Moose Lake Minnesota

the above pic is Travis with Sela's husband Pete and Jared pulling the tube on the lake...

Megan and Travis getting a feel of how the tube thing works

Jacob enjoying himself on the lake....

Miss Leney enjoying herself on the lake......

Pictures at Moose Lake Minnesota

I have this annoying habit of torturing my family with picture taking.....always on the search of NEW places and new styles .....Leney was nice enough to take some pics of our family....even have our Christmas card pic done (in August might I add!!) .....this pic was taken at the train station in Moose Lake, Minn., it made for a great back drop :)

Visiting Sela

I have a half sister, Sela who was nice enough to invite us to visit her in St Paul(Min.)....she showed us the city and invited us to stay at her lake house where we ate tons of yummy food and play in the water, fishing and tubing......some of the highlights included an exciting trip to the mall of the americas where we rode exciting rides (til we were dizzy) and also visited with another half sister, Jennifer.....my children talk non stop about Sela (as if she lived close by) so this was especially special for all of us......

Heath was definitly on the move while we were visiting Sela, I took this pic at her house-love the happy face :)

We visit Wisconsin

The story behind this state is that......Wisconsin isn't really on the way home from Minnesota, but in my efforts to visit all 50 states (42 down, 8 to go) I figured it was close enough to make a "minor" detour, so I made reservations for us to swing into Madison at KOA(I was sure it was pleasant in August, we were practically to Canada!) to make along story short, we ran out of gas just as we were exiting(our fuel pump had been wigging out that day, so we had'nt been filling it in case we would need to replace it that day)...so Jared had to push the car (he had a knee he was nursing from a tubing injury, so he literally hobbelled like he had a wooden leg-very VERY funny to look at) across the overpass and I would coast into the gas station, once at the gas station it would not start .....we were only 2 blocks from the KOA so, I had the boys get their scooters out, and Leney helped me take the kids to our campsite while we waited for Jared who never came b/c the car never started again.....now it is after 9 pm and we still haven't set up camp, the car doesn't work so we cant get our equipment over there.....to top things off it was still stinkin hot (like Texas hot, and I don't camp much in Texas) Jared was wore out from messin with the suburban, so we grabbed the last hotel room on that street ....b/c it was the last hotel room they let us fill it up with roll out beds for our large group.....we felt very blessed to have everything work out the way they did....we could grab dinner, check out a hotel all within walking distance of the car, and to top things off, our guardian angels had fixed the car, b/c when Jared went to check out the suburban in the AM it worked just fine :)

we did visit a cute Wisconsin dairy shop where we saw more cheese and every other kind of dairy/sausage we have ever dreamed of, my kids tried on a variety of cheese head hats and they enjoyed fresh yummy ice cream .....memories...

the Bartons visit St Louis

here is Chloe, Travis, Megan, Jacob and Leney against the Arch in St Louis.....

those little specs at the top of the stairs are Megan, Jacob, and Travis....

I was surprised at how hot AND humid St Louis was.....I was sure San Antonio in August was the hottest place on earth, but I was wrong, St Louis was definitley hot and muggy too!!

St Louis-the arch cont

when you have five kids.....everyone wants a chance to have their pic taken doing their own thing, then you display one pic, you pretty much have to display them all.....so be prepared to see ALOT of the Bartons in these next few posts and their vacation.....

Park Favorites

This was one of our last stops on our way home from our 2 week road-trip.....this is Sullivan, Mo....Jared and I actually like Mo. alot, it's very beautiful, and they have wonderful parks from what we have seen....it was funny b/c we just randomly stopped at this town, but then after we arrived at the park, we realized that we had stopped at this park 3 years earlier on our last trip (we even have pics from this same play area-crazy!)....

some of our summer fun

these are just a few of the pics we took while visiting Moose Lake, Minnesota.....we had a blast up there visiting my half sister Sela......

Checking it off.....

Before we left on vacation, I FINALLY checked one off my New Year's Resolution (list)....and these pics show the before and after.....
Before:



AFTER!!!

my next item of business is megan and chloe's cutain windows(fingers crossed)

Barton cousins

this group of grandchildren is only part of the "younger" half.....

Heath, learning about the 'baby bumble bee' with grandma barton

chloe, with a few of her girl cousins

heath, trying on uncle Chris' hat....

chloe visiting with the newest barton baby-Brigham

Chloe receiving an emmy

Megan loves having a little sister who is more than willing to be whatever Megan wants her to be....Megan taught her a song and choreographed a dance and helped her perform it in front of the family.....Megan even had her receive an award for her "performance" Chloe loves having a sister who is so fun and imaginitive.....

Daddy and Heath

already a quick crawler, he has his eyes on walking like his big brothers and sisters.....it makes me sad.....

Houghton Cousins......

We swung by grandma Houghton's after church and while we were there, I whipped out the camera for some over-due picture taking......

Sweet times

Jacob loves grandma Barton's sweet pickles, and so grandma brought the recipe over and taught us how to make her yummy sweet pickles, and Jacob couldn't be happier :) now, that we are all wanting to make more, we're hoping for a good turn out of cucumbers this fall......