Apartment, sweet apartment

The last three days of our trip were all en route home.  We went from Cheyenne, WY to St.Joseph, MO to Indianapolis, IN to Baltimore.  The girls did really well considering that we were in a car for the most part of three days.  They played with the luggage cars and swam at the last hotel we stayed at.  I caught Gwyn and Celee being sweet sisters and had to take a picture.

We very briefly stopped in Champaign where we had left our van and parted ways with my parents.  We grabbed "dinner" at Jarlings for old times sake.  Then we headed to Indianapolis where we got to spend time with good friends there.  Lyla got to see one of her best friends and they had a spend-the-night party.  It's so good to spend time with good friends, kids and adults!  Thanks Kim and Victor for having us!

 

I must admit that most of Thursday was a struggle for me driving.  I kept stopping when I needed to and eating to stay awake.  (Thankfully the snacks available weren't horrible for me) We even stopped at a rest stop at one point and I laid on the sidewalk beside the van for a bit.  But we made it - and before dark.  I'm a pretty big holiday celebrator.  I like to make a big deal of them.  So even though we were all pretty zone blazed, we went to see fireworks after we got home.  We decided to try to get a view of the Oregon Ridge fireworks from the road and it worked out pretty good.  We ended up sitting on the edge of the golf course and had a great view of the show.  We couldn't hear the symphony orchestra that the fireworks were choreographed to, but we did see the show.  They didn't actually shoot the fireworks until 10pm!  The girls had fun chasing and catching the hundreds of fireflies that came out prior to the show though.

Celee and I got up Friday and met friends for breakfast.  Abby is one of Celee's best friends from Illinois and we couldn't miss the chance to see them as they were passing through Baltimore on vacation!

I am in berry-picking heaven!  The raspberries are ripe in the woods behind our apartment.  Apparently, no one else cares or knows or maybe wants to brave the woods to pick them.  So I don't mind sharing them with the deer and birds.  I picked a full gallon the first day I went out.  This makes me so happy that I found myself talking in a Irish sort of accent while picking!  It makes it all weirder that I was by myself talking in this horrible Irish accent, but that's how happy it makes me to pick yummy berries for free!  We ate the gallon in 2 days, so Celee and I went back yesterday and picked another.  This time I froze some just so we wouldn't all eat them before I can make something out of them.  We may have to go back out tomorrow to replenish our supply so I can make jam or tarts or something though, because we've eaten the ones I didn't freeze already.

While we were gone Jason taught himself to make sushi.  Yay!  So we had a delish sushi dinner this weekend.  We may have to institute weekly sushi night b/c he did good!

Saturday I really wanted to do something around some sort of water, so we headed to the river.  The meadow was crowded but we went up the trail a little ways and had a spot to ourselves for the most part.  The water was crazy cold, but the girls played in it anyway.  I would stand in it as long as I could until my feet started to hurt then get out.  We stayed most of the afternoon though and had a blast.  The girls made "farms" on the bank.  We played frisbee and threw a ball up river.  Gwyn actually jumped in a deep spot, once. Once was enough.  Lyla made a "habitat."  I'm not sure what animal the habitat was for, but she made it anyway.  Jason taught the girls to skip stones.  It was super hot outside, but with the slight breeze and freezing water it was perfect.  I do like the beach, but I think at heart I will always be a river rat.