Dubuque Monday

Today we had a great time hanging out with the Viertels a bit and Elan LOVED the oatmeal...



We then headed to Billy and Mary's house where they did a fishery and had Lynn and Liz's families there.  So kind to let us eat their free range/local/organic/fisherman caught (Billy) trout :).  SOOOOO good!  I didn't get a photo of them frying the fish - oh well!

Another cool buy at ALDI - man I love that place!  Lynn found this  a few weeks ago.

Loads of fun!

Chicken coop in backyard.

Emma and Mary have chickens in the Potter's backyard.  Of course they couldn't be "ugly" chickens - so fun!  Elan LOVED to let them eat out of his had.

Eggs the kids gathered

Lynn too several pictures before we left - Finn of course didn't want to cooperate but still nice!

The whole weekend flew by so fast!  We wish we had more time to be with everyone more.  The Viertels were amazing hosts and took great care of us!  I already miss their shower - awesome!

Trip back to Bloomington - Monday

So we left the Viertels home this am after a yummy breakfast of smoothie and homemade granola bars - so nice of Cindy!  Elan was constipated so waited around for THAT to be taken care of... went well even though over 7 hours.  We stopped to see Erik's grandparents outside of Moline for a bit, a real treat!  Here are a few pictures!

After that just hitting the road to make time.  We made it in around 8 PM.  That is about it.

We had mail when we got there - so great!  A loving card and $2 for each boy from my grandparents - Finn said "whoo!" and Elan was already asleep but will definitely be excited!  They sent us 2 pictures for our fridge... one of gran looking beautiful and one of grandad looking decapitated :O

Dubuque - Sunday

We woke up and headed to the congregation meeting Erik and I attended when we lived in Dubuque as a married couple.  Aaron and Cindy still attend this congregation as do several other couples we are still close to.  Several of the friends the same but many new ones as we expected.  They had remodeled the Kingdom Hall and it looked really different - much nicer!  Finn had a great time playing with all the kids as is to be expected.  Everyone doted on Elan which he loved of course.  It was so nice for everyone to see him.  We know all of our friends have been praying for us as well as sending tons of cards and gifts so we felt it was good to be able to thank everyone in person and give loads of hugs.  WE even got the Sue A. My Book of Bible Stories sticker sheets so we are set for the summer!

That evening we then headed to our dear friends house Beth and Nate who I grew up with.  They had my favorite - Happy Joe's Taco Pizza!  They had just bought their new home last year and as typical Beth style the house is totally finished and gorgeous already this time.  The kids are just beautiful - I can't get over how they have grown in only a year.

of course a Beatles shirt...

So made my day the boys got along!

Izzy looks just like Beth around the time we met.

They look the same as they did 15 years ago when they got married!  So cute!