1. Family Time
It was amazing how wonderful it was just to hang out with our families. Thanks to skype and facetime I can't describe the feeling we had when we were back at my parent's house. It felt like we were just home from Minneapolis for the weekend, not that we haven't seen them in a year and just got off 24 hours of travel. My parent's house felt just like home with our kitty to snuggle and everything! We spent a lot of time just hanging out. My aunt and cousin flew up from Dallas to spend some time with us as well and it was so fun shopping and drinking and eating! We even got to see a "Cluster-Fokken" in action! We got to spend time with my nephew Robbie who I haven't seen since he was 3 months old, and we got to meet our new nephew who was born last July and have never seen! During our time in Dubuque we took our niece for a manicure and lunch and then took her and her brother Caleb for pizza with great grandma and grandpa!
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| Showing Robbie the cows at Uncle Will's Farm |
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| Miss Maya getting her pretties done |
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| Babies playing! |
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| Taking Maya and Caleb to Grandma and Grandpa's, singing BINGO! |
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| Made from the same mold? |
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| Teaching Robbie how to love and say "Kitty" |
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| Working on our literacy at La Fuente |
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| The Stowell Clan |
2. Shopping
We had a firm list of things that we wanted to buy while we were home in the US. Partly because of prices and partly because of selection. I got some new dresses, Will got some new shoes and we stocked up on vitamins, beauty products and cold medicine (Legal Disclaimer--for personal use, not cooking meth). I had the problem of wanting to buy too much because I thought everything was "an amazing deal". My highlight was a pair of lavender pants from the Gap and Will's was a football, both of those purchases are thanks to a certain Kaitie Moore :)
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| Yes my kiwi friends, this is a normal shoe store, there is more to right that I couldn't fit in the shot |
3. Eating
We ate A LOT while back home. I had another firm list of places/meals we wanted to eat and needed to make sure we hit those spots. The big ones were Panera, La Fuente, Olive Garden and my mom's chicken noodle soup with the frozen egg noodles. Everything was just as I remembered. I had a little trouble with the self control and thus half way through the trip I went to put on my skinny jeans and for some unknown reason, they didn't fit! Of course I accused my mother of shrinking them, even though I did the laundry :). We also stocked up on foods to bring home such as animal crackers, Girl Scout Cookies, Near East Rice Pilaf and Nilla Wafers. Thanks to all my endeavors I had gut rot most of the trip. I am now doing a 2 week sugar detox where I am not allowing myself any sweets. This was hard yesterday because with a sore throat, what do you want to eat?? Chocolate pudding. But I stayed strong and am 2 days sugar free, 12 more to go!
**Appended** I would like some serious praise because after writing this I found 2 Cadbury eggs I forgot I packed. They are still in tact and put away in a cupboard.
4. Grandma Kay
Will's grandma has been not doing well for a few months and sadly passed away on Wed April 10th. This was a very sad time for us, but there was a silver lining. Will was able to spend time with his grandma before she passed and he was able to attend her funeral. Had she passed earlier, he would have never been able to say goodbye and had she passed later, we likely would have missed the funeral. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with his family celebrating her great 92 years of life. We stayed up until midnight on Thursday looking through old pictures and sharing memories or her. It really was fate that we were able to be there.
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| Willie and his grandma at his first communion...what a cutie!! |
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| Willie visiting with his grandma at the nursing home |
5. Flying
Growing up in a military family I have a lot of experience flying internationally, having horrible layovers and experiencing jet lag. You'd think I'd get used to it at some point, but I don't. The only good thing about flying is when we get on board Air New Zealand. If any of you have the opportunity to fly to this part of the world, I highly recommend AirNZ. Both coming and going we were treated with respect and were fairly comfortable when on AirNZ and in the NZ airport. In comparison, we were treated like cattle, as an inconvenience and with rudeness on any American carriers and in American airports, except when speaking with American AirNZ employees. It's amazing, they must actually train their employees how to give good customer service, not just state it as a "mission" or "pillar". Weird, right?
So that is the gist of our trip back home. We visited with family, friends and old co-workers, shopped, played with babies and ate. I'll try to be better about posting after many of you back home told me you read this and noticed there haven't been any in a while.
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Tally
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