Minneapolis

On Thursday afternoon we left Ironwood for Minneapolis! I couldn't wait to finally meet those twins and to see all the other kids again. 4 hours of driving isn't bad at all compared to how much we've been driving this trip. Plus, we were listening to Angels and Demons on CD, so that made it go by pretty fast. AnnaMarie kept the kids up so we could see them for a little bit and eat dinner with them before they went to bed. We had shabu shabu, which was so good! I don't think I've had shabu shabu since I lived in Japan. It was so much fun to see the girls and those two boys are so cute! Jane was especially funny. She talks so much now, but can't say half of her consonants. She eagerly volunteered to say the blessing on dinner, and she thanked Heavenly Father than Spencer and I could be there with them then paused for a good 10 seconds to stare at Spencer before finishing. Katie is getting so big. I can't believe she's turning 5 this year. She loves to have treasure hunts, so we joined her in a few each morning. After dinner AnnaMarie put the kids in bed and the four of us played some games together.

On Friday morning Caroline came over with Ryan, Calvin, and Sophie to do my hair and to take some bridal pictures for me. Our picture time was cut a little bit short in December, so I wanted to take some more. Caroline's the best. It was so fun to get back into my wedding dress again. After pictures, we came back and played with the kids for a while and then went to the grocery store all together. Seriously, I don't know how AnnaMarie or Caroline ever go to the store with all of their kids. The kids were good, but it's just a little crazy having 7 kids there, even with 4 adults! Also, you get way more attention from random people with twins than with just one baby. Almost everyone stopped to look at them. We went over to Michael and Caroline's house then and the kids ran around in the sprinkler outside until dinner time. Dad, Benjamin, Christy, and Carolin got there around 7 to join the party.

On Saturday Tyler, Spencer, Dad, and Carolin whet to a Twins baseball game. Dad wanted to take Carolin before she goes home to Germany, and it sounds like she really enjoyed it. Spencer loves baseball, so I think he had fun, and it was his job to explain all the rules to Carolin. :) I stayed with AnnaMarie, Christy, and Katie, Jane, Jack, and Aiden. We went swimming at their new gym. Their kiddy pool is awesome! Christy and Katie played together and Jane and I played together pretty much the whole time. Jane was kinda timid about the kiddy slides and the waterfall things they had at first, but warmed up to them after a while. It was really fun. That evening we hung out at Michael and Caroline's again and Spencer kicked my trash at air hockey. I couldn't even finish the game (3 8 minute periods. We played 2 and I was done.). I started out winning by like 4 points, and then all of a sudden he scores like 6 in a  row on me!

Sunday morning we went to church at AnnaMarie's ward and helped hold the babies. At one point AnnaMarie was out changing Aiden and I was holding Jack. Jack started freaking out so I brought him and and he just cried and cried until AnnaMarie got done changing Aiden. Aiden let me hold him without all that crying. :-) After Sacrament meeting Benjamin, Spencer, and I hit the road. After stopping to get gas and change, then stopping once because Benjamin thought he might have left his external hard drive at the gas station (he actually went into his suitcase in the trunk to take it out, but just zipped it back into the suitcase) we were on our way! In Iowa we had to pull over for a while because it was raining so hard we couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of us with out windshield wipers on high. Then it started hailing. We made it to Gothensburg, NE that night and stayed at a Super 8 (much better than the Motel 6 we stopped at on the way out!). Yesterday we left Gothensburg around 6:30, and after what felt like the longest day of driving we've had this trip, got home by 5. Our trip out was so much fun! It was great to see everyone and take some time off of work before classes start up next week. We're excited to have Benjamin out here at BYU, too! He's going to have such a fun time.  Pictures and more posts will come! The ones about Ironwood and Grand Haven will show up below this one though... I'm working on them.