Aichele's Out West: Vacation

I have no idea how many posts I will do on this, so we'll label this one as Part 1 and we'll see how far we get.

We had a wonderful time on vacation! We were wondering if we made the right decision to tackle this long of a vacation after we already visited the ER the first day of our vacation, but I'm happy to say that everything is fine and the rest of the time was safe and fun!

We started our vacation in Iowa. We were able to spend a lot of time with my sister Paula and her family as they were already there when we got there. My other sister and her family came during the weekend and so we had a packed full house of lots of little kids for a few days. Thankfully, the weather was amazing, so the kids got to play outside in water a lot and enjoy being free to run on the farm. Other highlights for me was being able to spend time with high school friends and get to know them as parents and see our children play together. I also got to see a friend that I grew up with, as she made the trip from Des Moines just to get together. We hung out at the pool and had a blast. I even got to take her boy down the water slide...very trusting of him!

We got quality time with Grandpa Shippy, which means time on the tractors and good food from Amma Shippy. The adults and older grandkids enjoyed many nights playing games around the table....sometimes rather late! That's our competitive spirit! It was a joy to see my grandparents and see them with my children. It is such a blessing to spend so much time with them. We also got to attend a family reunion on my mom's side and see some aunts and uncles and catch up. We had many different visitors come by including my aunts and uncles on my dad's side and a great aunt and uncle that came and visited. It was such a joy to spend time with so many different friends and relatives and the time flew by so quickly!