Up North with Family

My sister accused me today of being a bad blogger... She is right, and I'm going to try and get caught up. Our first week up north was spent with my parents, my sisters and their families. Here is a picture of the cousins.

Our boys spent ALL day outside.
And they clearly LOVED every minute of it!

Minnow/frog/craw fish/turtle catching.

Basically anything the boys could get in the net.

Baby Charlie enjoyed his first summer in the north woods.

Andy likes to be a part of everything,

tagging along with the older boys whenever possible.

Meredith was charming everyone, awe...
Johnny and Cullen loved spending the afternoon fishing with Nick.
Enjoying cousin time.
Andy figured out how to chubby-wubby and decided to get Geremu back for the past year and a half.

Up North

We've been up north for a while now. My entire family was up here this last week, they left today. I'm sitting outside the library on my computer using the wireless... I'll write more when we are back home. Or if it rains....

Keeping Busy

We've been keeping busy around here this past week. We have gone out in the canoe quite a few times. The last time we went out we stopped at two different parks just off of the river. Here we are right after our limo dropped us off at one of the parks...

Geremu has recently learned how to do the monkey bars. I have never seen him more proud of himself, when he gets to the other side I usually get a, "Me did it!" (We are still working on him using the word I)
Here the boys are looking for frogs, this is a favorite activity.
Last night Nick went fishing with his father, he said the water was rough. They had some luck catching 6 large fish. Judging from the look on his face, he had a good time.

Hans

Lately when it rains it pours, literally. We've gotten a lot of rain in a short amount of time recently. The other night it started raining so the boys ran to the back porch to snuggle with Nick and watch the rain come down. We have to pull the furniture away from the screens because the direction of the rain shifts quickly and things get wet inside the porch.
When I was younger, we had neighbors from Germany named Hans and Anna. It seemed like every time it rained hard Hans was outside (sometimes in his tighty-whities) in the rain cleaning out their gutters. We have new neighbors, Chris and Meaghan, it turns out Chris has a little bit of Hans in him...

Right after taking the above picture I went around to the back of our house only to find Nick pulling a Hans as well...
My boys don't seem to mind the rain, here they are enjoying the puddles after the storm...

Black Listed

While I was staying at my sister Megan's house I got the honor of helping decorate Meredith's "new" bedroom. Here are a few shots of the end results.... After we started decorating we had to make a trip to Target, while we were there I found the cute little book/shoe/doll house you see in the picture below for the low price of $19.99. This super cute shelf also got me black listed from shopping with my sister in the future (according to her husband). Just try and stop me Kyle- blahahahaha.

After leaving my sisters house we made a little detour to one of Nick's favorite parks. It was a perfect stop for our family.

Here Nick is showing me why he can't run with the boys and me.... He pulled his hammy running two weeks ago when I first left for North Carolina. Is this what happens when we start getting old?

Weekend Festivities- Mehaber

I mentioned yesterday that I flew into Minnesota, it was because there were some happenings I just didn't want our family to miss out on... Such as the Mehaber! We had our plans set before I left for Ethiopia and assuming my flights were all on time I was pretty sure we could do it all. Then reality hit, when I got got in I was a bit tired and just wanted to spend a little time with my boys. We ended up missing out on a party Friday night that I would have loved to attend but we did get to catch up with several of the attendees on Saturday.

We spent the night Friday at my sister Megan's house and got up early Saturday to meet up with our "travel group". We met at a park and only two families were unable to attend (one of those families being Maureen's). It was good to catch up with everyone, the time seemed to go so fast.

Here are the boys from the group except Abinet.

Geremu was willing to help anyone cross the monkey bars...

Here is the best group picture I could find. Unfortunately, it is missing Sefi and his new baby brother Andrew (they were both in attendance just not in the picture). The babies of our group have gotten to be such big kids.

After meeting up with our travel group we headed to the Mehaber. It was nice meeting several new people as well as families I have read about but not actually met. The boys had a good time playing with other kids, jumping around, dancing to music and just hanging out.

Fun in Ethiopia but Happy to be Home

I could post lots of different stories/pictures from my trip but I just don't have the time. I have been busy with my boys since arriving home. I've been away much longer than I ever through I'd be away.

I do want to post a few pictures of Maureen's new little one. Introducing Hanna, she is alert, beautiful and petite. She has an amazing story that is not mine to share but I'm so happy to have been a part of her journey home. I'm pretty sure she will also be a "one dimpled wonder" like Geremu.

And here is what I got to come home to...
Well if the truth be told I didn't actually fly home. I flew instead to Minnesota (where I met up with my boys) for the Mehaber before heading home on Sunday. Wooo-hooo it's good to be home!