Home Leave

Home Leave is a wonderful thing and a great time to recharge the batteries! We arrived the US June 22, well getting here was interesting, but we got here none the less. We started with a few days in Decatur with Rich in meetings and Sophia and I catching up with friends. Then we headed to Aurora, NE to spend some time at my Mom and Dad's.



We had so much fun there. Sophia definitely has them wrapped around her little finger! She played outside in the yard and over at the neighbor's swing set. We even got her first haircut there. Granted, they didn't take too much off, but just evened out the baby hair. It was definitely bittersweet! My little one is growing up. I even got my parents to try Indian food that I made. Mom said it was definitely more work than she was willing to do!



We then headed up to Mobridge, SD for the Fourth of July. There we met up with my sister and her fiancee who flew in from San Diego. We had a ball with them and are really looking forward to the wedding in 10 Aug 08. We had a couple of family picnics and caught up with both sides of my family. We even went to Sophia's first Rodeo. She had a ball and was screaming at the ropers "GO COWBOY, GET THEM COWS!!" she was so disappointed when they missed! The next day we went out to my aunt and uncle's ranch where she went on a horse drawn carriage ride with Grammy and Uncle Richard. She seemed a bit apprehensive but looked like she enjoyed it!



On the 6th we headed up to Bottineau, ND to see Richard's family. We stayed with his dad and got the chance to catch up with everyone here. We went to a picnic up on the lake, out for pizza, had cookouts, rode with her cousins to camp and Sophia spent lots of time playing outside with her cousins! She couldn't believe she had so much family! At one point out for pizza she looked down the table of 16 and said "These are all my family?!?" The look on her face was priceless! She also got to help feed her cousin's calf. She took this in stride but definitely stayed back. Thankfully she decided a 150+ pound calf was nothing to mess around with.

We'll be heading back tomorrow and will write more later.