Back From Our Nice Long Vacation

If you don't know already, I have not been adding blog entries for the last few weeks because we all went on a nice long fall vacation. Joella and Sarah actually went to Arkansas for a few days to see my brother Karl and his family over two weeks ago while I tied up some loose ends and home and at work. Then I met up with Joella and Sarah in St. Louis and spent a few days there before we went to the Lake of the Ozarks for a week with some friends. We all then returned to St. Louis for a few more fun days before returning home. If you have not figured it out yet, we did drive to St. Louis separately and I really doubt that we could have fit both of the dogs and all of Sarah's stuff in our big minivan even if my work schedule would have let me take off more time.

Trust me when I say that we now have plenty of pictures and video clips to fill up this blog every single day for the next month. For now, though, I will just give a brief recap through pictures...



Cousin Amelia did a great job holding baby Sarah.





Look at those three little angels...Amelia, Sarah, and Maggie all hanging out together at Uncle Karl and Aunt Loretta's house.



Storytime with mommy and cousin Amelia.




I love my bouncy seat!





Sarah sure loved playing with Aunt Lisa.





She especially liked being held during naptime.





Sarah was so happy to finally meet her Uncle Kurt. She can't wait to celebrate her birthday with him in May!




I love snuggling with Uncle Kurt!



Grandma Diane and I had so much fun playing with Checkers the caterpillar. Grandma even let me take Checkers home with me.




We had a great time at the Lake of the Ozarks with Matt and Mia. Matt obviously couldn't get enough baby time and we had to constantly pry Sarah out of his hands (NOT!). I had a great time getting beat by Matt in tennis and losing lots of golf balls in the Ozark woods. The weather was great for almost the entire week and the only real downer was living with the early 80s condo decor (just look at that great glass wall in the picture).





Sarah has grown so much in the past 3 weeks...she has become much more interactive and she even surprised mom by learning to roll over from her stomach to her back. Thanks so much to Kris and Leann for letting us spend the night in Rolla (your house is looking great!), sorry that I don't have any pictures to post, but Sarah loved rolling around with Miss Megan. It was also pretty strange for Joella and I to drive by our old college town especially with all of the campus changes that have occurred.

After the lake and quick trip to Rolla, we all returned to St. Louis to visit for a few more days and pick up the dogs. Grandma, Aunt Lisa, and Uncle Kurt did a great job taking care of the puppies and they probably ended up getting spoiled with all of the attention. Grandma loves to give them gravy on their dog food and Aunt Lisa and Uncle Kurt gave them plenty of walks.





Here's Lucy panting away after Uncle Kurt gave her a nice walk.




And here is Mollie trying to figure out if Uncle Kurt has a tight enough grip on the leash to prevent her from going after the squirrel down the street.



I hope that you enjoyed the brief picture recap of our vacation. We will try and get some video clips up by the end of the week and I will add a few miscellaneous pictures every couple of days this week.