Van Wagenen family pictures

I posted about getting our pictures taken with Doug's side of the family before we left Utah but I didn't have any pictures yet. Here they are...

Some of just our little family...

the whole clan...

The pictures with just the grandkids had a couple of kids that didn't want to cooperate....and yes , of course,  one of them was Maddy.

In this picture you can see her looking over to where I was standing... crying.

I think her expression in this one is funny because I can tell she is about to say "Momma!"

One where they are both looking toward the camera and Abi is not blocking the sun from her face!

Girls night out

A few months ago I set up an appointment for Abi at the salon school I go to. I also told her we would go to McDonalds which I had forgotten. When she reminded me I was about to say no but then I remembered that I had made that promise... so we went to dinner too.

Her appointment was for getting her toenails and fingernails polished. 

Mary gave her a foot soak at the pedicure station too. Here she was putting lotion on Abi's cuticles...

Abi was cracking everybody up with how excited she was about having her feet in the water and the bubbles. Mary was so good with her and kept turning the bubbles off and on to surprise Abi which would make her collapse in giggles. It was so cute.

Abi picked out a sparkly purple for her toes and she loved them!

For her fingernails she chose pink.

It was so much fun to watch her during all of this as she was so excited and having so much fun. 

Afterward we did a little last minute shopping. At the open house they gave us a list of a few more things the kids would need so I needed to pick those up as well as some shoes. 

The girls and I spent all day at the mall on Monday looking for the last type of shoes I wanted for her.... I have been looking for a few weeks to no avail. We found nothing. I was feeling frustrated and like I would never find them. Luckily we tried Shopko and they had one pair of the right size of exactly what I wanted!

After finishing our shopping we stopped at McDonalds. Abi was so thrilled to not only be out after bedtime but eating dinner after bedtime!

We ended the night with ice cream. Abi told me that a girls night out is never complete without ice cream. So funny.

We had such a great time!

Getting ready for school

We got most of Abi's school supplies while in Utah. I didn't get any pictures of the shopping but I did want to post a picture of Abi with her backpack and supplies.....

Last night was the Kindergarten open house at her school. We got to go meet her teacher and the substitute teacher she will have for a few months while her teacher is on maternity leave. It turns out that the substitute teacher is actually a neighbor of ours! Both teachers seem very nice.

We also met the principal. He seems very nice as well.

I really like the school. Everything seems great and I love the history there. 

I got kind of melancholy while we were there and I began wondering why I was feeling so cranky... then it hit me it was because it was all of a sudden so real that she is starting school tomorrow. I am now dealing with the sadness of that. I felt like saying, "Nevermind. I'm going to home school." It is going to be so hard to let go.

Maddy was not content to sit in the stroller at the school so Doug spent most of the time keeping her occupied while Abi and I were in her classroom getting her stuff organized. 

Her favorite place was the gym because music was playing! We took both girls there before leaving as well as showing Abi the cafeteria, library, etc...

Abi already made a few friends last night which is great. She is so excited to start school. 

The long drive home

I had to add this picture because my dad didn't believe that I could fit everything into the car for the drive home. We had done pretty much all of Abi's school shopping while in Utah and we always end up going home with more than we came with. It was a tight squeeze but I did it!

I had the car packed and ready before we went to the cottage so it would be ready to go at midnight. But.... our plans did not quite work out the way we wanted to.

Maddy would NOT go to sleep. We spent a couple hours taking turns trying to get her to calm down and sleep to no avail. We found ourselves getting more and more frustrated as we watched it get later and later knowing that every minute that passed meant a minute of less sleep.

Finally at around 8:45 we made a quick decision to leave right then. We figured we might as well get going. We had heard they were moving some bridge in Parleys canyon and there would be major delays so we wanted to see if we could get up the canyon before they started. 

So, what time did we leave?

Right around 9pm. That's right. We drove all night.

We did make it up the canyon before the bridge. Barely. It worked out great. It was a little hard to drive all through the night... especially for Maddy because she is a tummy sleeper and she kept trying to roll over in her car seat.

We stopped at the Little America again (very early in the morning) to try to get a little sleep but Maddy woke up so I ended up holding her for a few minutes to give her a break while Doug got about 15 minutes of sleep. 

Then we were on the road again. 

Maddy was more cheerful when the sun came up.

We stopped at the AmericInn parking lot in Sidney, NE to get the girls dressed and go to the McDonalds for breakfast to give everyone a break from the car. 

We gave the girls their Utah prizes since we hadn't done that before. Maddy got another little book.

Abi got a little sticker book.

After breakfast I got a huge Diet Coke ( I was in desperate need of some caffeine if I was going to make it to the hotel) I had been able to sleep for a few minutes here and there but I have a really hard time sleeping in a car when someone else is driving so I hadn't got more than 30 minutes sleep that night.

Doug was exhausted so at this point I took over driving for the rest of the day.

After a couple hours I had Doug wake up for a minute to give the girls their Wyoming prizes (late, again)

Maddy got another board book.

Abi got a hidden pictures book.

We arrived at our destination around 11:30- the AmericInn in Kearney, Nebraska. We hoped they would let us check in early and they did! We got all of our stuff settled and then went out to Taco Bell for some lunch. 

After lunch we rested in the room for a while and then went down to the pool. 

We had it all to ourselves which was so nice.

Abi tried out the hot tub for the first time and actually liked it.

Maddy had a lot of fun too... thankfully we had remembered to bring her pool seat thing so she always enjoys that.

After swimming the girls got baths and we watched cartoons. Abi hadn't eaten all of her lunch and we had saved a couple cheese roll ups in the fridge in our room. She decided to eat them that afternoon and I thought it was so funny when I saw how she was eating them hands free. I think we were all exhausted!

We had bedtime very early and slept until around 6am the next morning. It was so nice.

We enjoyed the hotel's breakfast and then got back on the road, hoping to get home before too late.

The girls got their Nebraska prizes... maddy got another book of course.

Abi got some stickers.

Maddy was really anxious to get home.

As we drove through Nebraska we went through a crazy storm. We even watched a funnel cloud coming down out of the clouds with lightning shooting out of it like crazy. We were sure we were about to watch a huge tornado but then after a few minutes it went back up into the clouds without ever having touched down.

Soon the weather improved and we got into Iowa.

Abi got another hidden pictures book....

and Maddy got a new bottle for her baby dolls. She really enjoyed trying it out.

A few hours later we finally made it into Illinois! Abi got another mini sticker book.

I think Maddy got another book but I don't remember. 

By the time we got to Wisconsin Maddy was really done. This was her expression for most of our time at this point...

This picture says it all. Her face when we pulled into our driveway!

It was such a great vacation but we were so glad to get home.

Our last day in Utah

The last Saturday that we were in Utah was the Van Wagenen get together. We were getting family pictures taken in the morning. Doug's sister Melinda and her family got there that morning and it was the first time I had seen them in a year. I had never met their new little baby girl Elizabeth (Lizzie). She is so darling. I am not really the person that has to hold other people's babies but I definitely wanted to hold this one!

Isn't she darling!

After pictures most of us changed back into casual clothes. I went downstairs once to check on Abi and thought it was so cute how all the cousins were sitting around watching two of the boys playing Wii Mario.

It is just so much fun to hang out with family. I love this picture of Wendy and Maddy....

In the afternoon Doug put Maddy down for a nap in the cottage and we all gathered around to play family bingo. Abi was in the silliest mood and kept making faces for every picture.

Then we went back outside to do a pinata.

It's always so funny to watch the kids scramble to get candy.

Maddy soon woke up and joined us in the house to talk. She was getting bored so I stuck her at this desk with crayons and pictures. She colored for a long time. She really loves coloring.

Soon after this I went out to the cottage and packed up all of our stuff (except my cell phone which I seem to have lost.)

My parents dropped by for a few minutes to return Abi's Leapster game. It was so fun to see them for a minute but sad to say goodbye. 

We said all our goodbyes to everyone and then retired to the cottage to try to go to sleep early so we could leave at midnight.

Abi

Abi handed me Madeline's lamb pillow pet and told me it smelled bad. I checked it and said, "Nope. It smells fine." I gave it back to her and she smelled it again. She wrinkled her nose and said, "It smells like alien goop and tin cans."

A night at the backyard movies

Friday night we had a really fun family get together. Doug's parents got a big screen and stuck it up on the front of the cottage. (Now you can see what I'm talking about when I say we stay in the sleeping cottage out back!) We set up the back yard for an outside movie!

They had the most adorable ice cream cups and a few yummy flavors to choose from. Abi was so thrilled to be getting ice cream again.

This was something she had never even heard of doing. We've never even gone to a drive in theater with her so she was just giddy sitting on the blankets and pillows with her ice cream waiting to watch a movie under the stars!

Doug's older brother Steven and his wife Samantha came with their 5 boys. Mark and Callie and Wendy were there too. It was so much fun.

We watched one of our favorites- Tangled!

I knew Maddy wouldn't be able to stay up so late so she was already in bed. Abi almost lasted the whole movie but did end up falling asleep during it as well. 

It was such a fun night.