I started this post August 7th and am finishing it on August 22nd.
We have had an amazing summer! I will put the story with the pics below, but first, an update on the girls.
Emmy is crazy big! She has been crawling in July and took her first steps August 1. (Now, August 22nd, she is full fledged walking, frankenstein style.) She is eating lots of table food and mimicking what we say. She has said Mama and Dada. She nods with her whole body and shakes her head and seems to really know what we are asking. She loves her big sisters and follows them around and hates being left out, whatever we are doing, she wants a part of it.
Abby has changed a lot this summer too. It is like having two different children with Abby, most of the time she is laughing and playing and fun-loving, but sometimes she seems withdrawn and says "I'm scared" about everything. Ultimately, I think she is a very cautious little girl. Lately, she is all about doing puzzles on my phone or Mike's ipod. She wakes up in the morning and says "phone". She sleeps with a doll that has hair that we have creatively named "Hairdoll" and it is her favorite thing. She thinks she is 5 and should be able to do everything her older sister can do.
Isabel had a great summer! She took swimming lessons at the beginning of the summer and has learned the basic mechanics of swimming. She went from being afraid to put her head in the water to jumping in and going under in 1 week! Izzy was also in a drama camp early in the summer and had a great time. The theme was "Circus" and she has been doing some of the skits the rest of the summer. We have registered her for another drama class this fall. Izzy started first grade on Monday, August 9th! I am not ready to be the mother of a first grader. What a difference a year has made, she seems really happy at school now.
We had the best summer! It started with Mary graduating from Duke University in May. We went to her graduation and brought her back home to AL with us. We got to spend several weeks with Mary (it was too short!), but most of them were spent worrying with getting her moved to Santa Fe so she could start her new job at Los Alamos. When Izzy got out of school, Mom and Mary took all the girls to Kingsport for a week, leaving Mike and I BY OURSELVES! IN OUR OWN HOUSE! It has been many years since that has happened, we felt like newlyweds again.
Anyway, at the end of June, we packed up the car and started a 2 week trip across the country. It is my mom's 60th year so, as a present to her, Mary and I planned a trip to visit some sites she would especially appreciate.
We started in Memphis where we ate some amazing BBQ,
swam in a guitar shaped pool,
and visited the King!
We next drove to Mansfield, MO, passing through Mississippi and Arkansas en route. We stayed off the main roads and really saw Country. I was desperate for coffee and we drove 1.5 hours before finding a McDonalds, only to discover their coffee maker was broken (tear!) We finally arrived in Mansfield. What is in Mansfield, you make ask? It was the place where Laura Ingalls Wilder settled and wrote her books. She, Almanzo and Rose are all buried there too. Mansfield's population is only about 1500 or so and there weren't many options for lodging. We stayed in this little cabin in the woods across from Laura's house:
On the morning of June 25th, we put flowers on their graves:
and visited her house at Rocky Ridge:
After we were done there (we could have stayed MUCH longer) we drove to just south of Independence Kansas and saw a recreation of Little House on the Prairie:
Next, we hopped back in the van and drove to Tulsa, OK. We had planned to see the musical Oklahoma that night and it was very tight to get there on time. We did it, though, and even squeezed in a pony ride before the show.
And this is one of my favorite pictures, Love the look on Mary's face! The musical was great! We stayed in Tulsa that night, then, on June 26th, headed to Oklahoma City to see the memorial there. It was such a beautiful, peaceful, wonderful memorial. I am so glad we got to visit it.
That night we rolled into Amarillo TX and ate a big dinner. I will pause for the moment to post this and start at this place next update.
Looks like a wonderful trip! I love the photos!
Posted by: Jen | August 28, 2010 at 04:51 PM