On the road again

Growing up Tickles Style

24 hours to Virginia every other summer.

12 hours to the Rocky Mountains every spring break.

9 hours to Arkansas every few years around thanksgiving.

3 hours to the Lake of the Ozarks 200 million times a summer.

3 fiesty girls.

2 parents.

1 tv.

My parents were very brave.  My parents also created three little travel monsters who are unafraid of roadtrips/traveling.  

These past few months my sister Mandy in Chicago has been to Kansas City, Des Monies, Aruba, Southern California, St. Louis, Wisconsin Dells, the Ozarks and I'm sure I've missed a few places.

In this same time frame Sandy in KC has been to Des Moines, Chicago, Aruba, the Ozarks and is heading off to a 3 week vacation (traveling alone) to Italy to meet up with friends from Europe.  And she's also talking about taking a southern road trip with friends.

Jon, Owen & I have taken a few trips ourselves (albeit not as exotic as Aruba, Italy or So Cal) these past few months.  Well, that's not completely true, Jon went with our church to the Dominican Republic for a mission trip in March.  Which was so wonderful by the way.  Maybe sometime he'll do a post and write about it.  I've already written about the trips we took in March & April.  So since those trips, we've been keeping busy!  Here are some photos from some of our different trips.

Cedar Rapids at End of April

Owen with Great-grandpa Schreiner

Owen, Grandpa Scott & Cousin Ben

Chicago Trip with Rachie & no babies!

1st stop in Chicago - We bypassed the pizza because "it'll take too long" and headed to a hot dog stand at 2 in the afternoon.  This is the line that welcomed us.  We stood here for 2 hours.

This is the hot dog restaurant.  Worth it?  Umm... maybe for guys.

Rach and I in our uber-trendy H&M sunglasses. :)

Farmer Family Reunion in Leroy, Kansas

My little mama playing a minute to win it game.

My grandpa, his brother and his nephews.

My sweet Grandma enjoying something at the reunion.

Lake Trip #1 with Kai Ling

Owen and his lake get-up.  Only he wore the sunglasses and hat for about as long as it took to take the picture.

Grandpa Tickles & Owen are good buddies.  This was Owen's favorite spot on the boat.

Grandma Tickles & Owen - he enjoyed cuddling with her during the boat rides!

Kai Ling enjoying the FREEZING water.

Lake Trip #2 with the whole Tickles gang

Yes.  We let our 14 month old ride the tube.  And he liked it.

Jon slaloming (sp?)!

Goofy Mandy.

Mandy's boyfriend, Aaron, had a GREAT fall that we captured on camera.

This one is only on here for Rachel and Kelsey.  Here is a baby belly shot.  Enjoy!  (I wonder if they have even made it through the too-long post.)

Aunt Sandy and Owen.  Even though he liked the boat he had this same serious face most of the time.

We have enjoyed all of our travels and especially love the time with friends and family!

Mr. Independent

This is old news to most of you but those we haven't gotten to talk to recently... Owen is now walking!  He took his first step a day or two before his birthday, but didn't really begin walking until the weekend of May 20th.  Grandpa Tickles had a good trick of letting him crawl on the driveway in shorts which he quickly realized didn't feel good so he began to bravely take more and more steps.  We miss his loud, hand-slapping crawl but love his frankenstein wobble-walk!  Within the first week of really walking he had some big falls on his face.  Here is a picture of my little brave man walking as well as the scrapes on his face from that first week.

The picture doesn't show a big red scrape on his chin.  With both falls he was so strong and barely cried!  

Now that he is walking he wants to do everything by himself.  He loves using a fork and spoon to eat his food now.  He is far from good at it but I let him keep trying because he has to learn somehow!  This is a picture of the first time using a spoon by himself and his attempt to eat dinner at Drake Epicenter this past week.

We attempted to draw twice this week.  Here is a picture from our first attempt:

Owen is a water-loving boy (except at the lake... more information to come)!  We have gone to a few different splash parks and each time he gets braver.  The first time he held onto me for the first five minutes or so but by the end he was investigating the fountains.  Here he is at the splash park in Ankeny:

Along with splash parks, summertime fun has included a few trips to the zoo and many trips to the park. Owen loves petting the goats at the zoo and especially enjoys the slides at the park. 

Finally, Tank is learning how to be a little athlete by playing catch with daddy and mommy, kicking the soccer ball and even learning how to swing the bat.  Daddy's friends at Grand View are so confident in his athletic skills they have even named their team after him.  No pressure, Owen!

Some other "grown up" pictures: