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We spent the last 6 days in Illinois with my parents, brother, Becky, Micah, William, Xavier, Liz and Addison. As always, it was a sweet time and went by much too quickly! 

We laid around; we had water fights; we went to the park; we visited military cemeteries for Memorial Day, we drank coffee; we ate ice cream;  the big kids went on a date including dinner and a movie; we rode horses (well, the little kids and Grandpa did anyway); the girls shopped; we ate ice cream again; we watched basketball; we fought off the Illinois gnats that flew in our ears, mouths and noses; we listened to Let It Go and Do You Wanna Build a Snowman more times than seems possible; we ate more ice cream; we asked Dr. Micah alot of questions; we not cry; we laughed; we didn't sleep.

I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to document it on the blog but for now I'm just posting a few pictures and trying to get back into the swing of blogging and running a household on summer break.

Becky used to work for a coffee distributor, and we always buy freshly roasted coffee from him when we're together. When I was diagnosed with cancer and Becky would visit, he would send all kinds of free goodies. Becky texted me before she left Oklahoma "Look what your cancer card got you this time." This doesn't even really show the 7 lbs of coffee that we ordered; this is just the extra he sent. And let me just tell you, we got a good start on this during that week in Illinois.
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My mom started counting down the hours several days in advance.
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Road trip! (you don't want to know how many tries it took to get all of us in the picture)
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Chocolate gravy and biscuits for our first morning home. 
There's also sausage gravy here. Or, deer gravy I should say. Family joke, but let's just say the deer was a total accident and we may have ruined Micah for good by accidentally feeding it to him.
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This girl wanted to hear "Let it Go" over and over. This is the look she gave every single time Uncle Micah started playing it for her. So sweet.
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We had some lazy mornings.
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And a trip to the library.
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And I should probably be embarrassed to tell you we had THREE trips to Whiteys.

Trip #3
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The 4 Hale kids.
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Uncle Matt with the kids.


A very quick family get together celebrating my cousin's marriage. I was bald and Liz was pregnant with Addison the last time we saw most of these sweet family members!
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Seriously, I have so many pictures that I don't even know what to do with myself. Or with the pictures.

We got back into town Saturday night about 9:00 and started right back into full on busy mode. Brian had a meeting at 7:30 Sunday morning, we all had Sunday School at 9:30, church at 10:30, then nursing home service at 2:00. Today I've been working on grocery shopping, laundry, fixing several dinners for some friends as well as church family who've had surgery. Brian had a school meeting this morning as well as something scheduled for every single day this week. Summer is not starting off at a very relaxing pace! I am reminding myself often how very blessed we are to be busy!

Maybe more pictures tomorrow??


Comments

KirstyB said…
I LOVE all the photos! You always look like you have so much fun when you visit your family!! More today, please!! :D
6:54 AM
Christine @ 12,450miles said…
Dude. You know how to vacation. That’s all I’m saying. :)
10:20 AM
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