Nauvoo

My purse finally came today, so now I can start posting all my pictures. This may take a while. I have to weed through the 300 pictures and decide which ones I really don't need to share. I think I will start with the first leg of our journey. We met my mom and sister Katie in Nauvoo on July 15th. It was quite the adventure with 7 kids, but we did it! Everyone seemed to have fun, just not all at the same time. But, all in all they did pretty good. We spent one night in Nauvoo and then drove on to Grandma's house in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Still Waiting!

Well, I have been waiting for my purse to show up for a week now. Hopefully it will be here today. If not, I guess I will have to start calling people to see if I can track it down somewhere. Hopefully someone will know what happened to it! I would love to put pictures of our trip on here. I have a really great one of Mike throwing a fit in the sand. I think when I post it I will have to post a very similar one taken 8 years ago in San Diego. You would think that some things would sink in... Oh well. Maybe someday common sense will kick in. Sometimes I wonder.

Summer Vacation- National Lampoon Style

So I just came home from a wild adventure to my parent's house in Michigan and was really excited to upload a bunch of pictures to share with all our friend's and family, but I can't. Being the genius that I am, I left my purse in a bathroom stall at Cabela's in Sidney, Nebraska. I almost made it to Laramie, Wyoming before I discivered what I had done. Luckily, I hope, I think someone honest found it and turned it into the customer service desk, and after a crazy turn of events, they are sending it to me UPS. Hopefully, if my camera is still in there, I have some really cool pictures of our awesome cross country adventure to share with all of you! We started this grand adventure at 6:00 am on July 14th. I took off with all four kids to meet my mom and sister Katie in Nauvoo. Walking around Nauvoo, or anywhere for that matter with 7 children under the age of 11 is quite the adventure! After that we drove to Kalamazoo, Michigan to visit with Grandma & Grandpa. The kids loved their pool! I had some really cool pictures of the kids swimming, but you can't see them. They should be in my purse, in a box, somewhere between here and Sidney. It was in Sidney that Josh made an amazing discovery. He discovered the joys that maps and brochures can bring to your life! He told me at one stop that he hit the Mother Load when he came out of a rest stop with both arms completely full of paper. He has already planned our next several trips with activities and places of interest that he discovered while reading his literature. He has also appointed himself our official navigator, and when he is navigating, he cannot have anything else going on. I am really tired, and think I will go to sleep now and finish writing about our vacation when I am a little more rested and can write things that will make more sense!

City Celebration

This last weekend was Elk Ridge City's celebration. That is how Nelson and I spent our anniversary. We had a parade and everything! I was so exciting! I got to ride in the fire chief vehicle and make lots of noise with the siren. Nelson was in charge of all the kids. They decorated their bikes with streamers and flags and had a grand old time! This year Mike pulled Maggie in the bike trailer and Nelson rode his scooter. After the parade, Nelson took us out to eat for our anniversary. We went to the Mayor's Dinner and had hot dogs and chips. We really know how to live it up! Saturday we had the fireman's breakfast in the morning. I was lucky enough to get the early shift. It works out really well. I go down at 6 am and then Nelson meets me at 9 when my shift ends. We all eat and then go to the carnival. This is the kids favorite thing. They look forward to this carnival every year. Maggie even rode a horse all by herself this year! pretty exciting stuff!

Wonder Mike the Magnificent horseman!

Josh...a.k.a. Mr. Serious

Morgan on "the BIG horse"

Maggie and Sally

Puerto Vallarta

Here are a bunch of pictures from our trip to Puerto Vallarta. We had so much fun! I really could have stayed an extra couple of days. It was very relaxing not to have to worry about anything for a while. Nelson earned this trip at work so we didn't have to pay for it. We had 4 nights in an all-inclusive resort. We've decided that this is the way to travel! All of our meals were included, and if we were drinkers, we really would have gotten our money's worth! All the drinks you wanted! We even had an open bar in our room, right next to the giant jacuzzi tub. So instead of getting really drunk, Nelson and I lived off of virgin pina coladas (I think I had about 50 of these!) and virgin strawberry daqaris. We spent a lot of time relaxing on the beach, but still found time to kayak in the ocean and go boogie boarding. We took a canopy tour. I highly recommend doing this is you ever get the chance. It is a series of zip lines through the tops of the trees in the rain forest. We even hit the flea market in downtown Puerto Vallarta. Instead of risking our lives in a Mexican taxi, we decided to take the more scenic (and I would argue safer) option and took a water taxi in a small fishing boat across the bay to get downtown. It was so much fun! We saw baby sea turtles on the beach trying to get out to sea. We helped a couple of them out. They were having a hard time getting past the waves. Nelson even stepped on a manta ray and a crab. I have been telling him to watch where he was walking since we were married! You'd think he would learn on of these days!

Nelson has the worst record when travelling. We have been delayed 8 hours in Orlando, we've missed a flight in Chicago, he's been snowed in in Chicago, stuck in Denver, he was in Des Moines on 9/11. We always seem to have some kind of problem when Nelson is flying. I never have any problems when I travel on my own. It's just Nelson. He seems to attract trouble. We thought we were going to make it this time. We had no problems on the way down and we even had a layover in Denver. On the way back, we thought we were home free. We made it on the plane, we had a direct flight, the plane was on the runway, and then we stopped. The plane had a problem with a hydraulic pump on the rudder. We had the pleasure of sitting on the airplane for the next 2 hours waiting for them to fix this problem. We finally made it home. We were really behind schedule, but luckily everyone who was watching our kids were patient with us. At least we did better than last year's trip. We made it home a full 24 hours late with that one!