Visiting the Land of Cheese

We've finally recovered from a GREAT visit up north. I braved two 11-hour drives with 4 kiddos under 5 with only minor mishaps, and we managed, in the course of one week, to play in parks in Kansas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri! Nate, our map master, practiced tracing out our route for a week in advance, and could tell me what state we'd be in next, what rivers we crossed, etc. He'll be my navigator in no time!

Once in Wisconsin, the time went WAY too fast. The brief rundown:

Caleb treated everyone to a hot cocoa, all the cousins paired up all week and still claim to be bestbestbest friends, we took lots of walks, played in parks, saw ducks and geese with their young, and ate Aunt Jen's good cookin'; Jake spent the week running away from Evelyn and chose the top bunk as his favorite hideout(he was adept at getting both up and down--yikes!); and as you'll see, we made several valiant efforts at capturing the elusive group shot!