination were so close we could hear the lightening hit something near by. And it was LOUD, and that scared Alex. So we closed the windows.
He still kept his hands over his ears for a good five minutes after that. Like the look of distrust on his face? I found it quite funny.
Doug also played around with the boys and showed them what you can REALLY do with a piano.
The storms passed well before Doug's flight left, but he still had delays getting home. Poor guy didn't get in until the wee hours of the morning and then got sick. We hope you're feeling better (and REALLY hope you didn't give it to us)! Later that night though we had another round pass through, and Alex woke up crying from all the thunder again (he had done the same thing Monday night).
Wednesday was another rainy day. I took the kids to story time at the library. Except June 4th was the ONLY Wednesday in June they didn't have story time. The boys enjoyed playing on the computers and with the toys there though, so it was still a nice morning.
Thursday we were BU-SY. I needed to run a few errands in the morning. A store near us was having a grand re-opening sale and we stopped by to grab a few deals. We got to enjoy LOTS of samples, so it was a fun adventure. Then it was off to the post office (a place that is never fun with two little boys). That afternoon we took a load of junk valuable items to a friend from church's house to sell at her neighborhood garage sale. See, we don't have a driveway that is good for a sale, the road we live on is too busy. I asked our Sunday School class if anyone was having a sale I could join in on, she was the only one who replied, so we joined in, even though she lives about 20 minutes away from us. She does have twin girls Will's age, so Will was quite excited to visit their house. The boys had fun playing and we unloaded things on the first really hot day of the season. That evening I packed for our planned weekend away, as well as for the morning at the garage sale.
Friday was even hotter. We got up early and were on the road by 7 am to get to our friends house by 7:30…I had expected bad traffic since we were going on the freeway. It was no busier than any other time! So we got there a bit early and set up. It was a hot and slow morning. But I sold one of my big items I wanted out of the house but money for, so I was happy. We left around 12, then came back for lunch. While James fed the boys and loaded up the van, I ran to Target for a few items for the trip. Then, we were off to St. Louis!
Well, actually, by the time you read this it'll be Tuesday. But it was written about the weekend and Monday, so I'll keep the title.
