Iowa!

In November Avery was spotlighted in her Kindergarten class and they asked her where her favorite place to go is. She said it was her cousins house in Iowa! My sister lives in the Des Moines area and it’s right on the way to/from Utah so we stopped there for a few days on our way home.

We arrived late Thursday night and in no time we were talking about Mitt Romney and the Iowa caucus that was less than a week away! My sister Britney was very involved in his campaign in Iowa and has definitely been our go-to girl for information on Republican Primaries! On Friday morning they invited us to go to their local grocery store where Mitt Romney was speaking. It was unfortunately pretty early in the morning after having been in the car all day the previous day so we stayed home to sleep in while they took their kids and Avery for a quick trip. Here’s the photo she snapped!

It was fun to get all the updates from them (and fun that he actually won Iowa the following Tuesday!).

Friday afternoon the kids played like crazy while we took turns going to see the new Mission Impossible movie. It was excellent! We really enjoyed it. And it sure was nice to have a little time away from the kids.

Saturday they took us to an outdoor art exhibit in Des Moines. We caught some cute pictures of the kids.

We also went over to walk across a cool bridge.

And then we had to spend some time at the park with all these crazy kids! The park we went to had an awesome big slide. Even the Dads had fun going down it.

Fun times, as always! I always am so glad, every time we get our kids together, that our kids get along so well! They are 7, 5, 4, 3, 1, and 5 months but they are great together! We had a nice lunch/dinner at Smashburger and went home to celebrate New Years Eve. We started with a Dollar Store White Elephant exchange which was pretty funny! Then we counted down to 8pm (haha!) and banged pots and pans and shouted Happy New Year with the kids. Then we put them upstairs to watch some Disney movies and they all fell asleep eventually. The grown ups watched the Rise of the Planet of the Apes and watched the ball drop.

Sunday morning we went to their church for Sacrament Meeting and the big girls wore their matching dresses my parents got them for Christmas.

We had such a great time and are so glad these guys are only 6 hours away! Thanks for the great visit guys!

It sure was nice to get back home that night though. (After 14 days, sleeping in 7 different beds, and driving who knows how many hours!)