Vacation in reverse...

So, as I mentioned we made three stops on vacation. We went to some cabins from 6/24 - 6/29, we were in St Louis on 6/29 & 6/30, and then we spent 6/30 - 7/4 in New London/Hannibal with Russ' parents. I'm waiting on some pictures from 6/24 - 6/29 as we didn't take any so I'll blog backwards.

After spending two days in St Louis (blog to follow) we drove to New London to spend some days on Russ' parents farm. We arrrived in the late evening and unpacked... they had no idea that we were about to take over their entire house!! And we had already unloaded a bunch of stuff on 6/29.

That evening Ryan got his birthday presents from Grandpa Steve & Grandma Linda. He got one of those big balls with the handle that you can sit on and jump - PERFECT for Ryan. He also got a hot wheels track that had cars that change color with hot and cold water. Both boys had a lot of fun playing with this.

We actually didn't have the camera out a whole bunch like we ususally do either but we had a ton of fun that we didn't capture. We rode the four wheeler, played in the creek, played Monopoly Deal (a card game that we got addicted to and had to go buy), shot fireworks, and the boys played on their swing set quite a bit as well.

This was Ryan's ice cream cake that we got on 7/1 and ate on all weekend - at least it tasted better than it looked!! I have no idea why the picture keeps trying to load sideways but it doesn't look any better the right way. I had the girl write Ryan's name and I think to hide the face that she ran off the cake on the word "birthday" she added a bunch more icing on all the squiggled icing on the sides but she didn't match the colors on all of them so it just looked DUMB!

We have spent the Fourth of July in Hannibal the last three years now and ran the Hannibal Cannibal 5k each year. Russ and I go in early to run and then she brings the boys in after we are done for the kid's run. Last year it rained the entire morning so we ran but skipped the kid's fun run. Two years ago Ryan was scared to run so only Reid did. This year Ryan talked about running and being super fast the entire day before the race... but when it came to race time and all the people - he just couldn't muster the courage. It was his actual birthday so he just kept saying "No races on my birthday." Reid did the race and did pretty good. They sent the kids off in groups of 10 - 15 so there aren't too many kids going at once and he did pretty good within his small group.

Reid is #74 (I'm not positive why he is looking to the side but I'd bet money that he's trying to talk to the other kid)

Pure determination:

Our champion:

The 5k run is actually part of Mark Twain Days that goes on every Fourth of July weekend in Hannibal. There is a huge mud volleyball tournament with over 100 teams. I could sit and watch the action all day - it is so fun to watch. I took a couple of pictures to show what it looks like:

After we ran the races, Grandma Linda and I took the boys over to watch the parade. It was getting pretty hot and the street was PACKED but we found an empty curb (in the sun), got some drinks and watched the parade for an hour. After an hour we hadn't even seen a float - we had seen the emergency vehicles and the convertibles with all the beauty pageant winners and the politicians but I think there was a lot of parade left to go. We decided the boys had enough candy and heat and headed home. Here are some pics of Ross hanging out in his stroller that morning:Later that afternoon Ryan got to shoot his first gun ever. Steve and Linda have a little .22 rifle that Reid learned how to shoot on and it was "kind of" gifted to Ryan this trip. He kept calling it "my gun" and was excited to own it... but once he shot twice he was done. I don't think he like the 20 minute lesson on what he was doing for the two second shot... he just doesn't have the patience. Russ does a great job with the boys teaching them the parts of the gun, how to sight in, and how to be safe around firearms. Here are some pics of Russ and Ryan prepping his first shot and a video of his first shot ever. (If you have your sound on you can hear Linda's wind chimes. The country is so peaceful and quiet, with the exception of us)

Ryan went inside and had some good time playing around with Ross for a while in the kids' leather recliner. Some of these pictures may appear violent in nature but they both really were having a good time:

I think Ross won... at least he ended up with the chair:

We had a great time just slowing down and enjoying relaxing for a while. We got our laundry done before heading home, the boys slept in a couple of days and got caught up on sleep, Ross got to get down on the floor and crawl around and play... it was just a great time.

Here are some pics of Ross crawling around and playing with Grandpa Steve: