2026 Family Vacation

The crew is back from our summer vacation! This year we explored the Northeast beaches of Connecticut and Rhode Island. I'm getting very close to my goal of visiting all 50 states, and with these two checked off the list, I only have four left!

My last post was about the Connecticut portion of our trip. After that, we spent the rest of our vacation exploring Rhode Island. My favorite part of the state was probably kayaking at Lincoln Woods State Park and enjoying the swim beach. It was so hot that spending time on the water was the perfect way to cool off. We also spent a day in Providence, where we visited the zoo and the botanical gardens. By the end of the gardens, the kids were so hot that we headed to a trampoline park instead of doing more outside stuff. No regrets!

I think one of the most memorable parts of the trip was something that definitely wasn't planned. Our flight out of LaGuardia was scheduled for 9:00 p.m. on Friday, which would have gotten us home in plenty of time to celebrate the Fourth of July with our friends the next day.

Stormy weather kept delaying our departure, but around 11:30 p.m. our plane finally arrived. Yay! By midnight, everyone was boarded, our seat belts were buckled, and we were ready to go. Then people around us started getting upset. We weren't sure what was happening until we found out that, while we were sitting on the plane, some passengers had received alerts saying our flight had been canceled. Boo!

So we all got off the plane and headed back into the airport to figure out how we were going to get home. The first option the airline offered was a flight on Sunday, which would have meant missing the Fourth of July completely. We asked the gate agent if there were any connecting flights that could get us home sooner. She said everything was booked and then asked if we would be willing to fly out of another airport.

At that point, we were seriously considering renting a van and driving the 19 hours back to Kansas, so absolutely we could go to another airport! 😂

Fortunately, there was a flight out of Long Island about 50 minutes away that could get all seven of us on a 6:00 a.m. flight to Baltimore, with a connection to Kansas City. We jumped on it.

We spent our first night sleeping in an airport, but we still made it home by late morning. We missed the Potwin festivities, but after a three-hour nap we had enough energy to buy some fireworks and put on our own little Fourth of July celebration.

All's well that ends well! Even with a few unexpected travel adventures, we're calling this family vacation a success. Two more states visited, plenty of memories made, and now I'm just four states away from reaching my goal of visiting all 50!

Did I drag the whole family to the zoo to see a Red Panda? 

Yes, yes I did!

The Air Bnb we stayed at in Rhode Island had these paddle boards. The boys only used them once but they got the hang of it!

Vacay Part 1 Photo Dump!

I am checking two more states off my list on my quest to visit all 50! This week we're visiting Connecticut and Rhode Island.

We've been staying in East Haven, Connecticut, enjoying a house with its own private beach. It's a seashell beach, which is a first for me! So far, we've done a little sightseeing, but we've mostly been exploring the area, soaking it all in, and eating lots of seafood!

I'll share more photos from Rhode Island later this week!

Daryl is a senior this year so we checked out Yale, just in case he wants to apply. LOL 

Cool exhibits at the Peabody Museum at Yale

They caught so many crabs, I was feeling bad for the little guys. 

At the Connecticut Science Museum

Got to tour the Mark Twain house, Sam Clemens family home in Hartford Ct. It was so cool on the inside but you can't take pictures inside.  

Happy Birthday Mom!

While she won't officially be the big 7-0 until the 29th, we threw Mom a birthday party today in Dodge City! I am writing about it tonight because our crew will be heading out tomorrow, and this occasion deserves its own post!

Sofia planned the party, and it had a floral theme for Grandma Rosie! We had family and friends there, including many people I haven't seen in years. It was a great reason to celebrate, and the birthday girl had a grand time. We had family pictures taken, and I can't wait to see them. In the meantime, you'll notice that I mostly just took pictures of Christopher! I told my oldest nephew, Canyon, that he needed a picture holding Christopher because they are the bookends.

I hope someone got a picture of the cakes. They were really pretty. Last night, our cozy family of seven stayed at an Airbnb in the country between Dodge City and Minneola. It was a fun night of playing wiffle ball outside and checkers inside. P.S. – I beat Daryl at checkers! I hope we can keep the good family times rolling into next week!

We are all so in love with this guy!

I got him to giggle!

Mom with the twins! Happy Birthday mom!

This party was interrupting his sleep! Ugh

Bored!

Alex kept stealing him, just like at Thanksgiving!

Some people were decorating while Alex, Jeff and I were playing with the baby. 😁😁

Photo Dump!

 The house is bustling and work is active for both Jeff and I. So no major story or update today, but photos from random this and that. Looking forward to seeing family this weekend and will have an update on how the SW Kansas peeps are doing! 

Why do I pick up bananas every week? 

So we can have banana muffins on the weekend!

Enjoying great company at the Potwin porch concert. 

One of my favorite summer events followed closely by Potwin 4th of July!

Everyone contributes to the wall art!

I love how this one turned out. We now have 4 puzzles decorating the dining room.

A quick rant about these books. I love them, they are addicting. However I like to read 3 books a month. This one I finished on Sunday is 700 pages long. I'll be lucky to complete two books this month. Still recommend this series. LOL 

June Check-In ✔️

 When I was thinking about updates I needed to make, I realized I missed a big one from the beginning of the month: Daryl had his wisdom teeth pulled! Just dumb teeth left. LOL (Mom Joke!)

Alex and I were both ready for one of those funny recovery videos, but Daryl didn't cooperate. However, he wouldn't stop Snapchatting while he was in recovery, and I told him that was a bad idea. After a nap at home, he asked, “Why didn't you stop me?!”

He won't be going viral for his routine procedure, but I did get some big goofy grins out of it, so that's something!

His words of wisdom, the soft-food diet is worse than the pain of having the teeth pulled.

Quick update on summer activities:

• Daryl is doing summer baseball at Dornwood.
• Lucas is doing a Parks and Rec camp for older kids. He says they're using them as free labor, and Jeff and I are okay with that!
• Aaron is doing theatre camp.
• Alex is doing tennis drills at Kossover.
• Joseph is doing zoo camp.

We're halfway through June, and so far, so good!

Settled in at home

Nurse Lola is on duty!

The snap he shouldn't have sent, but I'm going to post anyway. LOL 

And a flashback to June 2017 when our favorite place to bike was Mount Hope Cemetary!

May Goal Post

Today I finished a book and logged a run, so I might as well do my monthly goals post.

This month was weird. I was highly motivated during the first half, and then I fell into a book and decided to stay up late reading and sleep in! I also stopped using my sticker tracker, even though I only had two daily habits to track.

Well, there's no reason to wait until next year to do better. I'm going to keep the same two daily habits and track them for the entire month of June! Cheers to the progress I made this month and to even more progress in June!

Read 30 Books: 12/30

I read three books this month, and they were all great! I haven't had a month like that in a while. I was so engrossed in my reading at the end of the month that I put off running. Good thing I'm still on track with both books and miles. Take that, limited attention span!

The first book I read was The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty, a very good beach-read novel. I've read another book by this author, and she writes drama in spades. Love it! It was a great way to start the month, and I finished it in a week. It won't make the bookshelf, but I still enjoyed it.

The second book I finished was The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore. This was a book that had been on my to-read list for so long that I can't even remember how I heard about it. But I thank my past self for adding it because it was right up my alley. It's a fictional story based on real history. Mirielle contracts leprosy in the United States during the 1920s, and the doctors send her to the country's only leprosy colony. That's where the story takes place. That colony was a real thing! I definitely recommend this one, and it's going on the bookshelf.

My last book in May, A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, completely consumed my evenings. With only ten days left in the month, I wasn't sure I could get through 600 pages, but I finished the last 20 pages as soon as I woke up this morning! I could have finished it last night, but I was sleepy, and I knew I would have had to reread the ending if I didn't wait until morning.

This was the second book in the series, and I wanted to start the third one the minute I finished it. Unfortunately, I didn't have it, so I ordered a copy and started another book from the pile. Ugh. I know I've been wishy-washy about fantasy, but these books have me hooked. I definitely recommend them, and I'll be keeping the series, which is why I've been buying the hardcovers!

Run 620 Miles: 280/620

I ran 54 miles in May. I had wanted to run 65 and probably would have done it, but during the last week of the month I slept in and stayed up late reading! Oh well, back at it tomorrow.

Since I don't have another race until November, I'm going to make my June goal 60 miles.

Grow My Savings by 60%

I did a good job saving in May, and what I thought was going to be a car repair ended up being only a new battery. Yay for Jeff figuring that out before we took it to the shop!

UFOs (Unfinished Objects) to Be Completed, in No Particular Order

I'm keeping this list here, but I'm not entirely sure why. LOL. I'm doing my best just to get the three goals above this list done. Maybe I'll get my life together in June and work on the backlog. Probably not, but maybe!

• Alpaca Quilt
• T-Shirt Quilt
• 2 photo books for Daryl and Alex
• 1 knit project from stash
• 1 stitched project from stash

Yesterday, Alex and I went to Salina so he could play some tennis matches. Getting some car time with him was fun! Now I need to kidnap Daryl for some reason to do the same. 

My Mexican Sunflowers are thriving!

Lola wondering if I can stop reading now to pet her....