I wish I had more time to talk about all the details over the past few weeks. I wanted to take the time to record each day of our trip, of having Grandparents here, of Maddix’s birthday.... however, I find myself in the busiest part of my life right now and so, a brief recap will have to do, and I’ll let the pictures say what I cannot.
Travis’s parents came to visit and we loved every minute of having them here. They joined us for conference weekend, watched each of the boys play a football game, spent quality time with each of us, read to the boys, went for walks, and accompanied us to the Lake of the Ozarks, MO.
Along the way, we stopped at Adam-ondi-ahman and enjoyed hearing church history there and playing Simon says from Preacher’s Rock (A spot where Joseph Smith used to give talks from); when you whisper from the rock, you can hear the person from across the glenn.
It was dark and late by the time we reached the town we’d be staying in and I’m not going to lie... I thought, “what sort of backwoods, hillbilly, rundown, dump did we just drive 7hrs to come die in?!” But in the morning I felt like Snow White, and the scary trees/wildlife from the night before were actually quite charming in the light of say.
While we were there we enjoyed hiking (except for the moment where Travis threw a rock over a 200ft cliff and Nala chased after it... and literally almost went over the edge!!!), fishing, snuggling through movies, snuggling while reading, napping together, paddle boarding/paddle boarding pirate games, biking, and celebrating Maddix’s birthday.
Maddix turned 10 while we were there, and this year he wanted a Percy Jackson bday; safe to say he enjoyed the day immensely and his favorite part was getting to fish off the back dock.
On the drive home we stopped for vomit and massive car sickness from the VERY windy and up and down roads! Then we had a better stop in Des Moines for dinner at Texas Roadhouse (yum). Side note: while the dogs waited for us in the expedition (roof was open and it was very cool), Lilly chewed through the leash, broke through the barrier, and made it to the front and chewed up all the water bottles... she’s sort of the worst.
Back home and rested, we used our last day with the grandparents to explore through the Furleigh farms corn maze and pumpkin patch. We had a BLAST and took home two wheel barrel’s full of pumpkins to decorate the front porch with! And then they broke our hearts and went home (okay, I know they had to go, but now we are homesick).
Since then...
we spent this last week spending large amounts of quality time together, and really trying to put the most important things in life first, and let the unimportant things go. Aaron is back to school four days a week and Maddix is still home while they work on transitioning everyone back, so I feel like I’ve been able to spend better one-on-one time with each boy thanks to this temporary schedule. Aaron has enjoyed me picking him up from school in the bike trailer with Lily, and Maddix and I read out loud together during the girls’ nap times; I am really going to miss them once school is back to normal.
FOOTBALL: Aaron HATED this season! He never wants to play again, and complained any time he had to go play. So we heavily celebrated his season ending! Maddix has been on another undefeated team this year. He’s been focused, hardworking, and never complains... yet this coach has been... well o have no decent words do describe him. Let’s just say he has his four all stars and even when we’d be up 36 to 0, he still gave them all the game time and Maddix would end up sitting three separate times in a one hour game! Oh it made me so mad. Anyhow, last game of the tournament and we are up 36-0, 2 mins left and Maddix is in the huddle and we hear him very politely ask if he can have a turn getting the ball; Travis was so proud of him and I almost cried. And the coach finally gave him the ball. And you know what? Maddix ran it up half the field! It was so. Good! So he got it again, and he made the last run of the game. His team ended up cheering him on and he was BEAMING as he took 1st place team pictures with their ribbons! So so proud of you, Bud!!
Well I guess I had a little more time than I thought:)
