More Indiana

We've been home from the states for one day now. Last night was rough. Kids did NOT want to go to sleep. I was up with them until 4am watching cartoons. I finally made Derek take over with Blake since he would not listen when I told him it was time to try to go to sleep. We then all slept until 2pm! Well, except for Derek who went to work at 8am. Right now it is 1am and Blake just woke up. I guess he thought it was nap time. Figured I'd try updating the blog since he's up......and I feel like I am so far behind right now.

After our friends left, the kids we all spent the next couple of days catching up on sleep.

Then we spent the next 3 days in Indianapolis. Day 1 we went to Dave & Busters. We all have fun there. Conner, Nora, Ashley and Craig joined us. It was a lot of fun! Day 2 the weather wasn't cooperating so we just shopped, went to Build a Bear, and saw the movie How to Train Your Dragon 2. I'm thinking that might have been Blake's first movie in a theater. He did really well! Later that night we went to cousin Trenton's birthday party. The girls had fun playing laser tag and games in the video game truck!

 

The next day was spent at the zoo with cousin Hannah, Aunt Kim, cousins Conner and Nora, Ashley, and Aunt Sandy. Another fun day!

 

I guess the kids thought we were in Japan??

 

Dolphin Show

 

We made it to the splash pad at the zoo.

Then met back up with everyone and rode the rollercoaster and train.

 

 

 

Friends Visit and Fourth of July

We had some friends drive all the way from Texas to visit us here in Indiana! We told them they were crazy to make the 40+ hour round trip drive just to see us....in boring Lafayette. The kids were excited to see one another (for theirs it was a surprise). Actually their visit was really fun and made me feel really good to know that we DO have some pretty amazing friends. We have met so many people through all of our moves but there have only been a handful that we grew close enough with to call good friends. Maybe we are picky, maybe we are too shy, maybe we don't feel like we are good enough........but with them doing something like this.....just for US, I would definitely feel safe to say that they are some of our closest friends.

Seeing each other for the first time in a year. Blake is just a little outnumbered.

Their girls are big in to dance, our girls like to dance......so they put on the longest dance show ever

It lasted over the course of 2 nights. This particular night it was a dance off between Allie & Lorelei. Avery and Mia were the judges.

Spectators

Since Allie was being kinda shy on the floor by herself we decided to put on Wii dance party.

On their first full day here we went to Columbian Park (playground, zoo, water park). We made a full day out of it. We also introduced them to Arni's and they had their first square cut pizza.

One other thing......our friends are night owls. Our kids are usually in bed by 7:30. We let them stay up late since their friends were here and they were nowhere near ready for bed by then......and as you can see our kids don't do well with little sleep.

For the Fourth of July we did our annual Brooks' Family Gathering....we spent the day at my Aunt Sandy & Uncle Mark's house along with the rest of the family. We cooked out for lunch, went floating on the river, played games, and had a wonderful dinner followed by S'mores and sparklers.

The kids loved riding around on the Gator.

Float Trip

After the float trip the kids played in the little pool

Bounce house fun.

Kid races.

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Breakfast before they made the long trip home

Goodbye pictures