Home Again, Home Again

Ahhh....it's good to be home. :) Our vacation was fun...long....enjoyable...but I'm glad to be back in our house, in our bed, in our own town. The boys have had a great time getting re-acquainted with their toys and I'm enjoying sleeping in my own bed again. Steve is off to the school today to catch up on some pre-planning and put into execution some inspiration he gained from his conference in Nashville.
I thought I'd post some more pictures from the rest of our vacation since I left off in Grand Rapids, and we still traveled for another week and a half after leaving Michigan. We had so much fun in GR, and it was so good to see family that I'm seriously jones'n to move back to Michigan. And then I remember that it snows there. A Lot. And I have second thoughts. :)
Robby lost his first tooth at breakfast one morning while we there, so that was fun to see. That little tooth had been hangin' by a little stringer for about a week, so I don't think any of us were surprised when it popped out in his cheerios. At least he didn't eat it! :) You can't see it in this picture though - it was a bottom tooth. Even toothless he's a good look'n kid, though, wouldn't you agree?? :)
I think he cashed it in to the tooth fairy for $2 that night - is that the going rate these days?? I think he should've bargained for more - pure ivory has got to be worth more than $2 an ounce, doncha think??

Here's some pictures of the crew jumping on the bed. I think Owen was off reading a book or playing quietly by himself (typical).

:) AJ jumped right in with the rowdy Teis boys though, and they had a grand time jumping on the bed....thankfully, no one acquired a broken limb or flesh wound.

Of course I can't forget Abby ( I may face the wrath of her temper if I do), so here she is in all her audacious glory. Don't let her sweet smile deceive you, though, her red hair suits her mood and temperment perfectly. I think she would get along fabulously with her great Aunt Dee - they are truly of the same gene pool, although I'm not sure I'd want to be in the same room with both of them at the same time. :) Watch out! lol

Next point of interest: a pit stop in Indiana. Indianapolis is the halfway point between Grand Rapids and Nashville and also conveniently, where my birth parents live. So we stopped over there for the night. The boys (and Steve too!) took full advantage of the Minkners pool so it was truly a pit stop. We relaxed and grilled out and talked and recharged for the next portion of the trip. Steve took this picture up above (notice his toes in the bottom of the picture). And no, I don't know what I was thinking when I bought that hideously ugly swim suit.
We haven't seen the Minkners in over 2 years so it was good to catch up with them and I'm sure they enjoyed seeing how much the boys have grown. The last time we were there was when AJ was about a month or 2 old, and I vividly remember him crying on the entire 5 hour ride car trip there and back. Not fun. Thankfully, he seems to have overcome his vehicular anxiety and doesn't cry endlessly in his seat.

Next up: Nashville, TN where Steve had his conference. I thought I'd be bored all day with the kids but we had a fun time exploring Nashville, swimming in the pool, and lounging in the room. Nashville is pretty, although you DO have to overcome the incessant sounds of country music wafting through the streets of downtown. But it seems to be a clean city and they've built the downtown around old churches and cathedrals (""oooh! look at the castles!!" AJ would squeal whenever we walked outside). Owen loved all the belltowers with clocks in the top of them. When I asked the boys what they wanted to do each day we were there (assuming they would want to swim), they would say without fail: "go look at da city!" Makes me glad that despite our current geographical location, they have city-genes within them somewhere! Steve had a good time at the conference and said that unlike past conferences he's attended in which he was bored silly, that this one was good and gave him lots of good ideas.

Last leg was back to Atlanta to pick up our van and head home. We stayed there until Tuesday morning (Steve wanted to get in one last round of golf with Sean). It was raining a lot that weekend, but I did manage to get in a mini-shoot of our niece Sloan, who just turned 2. I haven't proofed her session yet, but I couldn't resist opening a couple and playing around a little bit, so here's a couple of her. She's a cuti-patootie, so she was fun to take pictures of and fairly easy too (she didn't run away when I brought out my camera -such as my children do).

And of course, I can't leave out her little sister Sammi, who I snapped just a few of right before her naptime. I think she spent most of that 10 minutes or so wondering why the heck I had stuck her in a basket. Look at that face!! You can almost hear her saying, "you've GOT to be kidding me." She's normally pretty smiley (unless her uncle Steve is around, who petrifies her for some reason) but like I said, it was nap time, so she was less than amused.

Whew! Thus concludes our eastern United States tour.....hope you enjoyed the trip along with us via the blog.