Well, MY vacation has finally come! It seems everyone I work with has been on vacation this summer already and I was just biding time until it was my turn and it finally is! YEAH! For the first part of the week, Anya and I are just going to hang out, do a few odd jobs around the house and get ready for our big weekend plans. This year, I let Jason plan our vacation and this is what we have on the itinerary: On Thursday, we are heading to Chicago along with our friends, Brad & Steph to meet up with Steph & Rob (who live in a suburb of Chicago) and Sarah & Brad (who live in St. Louis) — (I know it is confusing…so many Brad’s and Steph’s…sorry) in Chicago to go to the Cubs game on Friday and the Hawk game at Solider Field on Saturday. Jason is SO excited, it is the only thing he can talk about right now. He gets to watch his 2 favorite teams play within 24 hours of each other…it is like a dream come true. Although I am looking forward to our trip, I will be planning all future vacations (just in case you were wondering )

We had a pretty laid back weekend. On Saturday, we went to our next door neighbors wedding and reception and Sunday morning we went to church and then had our church small group at our house on Sunday night. The leader of our group is a fabulously talented musician (he can play so many instruments and has a beautiful singing voice), so he brought his guitar along and we had a little sing-a-long with all the kids…it was so fun and Anya was rocking it out. I tell ya…as soon as she hears music, so just HAS to dance!

Yesterday, Jason, Anya and I made our way over to the Iowa State Fair for an afternoon/evening of fun. We didn’t get a real early start since we went when Jason & I were both done working, but the 5 hours or so we were there were alot of fun. We ate at the Pork tent, had a chocolate dipped nut-roll and some ice cream…so we didn’t do too bad in the food department. We also ran into a lot of people that we haven’t seen in awhile, so that was fun too. The highlight of the day was Jason and Anya going down the giant slide…as soon as Anya saw the slide her little eyes lite up and there was no telling her no….she was smiles the whole way down! Here are a few pictures of their trip down….

Today we made a trip to the mall to do some Hawkeye shopping…Jason was worried he didn’t have enough Hawkeye shirts to get him through the long football season ahead. Ya right….he wears a Hawkeye shirt every day of the week and still has some he hasn’t taken the tags off of. But, if that’s what makes him happy….

Now we are just hanging out at home…Anya is napping and Jason is getting alittle work done. I decided to vacuum out the van and was that was quite a job. It looked like there had been a goldfish cracker explosion in there….my goodness. Tonight Chad & Jodi are coming over for supper and we are going to grill and just hang out. We don’t get to see them quite as often now that we live on opposite sides of this great city!

Last week was a very short and busy week for us. We were on mini-vacation up at Cutty’s camping until Monday and I had taken Tuesday off to recover before heading back to work on Wednesday. Wednesday night Jason’s Uncle Kenny, Aunt Brooke and their daughter, Allie, came over for supper because they are in town for the fair. Around 3:30am on Thursday morning, Anya woke up with a 104.3 degree fever–poor little girl. We took her to the doctor as soon as they opened Thursday morning and it turned out she had an ear infection. So, I took Thursday off from work to be home with her and after a few doses of amoxicillin and ibuprofen, she was like a new little girl! I really hate it when she is sick, but I have to enjoy it alittle bit also, because it is really the only time she wants to be held and babied…. otherwise, you can’t catch her long enough to barely get a hug and kiss! She is certainly a very busy little girl!

Saturday morning bright and early we headed out of town for my cousin Chrissy’s wedding in Sioux Falls, SD. It was about a 5 hour trip including a few small stops here and there. They had a very nice wedding and reception and a VERY hot day too…it was still 96 degrees at 6pm when we were leaving the church to go to the reception! Anya had fun swimming and playing with her cousins and we were all pooped when we got home last night!

Today we are going to just hang out at the house and take it easy. Then tomorrow…back to reality!

This weekend we ventured up to Okoboji to stay in the camper with Grandma Barb and Papa Jim at Cutty’s! We didn’t have very sunny or extremely warm weather while we were camping which was just fine by us…it was nice to escape the heat for a few days and enjoy being outside instead of sweating buckets. On Saturday Gram Ruth and Gramps Arnold came over along with Bonnie, Jimmy and James who are here visiting from California. We celebrated Gram Ruth and Jimmy’s birthday and had delicious turtle birthday cake! On Sunday Jason and my dad made us a delicious breakfast on the campfire of french toast, bacon and eggs…better than in any resturant! Then we headed over to Arnold’s Park to ride a few rides and check out all the boats on the lake. Today Jason, Jill and the troops came over and we played some mini golf and hung out at the camper. Zachary & Noah are staying the rest of the week with Mom & Dad at Cutty’s, so they will have another busy couple of days entertaining them! Here are a few pictures of us “roughing it” during our long wekeend. We had a great time….thanks Mom & Dad for letting us stay in the new camper!