More Family Time

We left Orr and drove to my brother Mark & his family’s home in Ogilvie, MN.  We spent a week here.  The kids all had a blast, even Jake.  It was so good to see our kids get to know and have fun with cousins they rarely get to see.  We experienced fall-like temps (TX fall), violent storms (Steve & I were at the grocery store in St. Michael when the storm hit which picked up & moved the cart corrals all over the parking lot, narrowly escaping our truck…yikes!!), and even super warm & muggy days.  Steve worked a lot, and I’m not sure what I did, besides dishes, laundry, and cooking.  Mostly intangible things, but we sure were busy!  What a treat to meet my newest nephew, just three weeks younger than Jake!  He is such a cutie & has such a sweet personality!  We got a chance to keep Julia and Clay for them while they took Cole for his hernia surgery.  And I got to deliver that special project I’ve been working on since we moved out of the house.  :)  And by the way, Grandma Zavocki, take a look at what those Christmas presents you got for the girls last year netted.  Feel free to place your orders now.  :)

Besides Cole’s surgery which went well, the other major happening of the week is that Jake started crawling!  Yikes!  He is just 6 months old, and I will confess that I was actually secretly hoping he would be a late crawler.  Not so much though.  He is our earliest crawler by a good month and a half, I think, and he is the first of our kids to learn to crawl before learning to sit unassisted.  He already survived his obligatory falling off the bed once.  Ouch!!  Always makes me feel awful, but he survived completely unscathed, and I now know that he is really quite fast & cannot be trusted or left alone.  That made the last couple days at Mark & Wendi’s more interesting as he can quickly get to all the things that are unsafe for a 6 month-old to play with & put in his mouth.  For the first time ever, Steve has actually admitted that mobility in a baby is a doubled-edged sword.  Man, he is growing up sooo fast!

These are the knit hats that our kids made for them

Cole holding the quilt that Linda and the girls made for him

We ended our time here in MN with an overnight stay at my sister Donna’s place with her family.  More fabulous cousin time, followed by a chance to be a witness to & partaker of my brother-in-law Todd’s weekly fire-up-the-grill and grill everything that’s not pinned down routine.  :)  Oh my goodness…he made the most fabulous grilled ribeye and grilled stuffed jalapenos!!  And Donna made some super yummy curry soup, too!  I know what I’m requesting next time we visit! 

It was such a sweet ending to such a fabulous visit here in MN.  I really treasured the time I had visiting with my siblings and their families.  Yes, I know that those of you who are keeping tabs, or at least attempting to keep tabs on our whereabouts were probably frustrated by the lack of updates, but our days have been full, full, full, and nights were short.  I wouldn’t trade the time we had here for anything, but I am hoping for a slower pace from this point forward.

Bummed that we somehow missed getting a family shot of my sister Hope and her family.