Home Sweet Home

You never realize how awesome home is until you leave it. Peace just washed over me when we walked in the door late last night. All twenty-six times as we unloaded the car. I cannot believe how much stuff you can fit in one mid-sized sedan. :) Then, Rob and I - like the crazy fools we are - we stayed up way too late putting things away. Silly gooses.
What a great trip. I left with intentions of posting along the way, but we kind of got caught up in the undertow of visiting and it suddenly just didn't seem so important anymore. Lots of good conversations, many wonderful meals and more presents than our children could play with in a lifetime. So good to see family and equally wonderful to come home to our happy life here in IL.
We put 1700 miles on our rental car - in the week that we roamed from IL to AR to IA and back again. The kids were angels for the most part, Sarah got a little gritchy, but we don't think she feels well today - running just a smidge warm.
I'm putting up some fun pictures, one that is especially warming is the one of Sarah sleeping on Papa Doug. She refused to nap for me, but curled up in Papa's lap and slipped off to sleepyland - stayed that way for 2 hours! Also, there's a picture of the sun rising at Grandma Dee's house, we saw it every morning (thank you Sarah). And a great picture of me and my dad, mom was reluctant to be photographed. There is a picture of me (in cartoon caricature) on Jay's new Wii game. I thought it was so me, I may have to sketch it for a blog title, wouldn't that be fun?? There's a great one of the kids sleeping in the car - could they look any more alike?? I think their drool was even in the same pattern! And last, but not least is a a sad photo of my sad fridge - terribly empty after a week of neglect. Don't be fooled by that casserole dish - it's spoiled and I haven't' thrown it away yet - trash is a couple days away and I didn't want to stink up the house. I'm sure my fridge is in shock after being so heavily used for the past two months and then to drop to near empty for such a long period of time. Wasteful, really. So, you can guess where we are off to next. I am pretty impressed with myself though - yesterday's diaper run was my first foot in Walmart in almost ten days. That has got to be a near record for me.
Well, gearing up for a happy new year.