Back to the Mitten State

Family Stuff: We made the trek to Michigan last week -- it had been an entire year since my last visit -- we were long over-due!! Here are the kids on Tuesday night in the Seattle airport:

We took the red-eye flight - and the kids did great. They both slept maybe 3 hours of the 4 hour flight to Minneapolis... and then we had a 1.5 hour layover before our next flight. It was comical to see Noah try to function on 3 hours of sleep -- Travis and I couldn't help but laugh at him :) Both kids took a nice nap late Wednesday afternoon to make up for the lack of sleep the night before, and bounced back quickly.

I love our fall trips to Michigan... the weather is nice, leaves are starting to turn, plenty of opportunities to get dirty, we can visit pumpkin farms/apple orchards, etc. Here is Noah getting ready for his next ride on the 4-wheeler:Oh yeah -- and he also learned how to start it, too (and practically give his mother a heart attack at the same time!) Crazy story... that thankfully had a happy ending :)

Here is Evelyn on the John Deere:

The kids had a lot of fun driving this thing around. It took them a day to stop running into things and figure out how to steer... but thankfully there is a TON of open land at my parent's house... so they had a lot of room to roam around.

Here is Noah and my parent's Golden Retriever Titus. He is a cow!! Both kids were terrified of the high-energy "puppy" at first. Noah would scream, cry, and run away (which is weird, because both kids love dogs). As you can see, Noah had a new buddy by the end of the visit :)

Travis and I also spent a day in South Bend, Indiana for a Notre Dame football game. His parents came into town to visit my family and then go to the game with us, too.

Running Stuff: I managed to fit in a couple nice runs during the vacation. I enjoyed running down the old country roads where I grew up. Each "block" is a mile long though -- so when I decided to extend my run by one block.... I went from a 4 mile loop to a 6 mile loop!! :) The mornings were cool and misty... corn and bean fields on either side of the road... it was so peaceful and relaxing - a perfect start to the day!

When we returned to Seattle, the kids were so excited to see Cocoa again. They have grown really close to her lately -- and they wanted to give her extra special attention when we got home. They also have been asking me to take their picture with Cocoa practically every day!