After 2 long years of school for Mike he will finally get a real vacation. Sure he had time off now and then, but his school never really allowed for time off. The spring break we got last year was intended for our house-hunting. So now we are officially going on a vacation, and we’re leaving this Friday.

It has become a tradition to have a little family reunion in Durango, Colorado every 3 years or so. The first reunion was back in 2005, but Mike and I were not able to attend. Mike was in Iraq, and I didn’t think that I could handle traveling with a 5-month-old and 20-month-old all by myself. Finally, we’ll get the opportunity this time around. Supposedly, there will be 48 people in attendance. We have a lot of fun stuff planned. I’ll definitely post lots of pictures (as I’m sure Jenni and Sara will, too) once we return. We can’t wait! The girls are quite ecstatic about it as well.

Here’s the latest about Mimi’s eye. It is looking a little better each day even though the purple is so dark and pronounced. Mimi is definitely not letting it change her attitude. She’s still the feisty and feral little girl that we all so love.

For those interested in the various stages of Mimi’s wounded eye here is today’s version.

It looks better today, right? I suppose we’re going to have a whole week or more of watching the interesting stages of Mimi’s nasty black eye. I just hope it will be mostly healed before our trip to CO. I’d hate for Mimi to associate the trip with her shiner.

Moving to a new city can be overwhelming. Thankfully, being a member of our church usually brings the benefit of having a built-in social network. We have already been invited to several other members’ homes since relocating here. Tonight was an invitation for dessert at the Smiths’ home. The kids played wonderfully together while the adults were able to chat and get acquainted. After dessert it seemed like the right time to let the kids play outside on the elaborate swing set in their backyard. There were several close calls with the kids walking by the moving swings. Mike had the very important discussion with both girls about keeping the distance between themselves and the swings. Despite this long warning Mimi still got knocked clean to her back and was left with a huge, swollen eye. It looks much worse than it really is–just a lot of packs of frozen peas on the forehead all night. Hopefully, this will be a lesson to her to always watch herself around swings from now on. Somehow with Mimi I don’t think she lets these traumatic events stop her gruffness.

How about close up.

Friday arrived with much anticipation from the girls because they knew that we would be camping out that night. Mike got home early enough to get us all packed up and ready to go around 4:30 p.m. However, we were the first to arrive at camp other than the activities coordinator. The other families didn’t arrive until around 6:30 p.m. Out of the 4 total families to participate our family was the only one to actually cook our own food on the camp stove. The menu consisted of taco salad in a bag which the girls loved to help mix up. Not a single morsel was left over, and we were all well-fed. After cleaning up dinner everyone enjoyed s’mores.

One family was clever enough to bring along sparklers for the kids. Here is Mike trying to write his name.

Franklin’s brother is all tucked in and ready for bed courtesy of Mimi.

Around 5 a.m. it did start to rain. The showers were not heavy and there was no lightening, so we thought we’d be o.k. for the night. However, the next morning we discovered that the girls did get quite wet during their slumber. They didn’t wake up though or seem to be bothered by it.

When we were taking the rain fly off the tent we discovered these fellows hanging out on our tent.

Mike is so proud of his efforts.