the dahlbys: When Last We Met . . .

Meg was about to send me to the looney bin, and Kate was about to pop her 2 front teeth. We were about to leave for our family vacation in Iowa and Kansas, and I felt like I was about to lose my mind in preparation for it.

Fast forward more than a week, and here we are.

The trip was awesome. The girls were angels. We had a wonderful visit with extended family, followed by some great days with just the Grandparents.

Nobody was sick. Meg was really a GREAT kid -- the great kid she usually is, prior to the week of hellish behavior we had right before the trip. Kate popped her two front teeth on the last day of our trip, but she really didn't complain about it at all in the days leading up to their big debut. Both girls were a true pleasure to be around. As you can imagine, the grandparents ate them up.

I can't even begin to describe all of the things we did while away in the midwest. We had just a fantastic time . . . both at the big 90th birthday celebration for Jim's grandma and in the week that followed, when we just hung out with the family.

In Iowa, this is prime crop planting season. The crop? Corn, of course. Corn and some soybeans, though most everything we saw planted or being planted was corn. There was a little divine intervention on our trip . . . we were at Great Grandma Moen's farm (that would be Jim's Mom's Mom) on the day that they planted the corn on her land. We got to see the BIG tractors till the land one evening, then they returned with the planters and planted the corn seeds the following morning. For a suburban kid like me (and Meg and Kate), it was a real treat. They only do the planting once a year -- one day a year -- and we just happened to time it right. That was certainly the highlight of the trip for me and Meg.

We also went to the little town cafe and had breakfast in Emmons, MN. We went to the Elks Lodge for 'Taco Tuesday' and had a ball. We shopped, we drove the 5+ hours back to Kansas, we saw family friends, and we visited our favorite local petting zoo in Jim's hometown of Overland Park, KS.

It was a great trip.

And now we are home, and after nearly 3 days, I think just about everything is back to where it belongs. The girls went to bed at 7:30pm tonight -- eastern time, that is. Back to our schedule. We've (selfishly) kept them on central time for the past couple of days to enjoy a few holiday weekend evening activities and the late morning sleep that follows when your kids body clocks are about an hour behind 'real' time. Tonight, though, it was a return to normalcy.

I'm just so glad we had a great trip . . . and now I'm so glad to be back home. Tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett O'hara says. Tomorrow we'll get back on track. (And yes, for those of you that missed me, I'll get back to blogging!)

Enjoy the photos in the albums linked -- I've added a lot of stuff, including trip pictures and just general pictures of our lives in the "May 2009" album.