We took a week long vacation with Dominic's family and extended family in Nebraska and South Dakota over the fourth of July holiday. How long does that trip take you ask? About 32ish hours with 2 kids and some flooding detours. It was glorious fun :) It was Corinne's first trip all the way to South Dakota and the first time to have most of our immediate Schulte relatives (Dominic's parents, sisters and their families) all together in over a year ... a pretty momentous occasion ... so I took a lot of pictures ;)
Funny thing is that even when I take pictures, I still come back feeling like I missed stuff. But I got lots of good stuff to share and will try to share some of the un-photographed stuff in between.
Road trippin'
The trip was our first in our new (well new to us) minivan. It was so nice to have the extra space. I heart my minivan :) I did my fair share of chillin' in the backseat - in between responding to requests for snacks, drinks, and new movies from the girls.
Girls enjoying lunch at Sonic.
Hair in their faces because all bows had been removed (likely in the first 10 minutes of our car ride). We ended up with about 8 flies in the car after this stop.
I wish I remember which small town this Sonic was in. Somewhere in Kansas ... but in the field behind the Sonic we made a horse friend! The horse was far away at first, but came up to us as soon as we reached the fence. Juliet was LOVING it.
This was our first stop and it set the bar pretty high for future stops. Needless to say, we met no other friendly animals ... only dirty gas station bathrooms ... nothing quite lived up ;)
This was our first trip with a potty trained toddler and that fact made our potty stops frequent. I was so thankful that I had brought a potty chair in the car so we could just pull over and let her do her business rather than having to find a rest stop or gas station!
Cousins
The girls hadn't seen their cousins Paxton and Winston in over a year (except over Skype) so we were more than just a little excited to get the kids together to play. Winston was only a year old when we saw him last.
And now he's a big boy! Sand + shovel + truck = awesome.
Boy loves to sweep.
I took about a million billion pictures of him because he's so darn cute :)
Smitten
So, I've written about Juliet's adoration of her
Uncle David on the blog before. Well, Uncle Jeff has the same effect. She was just beside herself ... smitten. His whereabouts were her #1 concern during the trip :)
Stalling
If I've learned one thing about Juliet's routine since she dropped her nap around her second birthday, it's that bedtime is not to be messed with. Even at home, a 15-30 minute delay can cause a major emotional breakdown. Obviously when traveling, schedules are tricky to keep. We did our best and I'm not going to say we didn't have any hour long crying spells or whiny kiddos in the late afternoon/early evening hours, but ... well ... we did our best! It seemed the fun was always still going on when we had to leave to get the girls to bed. And it's hard to leave the fun (for everyone). These pictures were taken one night as we were trying to leave. Pretty sure the kids managed to convince everyone that it was absolutely necessary to do ring around the rosie 10+ times.
One more noteworthy tidbit about bedtimes and schedules and traveling. Even trying to get Juliet to bed as quickly as we could (usually in bed by 8:30/8:45 versus the normal 7:45/8) she still took FOREVER - like an hour - to wind down. So, in bed at 8:30 but not asleep till 9:30 (ok ... one night she was up till 11!). She would just lay there and recount the day to me. Often repeating herself as she does when she's really tired. "Mommy, can we go to Grandpa Bush's tomorrow? Can I have a piece of candy out of my candy bag tomorrow? Is Uncle Jeff sleeping in his bed? We will see Uncle Jeff at Grandpa Bush's ..." It's like her poor tired brain wouldn't let her fall asleep! She's a funny girl, that one :)
The parade
There is a BIG 4th of July parade in Kranzburg, the small town where Dominic's mom grew up. Ok, so it may not technically be a BIG parade, but for the size of the town it's big! Dominic has fond memories of attending the parade as a kid so it is neat to have the girls enjoy this bit of tradition.
The weather was pretty much perfect - sunny in the mid 80s. These would pretty much be the only days of pleasant weather we would enjoy during the month of July as we returned home to blazing hot weather back in OK after this trip.
Winston's face here says it all.
Pretty sure he's thinking "What in the world is that??"
Beetles was trained in the art of candy fetching.
After the parade the girls were able to enjoy a horse ride. One of them enjoyed it a little more than the other!
Since coming home, Juliet has repeatedly brought up the "fourth of goo-lie" parade and the fact that she would like to be a princess in the parade "sometime". I told her that the pageant girls riding in the parade were princesses ... perhaps we will have to take a princess costume with us next year!
Great Grandparents
This is one of the bigger picture taking holes. I have pretty much no pictures of us at Great Grandma Marilyn's and no pictures with her or Great Grandpa Butch! Oooops and a major bummer ... both girls loved getting to spend time with their great grandparents. We stayed at Great Grandma Marilyn's house so enjoyed some quieter moments over there - eating breakfast, playing with toys, watching birds and bunnies out the window, etc. It was always a bustle of activity at Great Grandpa Butch's - or "Bush" - as Juliet referred to him, but Juliet is still talking about going to his house for the goo-lie parade again :)
Here is a video of Dominic and Juliet playing at Great Grandma Marilyn's one afternoon while Beetles napped.
Some other fun pictures from SD. More pictures at
Flickr.
Slip and slide fun.
Just hanging out.
Corinne wondering why all she got from Starbucks was a water :)
Jeff, Juliet, and Paxton
More to come ... eventually. This covers the first part of our trip. Lots more to come!
