ZOOM!!!

It's been over two weeks since I showed up here, wow, things happen fast around here.

All four of my angels have been home for the last week and it's been great, if not a bit chaotic.  We're just not used to, or set up for, having 6 people living here, so there's stuff and people all over the place.  Add that to getting ready for WE;s graduation party and things got downright loopy around here.

WE's party was on Saturday, we had it in conjunction with his friend Casey, who's also going into the Marines at the same time.  It was a great turnout with lots of people, some friends came over who I hadn't seen in 3 years, their kids had all gotten so bit and one the them I'd never even seen before and will be turning 2 in August.  To think we used to spend just about every weekend with them back in the old days, it's hard to believe things have changed so much.  But they live a 3 hours drive away and have 4 little kids, so it's hard for them to get out and we've just got so much stuff going on in our own lives that it's hard for us to make the trip as well, though hubs has been out there a few times on jobs, but I didn't make it out there with him.  Anyway, it was nice to play catch-up, though I didn't have a whole lot of time since I had to run around being a hostess.  We had a ton of leftover food and we'll be eating party food for the next couple days, thank goodness I've got the extra kids here to help us eat all this stuff.

Yesterday, we took the kids on what may be one of our last whole family vacations.  It was just a short jaunt- out to House on the Rock, about a 3 1/2 hour drive from here.  If you've never experienced House on the Rock, I highly recommend it.  It's absolutely crazy and random, perfect for our family.  I was a little worried about hauling the whole group out there then have someone whining about being bored or something, but that never happened.  Though everyone wasn't interested in everything, everyone found lots of stuff to be interested in.  We also brought WE's girlfriend along, which was a great move.  Not only did she enjoy it as much as our kids, but this was her first Father's Day without her dad and she was worried about how she was going to handle it.  Fortunately for her, we're not a Hallmark Holiday kind of family and Father's Day didn't even really come up other than once when we were wondering why there were so many full parking lots in front of restaurants.

The suggested time for each portion of House on the Rock is 1 hour each, for a total of about 3 hours to walk the whole place (it's about a 2.5 mile walk through the whole thing).  We were enjoying it so much it took us over 5 hours to go through it and each of us said we would have loved to spend more time examining some of the displays.  The girls and I all oohed and ahhed over the dollhouse room the the replica crown jewels, each of us picking out which crown we'd like the best.  The boys and hubs spent a lot of time examining the guns, armor, the tiny circus dioramas and WE was absolutely fascinated by the scrimshaw works.  Overall, I would call it a complete success and it was great spending an enjoyable day with my kids.