(As always, click on these photos and they enlarge)

Well as you will see, the kids and I had a fabulous time in Utah. It was a long drive there, and we were all getting sick of the car. But Mom made it easier for us - we just kept driving into the night until we got there, arriving about 3 in the morning, I think.

First off, THE TENNEY COUSINS!

They were staying with my folks for a week, while their mom and dad went to a wedding in Nauvoo, Illinois. So my kids got to spend a lot of time with the cousins they've seen the least (my sister Lori Tenney lives in Washington).

Here's Grandpa Paul with Megan, EV, Hailey.

This is cousin Megan, and she was batty about Jeffrey. They were tight, right from the start.

Grandpa Paul took the kids to see some horses, owned by a wonderful nice friend of his named Odell Minor. He was terrific - he let the kids ride his horse, even coming out and saddling him up for them.

These were 2 young horses, not broken yet, that Odell let the kids feed apples and alfalfa (growing on the ground close by) to.

Here's each of the kids that came that evening, on Geronamo.

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The next day, Grandpa took the remaining 3 kids.

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Gramma J with Jeffrey - she loved all his smiles, and he sure gave her lots of them.

Gramma wanted us to help her make an apricot pie. She prepared the fruit, Kayleigh and I did the crust. With the remaining dough and filling, Kayleigh made small tart-things. She wanted to make them herself - NO HELP.

This is as far as I can go b/c my blog manager has gone to bed and I'm out of photos. The rest will be forthcoming. But my last photo is when Grandma Hansen came over to my folks house...

It's been a month since our trip to Utah, but I'm going to go through and do some catching up. I'm finally figuring this blog thing out, little by little. So I'm separating things into smaller subjects.

First up, Chicago. I drove with the 5 kiddies to Chicago where we stayed a day with Krista and her fine family. Also saw Kevin there, who kindly drove over after picking Mom up from the airport.

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Mom drove the rest of the way with us - poor lady. But she was a trooper. It seems that if the hotel has a pool, everyone's happier. And after we left Chicago, the one hotel we stayed at in Omaha had a pool.