More summer pics...

So July was a lot busier month for us. We left on the 2nd to travel to MN to spend a few days with Greg's brother and his family. Our niece, Amy, was the only cousin KJ had not met last summer so they were excited to be meeting for the first time (at least Amy was...KJ is a bit young to care too much). We left very early in the a.m. and arrived at their house around 11:30 p.m. local time. It was a VERY long day, but with our new van the trip wasn't bad at all! I got to drive it for the first time at length and I adjusted quickly :-) It was nice having cruise control that works again! lol! While in MN Greg and his brother got a chance to go golfing, we went to a fun park for the kids to play, went to Valley Fair, and attended a Twins game, as well as just spent time visiting and catching up. It was a nice few days with them and we are thankful we had the opportunity to see them, even if it was too short. It seems there is never enough time for KR and her cousin, Heidi, to spend together...we keep thinking about how we can remedy that some summer.

The kids had a blast having slip-n-slide races in the front yard.
KJ, on the other hand did NOT think it was fun at all so she sat on the step and pouted.
Here she is with her Uncle Tim at Valley Fair. I should have cropped out the guy in the background out...oh well. I really didn't get many other good pictures that day. Sorry.

KR and Heidi enjoying the twins game...or at least the food!

Amy, Heidi, Aunt Leslie and the girls on our last morning there.

After we left MN we drove to my mom's house in SD. The plan was to visit with her and my sister (and her family) f0r a few days while Greg put a new roof on my mom's house. It had suffered hail damage from the year before and had been leaking so it desperately needed done before there was even more damage to repair. I neglected to get any photos of Greg fixing the roof or the finished product, but suffice it to say he did a good job and the roof looked great when he was done. And even better, my mom reported no more leaks the next time it rained hard. Yay!

Here is my mom and my sis's little guy, Reece, snoozing away together. Too cute.

I guess he had a hard time staying awake because here he fell asleep in the middle of his meal..and KJ thought she had to get in the picture too! Yes, it was "hair day" that day.

Here he is showing off his two new teeth...so cute:-) I got to spend a lot of time with him so I really missed him the first few days after our visit was over.

My sister and her husband have spent more than a year redoing their house after it suffered from tornado strength winds in the spring of 2007. They just moved back in a few days before we came, even though it's not totally complete yet. Here is one of the views. It's much nicer than it used to be and I know my sis is enjoying it immensely.

I just had to share these pics of her little guy's room. I think she did a fantastic job on the decorating...it's SO cute.

KR and her my Sis's daughter, Keegan.

Once our time in SD was finished we all packed up and headed to WY to spend a few days with my brothers. They both live within an hour drive of each other so that's nice.

My Mom and her two littlest grandsons. They were born just over a month apart.

KR is the oldest of this trio, with my sister's daughter(middle) being the youngest. She had just turned 6 in May while KR will be 8 next month and Jessica (my younger brother's daughter) just turned 7 earlier in August. As you can see Keegan is very tall for her age...and Jessica is probably petite! The three girls played very well together this year. It's nice they are getting more mature and are able to do so well together now. There are a lot less hurt feelings that way.

On the weekend we were in Hulett there was an airshow at the dinky airport. Here are the kids and my grandma waiting for the action to begin. It was a pretty warm day so finding shade was important.There was a Jelly Belly plane at the show, which was kind of funny.

They handed out jelly beans to the kids and here is my nephew, Rilee, sharing with KJ. He would take a bite of half of it and then give her the other half. She seemed to be okay with that! LOL!

Here are Greg and KJ leaving the airshow. It was surprisingly green there for July so I had to take a picture of the scenery.

Well, I was hoping to get through all my pictures and news this post, but so far I am over two hours into this process and I just don't have time to do more. I hope to finish it up soon! In the meantime, thanks for checking and have a great day!