Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas . . .

Greetings from Willmar, MN! We are here for the weekend celebrating an early Christmas with the Roisum side of the family - it's so fun to be here at Christmastime - you can always count on Minnesota to have some snow, and Grandma and Grandpa Roisum's house is so festive. Mark's brother and his family joined us today, and we had a GREAT day - opening gifts, eating tons of good food (and had two coffee runs to Dunn Bros.!), chatting, and it was just fun seeing all the cousins play together. Now the kids are in bed, we all have full tummies and we're just relaxing.

Tommorrow we head home, and will celebrate Christmas at home - for the first time! - just the four of us. We'll go to our own church on Christmas Eve, have a special dinner, watch The Nativity Story with the kids, then spend Christmas morning at home, and in the afternoon will head out to Spearfish to celebrate with the Horaks.

So, this will be our last post before Christmas - I'm putting the computer and all other responsibilities away for the next several days and am going to focus on the two most important things in my life - my precious family and my Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the reason we celebrate. My prayer for you, our dear friends, is that you will have a peaceful, purposeful Christ-filled Christmas.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever." Isaiah 9:6-7

WHEW - Breathing a Sigh of Relief!

WOW, we had a crazy week last week - and especially the weekend! It's just been one thing after another - we made it to all 8 parties last week (that I mentioned below), and everything else we had on the calendar. Amazing - I didn't think we'd get it all done! The kids did great with all the events, but got pretty worn out. Noah, who hasn't napped in months, has had naps on Sat., Sun. and today after school. He needs it!! The highlights of the week were the kids' two Christmas programs - school and church and a party we had here last night for church, which was really fun. The kids also attended two birthday parties (which we may have skipped, but they were for two of Jack and Noah's favorite people so we couldn't miss!)

Anyway, by the time everyone was gone last night and we'd cleaned everything up, I was so happy and at peace that we made it through an insane week and that now Christmas can just be about family. Nothing on the calendar this week (except my MOPS party tomorrow morning) and it feels SO GOOD. This morning I worked in Noah's classroom for a little while, came home and leisurely read the Sunday paper, then did a little wrap-up shopping - it was a such a great, non-stressful day! Tonight we're having our own little Monday Night Football family party - the kids have been looking forward to this all day - the Vikings play . . . . hmmm, someone . . . shoot, can't remember, Mark wouldn't be very proud of me! :) Anyway, I'm making the kids favorites for supper, and they had naps after school so we're going to let them stay up and watch the game. Then I gotta keep wrapping and start thinking about packing. We leave for Minnesota on Thursday afternoon - having Christmas with Mark's family over the weekend and returning home on Sunday to have our first Christmas at home. Kinda hard on our families, but we felt it was important for the kids, so we're looking forward to starting a few traditions of our own!

Closing with several pictures . . .

Here's Jack and Noah in front of our 10 foot tree - initially I thought it was way too big, but now I love it. Jack says he wants to leave it there permanently . . .

The school Christmas program - I can not describe how adorable this was - all the kids were dressed up as some part of the nativity. The amount of effort that went into this program was just staggering. Both Jack and Noah were sheperds. Jack is the last kid you can see on the right (maroon with gold sash), and Noah is in dark gray, to the above-left of the star sitting in the chair.

Jack doing the bells . . .

Noah doing the motions to the cutest Christmas song I've ever heard - a tear-jerker!

At church, right before their program on Sunday.

Jack saying his lines (couldn't get one of Noah, I had a bad angle!)

Hope you have a great week!

He Asked! She Said YES! (of course!)

Congratulations Josh and Marcy!! This is my "baby" brother and my future sister-in-law Marcy - we had big excitement around here this weekend after he proposed on Saturday. Marcy already seems like part of the family - she has fit in so well with all of us, there won't be much of a transition, which is awesome. I'm SO very happy for my little brother, who has snagged a wonderful Christian girl, and I'm also very happy for Marcy, who is getting one heck of a guy! :) We are all so excited and have already started pestering them about PLANS. More to follow in that area - they are just soaking up the moment right now, which is what they should be doing! We love you guys!

Tonight we had the kids' Christmas program at their school - it was THE CUTEST thing EVER! Oh my word, we just loved it. Little kids singing their hearts out about Jesus - there is just nothing like it. It was just the best. Jack and Noah did so well, and were so proud. Their "substitute" grandparents (our next-door neighbors) came with us since we didn't have any other family around, which was really special for Jack and Noah. I took lots of pictures, but haven't got them uploaded yet, so I'll post them once I get that done.

We are in the midst of an insane week - between the four of us, from now until Sunday, we have 8 parties to go to, in addition to several other things happening this week. Not sure how we are going to survive this, but we're jumping in head first, and we'll see where we end up! May have to eliminate some things as we go, depending on how the kids do. Even the fun things can be exhausting! 'Tis the season!

Have a great week!

Decorating and a Celebrity

We spent much of the weekend finally decorating for Christmas - I say finally because we have been looking at a huge "naked" tree all week! Finally got the lights on it on Saturday (took me 3 hours!! - It's a 10 foot tree) and then we finished decorating it with ornaments today. It always feels like a lot of work, but I always LOVE it when we're done. We don't follow any "theme" with our tree - it's just full of stuff we love - things that are special and have memories to all 4 of us. Some of our favorites are at the bottom of this post.

In other news, which I wanted to post last week but didn't get around to it - we had big excitement around here last Monday when we realized Jack had a "story" with an illustration published in the local newspaper on Thanksgiving!! The newspaper asked the local elementary schools to submit directions from the students on "How to Cook a Turkey." Zion's lunchladies sifted through the entries at our school, and submitted the ones they thought were "worthy," and then the newspaper chose 50 from the community to be published - one of which was Jack's! We missed it somehow on Thanksgiving, but when Jack returned to school on Monday, his teacher had it proudly displayed in their room - I felt awful that we missed it!! Anyway, Grandpa immediately went down to the paper and bought 6 copies. Here's Jack with his picture (it's on the left side of the paper) - looks pretty proud, no?

I'm sure you can't see the type, so here's what it says - "My Grandpa went hunting. He shot three turkeys because we have a BIG family. Grandma and Mom cook it for 50 hours at 50 degrees. Then they put butter and salt on it. We also have corn on the cob." Okay, so he has his facts a little mixed up - Grandpa was quick to point out to the GF&P officer in his office that the shooting ocurred DURING turkey season last spring - not now, in the off-season! :) And mom doesn't really have anything to do with cooking the turkey - that's all Grandma's doing, so I thought I should give credit where it's due! Anyway, it was funny for us to see what he came up with.

We're headed into our last fairly "normal" week before Christmas - starting next weekend, the calendar really gets crazy. Hope to enjoy some peaceful moments before then! Closing with a few of our favorite ornaments - obviously this one would be MARK'S:

This one is Jack and Noah's - it's lights flash along with the music it plays -

And this one is probably the oldest on the tree - this is one of mine from when I was a little girl - I remember getting SO excited every year when this one came out of the box. He's been chewed on by a family dog, and he's kinda funny looking, but I was attached to him, and he's been on every tree I've ever had! Look familiar, mom and dad?!?

Thought For The Day . . .

"Gratitude. More aware of what you have than what you don't. Recognizing the treasure in the simple - a child's hug, a song, a golden sunset. Relishing in the comfort of the common - a warm bed, a hot meal, a clean shirt."

Max Lucado

I'm BEAT tonight, but I'll post an update tomorrow!! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;his faithfulness continues through all generations." Psalm 100:4-5

Happy Thanksgiving from the Roisums! We are enjoying the holiday at my mom and dad's house in Spearfish - drove up here last night after Mark got done with work, right before the snow hit - it snowed quite a bit last night here in the hills, and it's BEAUTIFUL! Had a nice evening last night of pizza and games, and now today we are watching the Macy's parade and lounging around. The whole Horak family is here, so we're just enjoying being all together. I can't believe it's Thanksgiving, that there's snow on the ground, and that we will be getting our Christmas tree tomorrow! Unbelievable. And I "officially" get to start the Christmas music tomorrow! :) Can't wait.

Anyway, hope you all have a wonderful day filled with many thankful thoughts!

Okay I did it . . .

. . . I broke the "rules" and started listening to Christmas music today - !!! I'm one of those people who believes you DON'T break out the Christmas tunes until the day after Thanksgiving . . but in preparation of Friday November 23rd, I started loading all of our Christmas CDs onto iTunes so I can get them on our iPod. Well, when you upload a CD onto iTunes, it starts playing right away, and I have to admit, from song 1, I was hooked. It was too tempting!! So I bee-bopped along to my favorite Christmas music while paying the bills and balancing the checkbook this morning - it was awesome. Made a not-so-fun job much more pleasant! But that's IT for now! I got my "fix" and now no more till after Thanksgiving!! :-)

Getting Caught Up

We had a great trip to Minnesota - a little "whirlwind-ish" for me, but we made it through just fine. Five nights in a different location each night! Whew! I was worried about how the kids would handle it, but they did awesome and had a lot of fun. We first stopped in Willmar for a couple days to visit the Roisum clan, and were amazed at the remodeling that took place at Mark's parents house over the past couple months. WOW, what fun to see such a big change! It looks awesome you guys! Hope you enjoy it immensely. (Here's a photo of the boys "dressing up" Mark's Uncle Marty - he's a VERY patient man!!) :)

After the Vikings game last Sunday, we headed to Minneapolis, and stayed with my aunt and uncle the first night. They have been blessed with an enormous house and we got a kick out of Jack and Noah's awe-inspired comments - "This looks like a hotel" - "What if I get up in the middle of the night and can't find you?" - "Which stairs do we go down, there are so many?" They had been there several times before the age of 3, but not since then, so they didn't remember it. They had a total blast and didn't want to leave in the morning. I told my aunt I was going to send them to her this summer (they are recent empty-nesters), and she said "SURE!" So watch out, Ben and Ann, we may just take you up on it! :)

We then spent the day at the Mall of America - the kids have been asking for over a year to visit Legoland, so that was top priority, and it didn't disappoint. They were very impressed. We had lunch with Mark's brother and his family, and then headed off to do some rides in the former Camp Snoopy (not sure what they call it now). Then we hit the Build-a-Bear workshop where the boys each made their own dog - they LOVED it. At the end of the day, we went to the Cheesecake Factory and then crashed at our hotel.

Mark's training for work started early the next morning, so the boys and I slept in and then headed to the zoo, which was a much bigger hit with Jack and Noah than I thought it would be! They were enthralled with the dolphin show and the tank where they could pet stingrays and little sharks. I wasn't sure they would do it, but Jack had his arms in that tank up to his shoulders within seconds. Noah took a little coaxing, but after a while he got into it too. They stayed at that tank for an hour! We also hit a 3D Imax movie - their first 3D experience - and that was a riot. We had a great day together.

Mark, his brother, and their boys at LegoLand:

Noah stuffing his dog at Build-a-Bear

Jack operating the stuffing machine . . .

On a ride at the Mall of America:

At the zoo:

Sporting the 3D glasses:

Jack getting ready to "pounce"
Wednesday we headed home! I then spent Thursday and Friday just trying to get caught up - my goodness, four people can create a lot of laundry in 6 days!!! We had a nice quiet weekend at home - Saturday we did some major cleaning/reorganizing in the playroom/family room area, which felt really good. We had to make room for Mark's Mall of America purchase - a LoveSac. If you aren't familiar, they are fancy adult-size "bean bags" except they aren't made of beans, they are full of foam. He wanted the biggest - an 8-footer - but it was almost impossible to move, so we settled on the next size down - the 6-footer. We love it - it's VERY comfy!!
Here's what it looked like right out of the bag:

And after a lot of work by the four of us, kneading and fluffing:

Now we're off to a normal week, looking forward to my sister and her family coming on Saturday!! They'll be here through Thanksgiving weekend - partly at our house, and partly at my mom and dad's in Spearfish. Can you stand it - Thanksgiving is already almost here? Amazing!

Halloween and a Happy Birthday

After finally feeling healthy again, we ended up having a GREAT Halloween. On Halloween "eve" (the 30th) the boys carved their pumpkins, we ate a mummy cake and then snuggled up on the couch and watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown on T.V. On Halloween, the boys got dressed RIGHT after school, we went to McDonalds for supper (which was really fun because there were tons of kids there, all dressed up), then headed to the boys' school for the carnival there. After playing several games there, we took them trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. This year, Mark and I followed them with the truck in case they got cold and wanted to warm up. So we just drove along the curb, while they walked on the sidewalk, and Mark and I were SO entertained - both had these fancy masks that they could hardly see through, but they insisted on wearing them, so they were stumbling around, tripping over bushes, nearly running into mailboxes - at one house, they actually ended up going around the garage to the backyard. It was SO funny - - only because we knew they were safe and we were right there with them. Towards the end of the night we got them to take off the masks so they could see. :) As you can see, Star Wars was the theme this year - Noah being Darth Vader and Jack being a Storm Trooper. Jack was having a hard time remembering the term "Storm Trooper," so on occasion when someone not familiar with Star Wars would ask him what he was, he would say "I'm Darth Vader's people!!" It was so CUTE!

Thursday we had parent/teacher conferences at school. Both kids are doing great - we're so glad we waited until they were 6 to start them - we've found it's making a huge difference. They are both excelling academically, but we did hear some interesting comments from both teachers! We were told (and this wasn't a surprise) that Noah is very quiet and shy - which actually is so contrary to his personality at home! He has his group of friends, but isn't one of the boisterous kids, which is o.k. with us! Jack's teacher surprised us a little more when she said he has two difficulties - 1) he misses Noah (WHAT!?!?) and 2) he's highly competitive. Number 1 was a total shock and number 2, not so much. :) I never expected Jack to miss Noah - Jack's the more independent one so I was blown away. She said he's highly protective and possessive of Noah at recess and lunch (when both classes are together). Last night I asked Jack if it was true that he misses Noah during the day, and he looked at me with big eyes and nodded. Wow! Anyway, she suggested we get Jack involved in some outlet for his competiveness, so we need to get to work on that!

Other big news from yesterday is that it was Mark's birthday - 37!! We had my family over to celebrate last night - and also to celebrate my mom's birthday which was on Oct. 26th. It was a fun night, and Mark got his usual haul of Vikings stuff!

Now we are off to Minnesota today - headed to Willmar first, to see Mark's family - then off to Minneapolis to goof off for a couple of days - then Mark has training in Mpls. on Tuesday, and then we'll head home on Wednesday. We're looking forward to a few days away, and some time with the kids!! Have a great weekend!

Sick again!

Jack has come down with his 5th or 6th cold since school started - I'm starting to think we're going to be blowing his nose until next May! I came down with something this weekend too, unfortunately - yesterday woke up with a sore throat and by afternoon it had turned into body aches and a headache, so I was down for the count for the remainder of the day. Still not feeling great today - still have the body aches but I'm only giving in to this thing today - tomorrow I have to be back in action no matter what!! Too much to do! We have a big week coming up - I provide snacks for Noah's class all of this week, the boys have gymnastics tonight, I work in the kids' classrooms tomorrow and Wednesday, we have a field trip for Jack's class on Wed., Halloween is on Wednesday, Mark's birthday on Thursday, and we leave for a 6-day trip on Friday, so somewhere in there I have to get us all ready to go for that!!! Ugghh!! No time to be sick! Aren't moms supposed to be completely immune to these things?!?? Ha ha.

We had a good weekend up until yesterday afternoon, though - Friday night we went out to the Olive Garden with my brother's girlfriend (he's on a hunting trip), so we pigged out (YUM) and caught up with her, which was nice. Saturday we went to Sam's Club, went out to lunch and then took the kids to the movie - Casper - appropriate for Halloween time, we thought! They loved it of course. Late Saturday afternoon my Dad came in from Spearfish to hang with the kids while Mark and I went to a church dinner. Then Dad stayed over, and did our whole Sunday morning routine with us - bagel shop, Sunday School and church. It was fun to have him around - I love how much he loves the boys, it's really a blessing.

And so we're off on another busy week - can you believe October is already over??? WOW!! And can you believe Mark will be 37 on Thursday??!? Bigger WOW!! :)

"All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth"

(or Halloween, or Thanksgiving . . . . ) Remember that song? I remember my mom and dad making me sing that one Christmas when I was missing mine . . . Here are a couple pictures of MY toothless baby - remember I mentioned that Noah's first upper tooth fell out a couple weeks ago - - well, the second front tooth fell out on Sunday night, so he's looking really different - actually just adorable when he's caught off guard and looks at me with a huge smile (which isn't that often because he's kind of self-conscious now!). You should hear him talk, it's the cutest thing!! I just love it. We're so mean, we're thinking of words to have him say that you really can't pronounce well without those teeth :) (thistle being one of them!) - he's a good sport though, and is getting used to how it feels. Personally I don't know how he eats, but he's managing! It's so fun to go through these stages, but you know the sentimentalist in me is lamenting over the fact I can remember when those two teeth came in like it was yesterday (it was yesterday, wasn't it???). And so my babies (and their teeth!) keep growing . . . . .

Cold, Flu and General ICKY Season is Here!

I am at home today, tending to my poor baby Jack who got hit from all directions yesterday. He's been fighting a cold and yesterday morning it was particularly bad - nasty coughing, etc. so I brought him home from school around 10:00 a.m. and he laid on the couch ALL DAY - didn't move. Then at 5 p.m. he started throwing up, almost continously through the next 2 1/2 to 3 hours. THEN when I went to bed at 11, he had developed a fever of 102. This poor child, his little body was absolutely racked with misery. His stomach wouldn't even allow him to lay still, he was coughing, nose running, and had the chills with his fever. I prayed HARD that he (and the rest of us!) would be able to sleep during the night, and sure enough we did (thank you God!!). This morning he is doing better. We seem to be through the stomach issue and now he's just really worn out so hopefully we'll have a good day of recovery. It's gorgeous outside here, so I opened all the windows this morning and got some fresh air circulating through the house - it feels good!

Noah managed to sleep nearly 12 hours last night - amazing!! So my prayer now is that he can be spared of this. He's fighting his own cold and his cough is sounding like it might have traveled to his lungs, so we may have to get him in to the dr. today.

I'm threatening to home-school again! We've been dealing with health issues in this house ever since school started - even Mark and I haven't been immune - YUCK! You go into either Jack or Noah's classrooms and nearly every kid there is hacking away with a nasty cough - I'm wondering if we're ever going to get healthy again in the next 7 months! It's only October!! I think schools should shut down for 1 week per month to get everyone healthy and disinfect the rooms. Ha ha - yeah right. Nevermind, that's just my panicky side talking, I know we'll get better and I definitely know things could be much worse . . . .

Needless to say, we don't have anything planned for the weekend - but that's okay with me! I love boring weekends at home, just enjoying normalcy! :)

Cedar Rapids, A Lost Tooth and Pickles!

WOW I'm getting really bad at this - need to try and improve these time lapses between posts!! We have just been crazy busy the last two weeks, but at least with all good things. Last weekend we headed to Cedar Rapids, IA to see my sister Betsy and her family - LONG drive (11 hours!) but very worth it, we had the BEST time! Friday night we got a babysitter and went out to eat and then to the Newsboys concert - oh my goodness, they are my new favorite band! It was just awesome!! Mark and I have both become total Newsboys junkies now - every time we get in the car, that's what we put on. Saturday morning we headed to the MALL where we had a family picture taken for Christmas - and this was no ordinary mall - they have an ice skating rink right and full-size carousel right in the middle of it! So we took advantage of both:

It was the boys' FIRST TIME ever ice skating, and it was a challenge!! By the end, they were doing pretty good, though. Here's Jack starting out:

This is what they looked like most of the time - this is Noah: (but bless their hearts, they were NOT going to give up, and they did improve quite a bit!)
Gaining some confidence towards the end:
and Mark and I practicing our Olympic routine . . . .
Here's my sweet nephew Colby on the carousel (LOVE this picture!):
So, our family picture session was somewhat of a struggle because Noah had an upper front tooth hanging on my a thread, and he kept pushing it with his tongue during the pictures - UGGH! We did manage to get a couple decent ones - - and then wouldn't you know, an hour after the pictures were done, his tooth falls out!! Anyway, it was pretty exciting because it was his first upper tooth to come out and now he really does look different (and talks a little different too!) :)

The rest of the weekend with the Wraneks was great - we always have so much fun there with them. Jack and Noah were very sad to leave Colby - here they are the night before we left:

Back on the homefront, the boys were able to open the first jar of their pickles from the batch we made last month. They made this jar (and a few others) BY THEMSELVES - they just love doing it and they love eating them even more! True Roisums!!
And then we did another of Jack and Noah's favorite things, decorating for Halloween. I started collecting Dept. 56 Halloween stuff when they were babies, and now they have the BEST time getting it all out every Halloween. Here's our favorite piece - "Jack's Carving Studio" (says that on the sign, not sure if you can read it in the picture) . . . .

And here's Mark's favorite Halloween decoration - we got it from a Roisum family friend for our wedding. (The mouth says ROISUM).
So that's what we've been up to! The next few weekends we don't have any plans, other than to spend time at HOME and get our to-do list done! It felt so good to wake up this morning knowing we don't have one thing on the calendar for the next two days - love it!!! Have a good weekend!!

Long Time No Post!! :)

Yikes! Time got away from me - I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I updated this!! I'm surprised at how busy I'm managing to keep myself with the kids gone all day - it's amazing to me that's it's already October tomorrow. I have a few minutes now that all my boys are watching the Vikings - just took the picture to the right a few minutes ago. They are so cute, all piled into Mark's big chair with their Vikings blanket, trying to learn the in's and out's of football. They needed some "daddy time" - Mark was gone at a church retreat on Friday night and part of Saturday, and the boys MISSED him. I love how much they love to be with their Dad.

Had a busy weekend - Mark was gone until yesterday at noon, so the kids and I laid in bed yesterday morning watching cartoons for a while, then went to Target, then went to their soccer game, then got their hair cut, then had lunch, then went to a birthday party, and THEN Mark and I went to an extremely boring Chamber of Commerce dinner. Uggh. At least it was a free meal and the food was good. This morning, I had to be at church at 8 a.m. for a meeting, then we had Sunday school at 9, after which we had to race out to Zion to attend their service for the school's 50th anniversary - all the school kids sang a big medley of songs (8-10 of them!!!) and it was the SWEETEST THING EVER. They made mom all misty eyed - it was spectacular. :) And wouldn't you know, this was the one time we didn't bring the video camera. In some ways, that was good though - I was completely absorbed in them, and not worrying about what angle to get. After an open house in their classrooms, we came home and are looking forward to a quiet evening at home with a movie.

Last weekend (a week ago) we closed out our camping season with our camping buddies the Rossons. It was a really nice weekend - great weather, great time. (Check out the picture of the "crooked cabin"!) On Saturday night as we were "doing bedtime" in the camper with the boys, Mark mentioned that it was our last night of camping until next spring, and within 5 minutes, both boys were in their bunks crying in their pillows because they didn't want camping season to be over. It was really cute, and it made me thankful that we are creating such awesome memories together as a family - it's clearly having a big impact on them - - and I'm sure their eagerness to go camping will diminish a little each year as they get more involved with other things. We made it out seven times this year! It was even sad for Mark and I to put the camper away until next year . . . .


Doing the Hamster Dance with Kyle and Lacy . . .

We also wrapped up the soccer season this week - the boys' team actually has their two last games this upcoming week, but we'll miss them because we'll be in Iowa visiting my sister and her family. I'm posting a couple pictures from this past week. We saw a big progression in the boys during this season - I can't wait to see how they are doing in the spring.

Jack's in the red shoes, center of the picture:

Action shot of Noah:

The kids have been doing GREAT in Awana - they earned their vests and books on the very first night - got through all their memory work perfectly. I thought they might need a little "break" then, but they eagerly did 3 more verses for the following week. In flipping through their books (which they can take at their own pace), it's staggering to me what they have to memorize, but so far it doesn't seem to be a problem. Oh to have that mental capability again!! :) I couldn't do what they are doing, I don't think!

Mark's officially on jury duty starting tomorrow - he has the month of October - but he doesn't have to report this week, so he's happy about that. Only 4 more weeks to go!!! The kids only have school 3 1/2 days this week (yeaahh!) and then they have 1/2 of Thursday, all of Friday and all of Monday off. I'm so excited to have 4 1/2 days in a row with them!! We're departing on Thursday for Iowa and will return on Monday. We have some fun things planned with the Wranek family, so we're all getting anxious to leave! Have a great week . . . . .