Vacation!

va·ca·tion –noun

1.	a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday

Well, I don't know if this definition strictly applies to me anymore. It seems as though vacations usually involve more work than staying at home (yet another reason for a "staycation"). But we did have a lot of fun going to the least visited state, aka North Dakota. The car ride was, well, it wasn't as bad as it could have been - let's just put it that way.

We stopped in Moorhead to visit Susan and Maya. Maya has sure gotten tall! And now she likes to pose for pictures. Aunt Susan finally got to meet little (or not so little!) Libby.





When we finally got to my parents farm, the kids had lots of freedom to make up for the lack of movement in the car. Luke started out climbing on the hay bails with some tutelage from Papa.



Luke's desire to be a gun-slinging, fishing pole toting young man was appeased and increased by all the activities he got to do. There is old toy rifle of my brothers that he carried around the entire week (seriously, he would have slept with it if we would have let him!). He took it with as he and Mike went gopher hunting with my family. Hey, I even got to shoot a hand gun albeit my aim could have been better. The barn cats got lots of gophers to make them happy and full. The boys even went fishing as the fish were biting up at Lake Josephine. They caught some walleye one day and another day they got to see a garter snake eating a frog - pretty exciting stuff!





Abby had fun cleaning - cleaning the four wheelers that is. She spent a good hour plus using a brush and cleaning off the, well, the stuff that flies up when you are chasing cattle with a four wheeler.



We also went to the Dakota Zoo in Bismarck. It had been ages since I had been there! My whole family went. As a side note, my nephew and niece, Andrew and Grace were just so much fun! Little balls of sunshine is what they are....







My father asked Mike to do something for him - change the barn's exterior light bulb. Mike accepted it as a "man challenge" and helped Dad out!





We also did some geocaching on the trip. I think we've got Andrew hooked ;)





Then there was the All School Reunion. What a blast from the past! It was good to see many of my old friends. It is funny how there is this bond of living so many years together - so many common memories. And it is neat to see how everyone has and hasn't changed. Morgan still had me laughing, Steph was still "in charge," Leesa and Alycia were still easy to talk to (hey! fellow stay-at-home moms! or mom-to-be anyway) etc. etc....







I have to post this picture as it is a photo of Abby eating nachos in the school lunchroom. Man, I couldn't even tell you how many nachos I ate in that room!



And then, it was time to go home. We had one last fun evening in the hotel pool in St. Cloud...







Our crazy car ride home.....silly kids!



That's it in a nutshell. Any more info and your boredom tears would be overwhelming you. But it is good to "write" this all down for posterity's sake!