Made it home!

After 6 days on the road, 13 days in Kansas, and 2 days in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, we are back home in Fresno! We had such a fantastic 3 weeks of vacation! I'll have to do another separate post about Rocky Mountain National Park (it was absolutely breath-taking), but I wanted to post some pictures from our time at my parents' house first. I've posted lots of pictures from places we visited, but there were lots of fun "everyday" things we did while there too! One of the things Randy enjoyed doing on vacation was working with my dad. Here they are starting on the back deck. The weather the first week was pretty hot and muggy with thunderstorms, so most of their work time was spent putting up paneling in the sunroom. But the weather the second week was perfect for completing this project. Leveling off the dirt and laying gravel for foundation. Setting the framework. The deck was done in time for the kids' "Kansas birthday party" on Sunday night. Since my parents don't ever get to come to any of the kids' birthday parties, they decided to throw one for all three of them while we were there. It was a lot of fun! My mom invited a few of their friends from church that the kids had met and played with over the past two weeks. They played water games in the backyard, then had cupcakes and ice cream for dessert! Dressing up was a fun thing to do at Grandma and Grandpa's. Isaac had fun being creative with chalk and race cars in the garage. The kids loved drawing with Grandma and Grandpa too.  One of things they drew were Native American symbols.  Interesting thing to draw, right?  Well, every night before bed my mom read them a portion of Indian in the Cupboard.  So they had fun checking out some books from the library about Native Americans and drawing symbols.  This activity actually reminded Audrey of our last drive out to Kansas when we stopped in Utah at the Sego Canyon Petroglyphs.   I love this picture of Audrey and Violet with my mom's friend, Bonnie. They were feeding the coi in the pond. Ed and Bonnie and their two college-aged daughters invited all of us over for dinner one night and we had a wonderful time! Violet kept asking to go back to "her friends' house" the rest of the time we were at my parents. We thought at first that she was talking about all her friends in CA that she missed.  Nope, she wanted to go back to Ed and Bonnie's house!  So we invited them to join us for the kids' birthday party on the last night. Here's Violet and Bonnie reading a book at the party. Here are the kids in their museum/store/school that they created in the basement...they even sent out flyers that read, "No tuching. 5 cents to enter." The main exhibit. Hey, they didn't say no photography! Isaac loved "building" while at Grandpa's. My dad has lots of scrap wood, so Isaac hammered, nailed, and even painted a bunch while Dad and Grandpa worked. This is the Reno County Farmers' Market. We visited the last Saturday we were there. We bought some FABULOUS cinnamon rolls from a Holdeman baker, a watermelon, some swiss chard, some local honey (from alfalfa fields right down the street from my parents' house), and Violet found a beautiful bracelet to buy from Julia's Jewelry. And last, I included a video of Grandma Janice singing to Violet as she rocks on the Wonderhorse. Violet couldn't get enough of it!