Jenna's 30th Birthday and a trip to Iowa

My little sister Jenna has always loved her birth-year,  1990. I think it's because it's easy for her to remember how old she was at different times through her life. How old was she in 2001? 11. Easy peasy. The year 2020 means that Jenna was celebrating her 30th birthday!

I've been planning for YEARS to surprise her with a girls trip for her 30th birthday. When she moved to Iowa it turned to surprising her by flying out to her. Truly, I've been saving for and planning this trip for a long time. About a year ago I got Melissa in on it (that was always the plan, but a year seemed like enough advance notice), and then six months ago, Kevin and I started making plans. We decided that Melissa and I would fly to Chicago and Kevin would fly Jenna to Chicago and we would surprise her there. It was going to be amazing! 

And then Covid-19 happened. Whomp, whomp. 

In March, I stubbornly insisted that I was still going to go in June. Surely things would be settled by then. In May, I realized that Chicago wasn't going to work because it was still on complete lockdown. I still stubbornly insisted that I wanted to come. It wasn't until right before the trip actually happened that I started feeling like maybe I was being irresponsible - but I felt like it was okay to go and so we did! 

We couldn't switch our flight, so Melissa and I flew into Chicago then drove to Iowa. I had all of these elaborate plans for how to surprise her, but Kevin kept insisting that if we gave her even the tiniest clue she would figure it out.  So we hid in a corner of Kevin's shop and he asked her to come over and help him with something. When she came around the corner we jumped out and surprised her. Her scream is the most hilarious thing: It starts out absolutely terrified, then moves to surprised, then transitions to excited. I loved it so much.


And after that, we were off. We had hoped to have more time on Friday - but by the time we flew there, got our rental car, drove to Hills, surprised Jenna, and let her pack, we were pretty late getting to our AirBnB that we rented in Rock Island, IL. There was a curfew because of the Black Lives Matter protests that have been happening nationwide and the highway was closed because of a specific set of protesters so it ended up taking us a LONG time to get to our house.



We pulled a mattress from the bedroom on the main level to the bedroom in the little attic/loft and we all slept in the same room together. Then the next day we enjoyed ice cream and a walk along the Mississippi River, hammocking and reading books OVER the Mississippi River...



Mexican Food at a local park (due to no restaurants being open for dine-in-eating), and some watercolor painting...


painting nails, watching a movie and just being together at the house. We celebrated Jenna's Birthday with a little party complete with candle and gift. Sunday morning we just relaxed and hung out at the house until we had to drive back to the airport.




I wish that we had been able to plan a longer trip. Without the half-days on Friday and Sunday that ended up being taken by driving, it felt a little short. I'll have to say Covid does not make for the best travel plans (no shopping, restaurants, museums, or.. anything). But I said over and over and over, the only important thing was to be there with Jenna on her birthday and THAT was perfect. 

Sisters are just the best. Look at how cute the three of us were when we were little. We love you Jenna!



Also, I was reading through my journal in May and found this entry from 6-12-08. It made me cry and I took a picture and sent it to Jenna. (When I sent the picture I knew that I was coming to celebrate her birthday with her, but she did not.) When I wrote this entry, twelve years ago (!) I was working in Virginia and was missing my sister a lot. I think it sums up a lot of my feelings about my Jenna-Sister. 

"Today is my sweet little sister's birthday. Jenna Anne is really special to me. I look up to her so much. She has so many of the qualities that I feel I am lacking and that I need to develop. She is kind to everyone and I don't know that I have ever heard her talk bad about anyone. She just sees the good in everyone. She really just reminds me of Jane Bennett from Pride & Prejudice. In fact, I think I want to name my oldest daughter Jenna Jane. I don't know that I actually will. But I think that it is an adorable name and would be named for two great people. Haha. I just love Jenna A LOT. I didn't mean to write so much about her... but I am really missing her a lot right now." 

4 Kids and a Dad

Shantel has been planning a big trip to see her sister Jenna on her 30th birthday (as a super surprise). She was brave enough to leave me in charge of all four kids for the weekend. You can check out her post about her trip for details on that.

The kids were so sad to have her leave. They are use to me going out of town, but Shantel never has even a night without the kids except a rare time when we have a getaway with just the two of us.

Austin was especially going to miss her and she took pictures with the kids on the way to the airport that we printed out for them while she was gone.

That put me in charge for Friday morning through Sunday evening. We missed Shantel tremendously and love her so much. Everything for the weekend went really really well and the kids were so good. The only one I was a little worried about was Lucy, but she did fantastic. Shantel left breastmilk that I could use for each nap and then before bed. Lucy took most of her naps really well and sleep amazing at night and went right down. I was super busy taking care of kids, so there were not a lot of pictures, but we had a ton of fun. Some of the highlights:

Peanut butter toast for snack:

Melissa (who went too) left our car at our house. On Saturday a neighbor pointed out this flat tire. I was not sure I would end up with time to get it changed while taking care of the four kids, but was able to get it changed during one of Lucy's naps. So I was glad to be able to help so that Melissa did not have to worry about it when she got back. 

We built rocket launchers. The kids loved them so much and they turned out awesome. They also made kites. (Both thanks to Kiwi Crates).

One of the other favorite things for the kids was some candy treats. We did "candy bowls" one night. The next day I did fruit cups and they have little cherries so I added some Cherry sour candies that look just like the cherries. The kids loved it. In fact, when Shantel got home (and over the last 3 weeks) it has been clear that their favorite thing about the weekend was the candy. 

 

We also made a giant fort. Lydia had her room first on the far side and then we added a spot for Austin the next day.

This Lucy girl is so sweet. I loved getting to put her down to bed and spend some extra time with her. She has been crawling for a while, but she has never even tried to climb up the stairs. One evening I went up to get her some jammies and when I started walking down the stairs I came across this girl and she was already climbing up the 2nd set of stairs after the landing! She had never even tried and then suddenly she could crawl all the way up the stairs. 

Other things from the weekend: We played outside and played sharks and minnows. We played games and read books.

Three thoughts on the weekend:
1) It was our 11 year anniversary this weekend. The trip worked out best for this weekend and I missed Shantel, but she as always took good care of me. See a separate anniversary post about how much I love her.
-I really did love so much the time with the kids. It is definitely so much work to handle all four the entire day and night, but getting the chance to have just me and them really helps grow our relationships. They are fun and make me laugh and we had a great time. I loved seeing how happy candy in their fruit bowl made them or how much they enjoyed sleeping in their forts. The important thing was just slowing down and recognizing I had the whole weekend set apart for them with nothing I needed to do except spend time with them.
-I'm so glad that Shantel was able to do this trip with her sisters. She has wanted to do this for a long time and with the pandemic, we did not know if it would happen. She deserved to have this nice trip and I'm glad it worked out.

11 Year Anniversary

Today Shantel and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary! I am so lucky to be married to Shantel. In the true spirit of having an anniversary during the COVID-19 pandemic, we celebrated this anniversary social distance style and Shantel flew off to Chicago (and then drove to Iowa). It actually just worked out that Shantel's trip was best this weekend. I missed being with her all day, but wanted to write a post about how much I love her.

I was grateful that we were able to be together this morning before she flew off. Shantel is the love of my life and my best friend. That truly defines the most meaningful thing for me. Shantel is my best friend. She is the one that I can talk to and share stories with. She is the one that I love to laugh with. She is truly my partner who will help me get through anything.

To celebrate she left me this present.

I loved opening this can. She filled with this some favorite memories (with accompanying pictures) from the last 11 years and some of my favorite treats (Dove Dark Chocolate Caramels). I loved reading about some of those things that we have done together. There are so many things that make Shantel special, but I thought I would list a few here.

-Shantel is so selfless and loving. She cares most about taking care of me and my happiness. One story: We have had a lot going on lately with basement and work and to do lists. In addition, I've started trying to exercise at night. By the time we get done with the things we need to work on and get upstairs it is already late. Then I exercise, cool down and then wind down for the night and I have been getting to bed super late. Shantel is up late too and has so much going on, but she has been getting up with the kids almost every morning the last three months and letting me sleep in. She certainly is the one who deserves to sleep in, but without complaint she has let me sleep. This sacrifice by her is incredible to me and she does this full of love. She has also been bringing me up lunch during work every day since I started working from home. She does these things selflessly and with very little in return, for which I am grateful for her incredible love and charity.
-Shantel is intellectual. Shantel always brings interesting and well thought out insights when we are talking. This is one reason I would rather talk to her about things than anyone else. With such varying viewpoints about the coronavirus and protests about racial inequality, Shantel is wonderful to talk to and provides such important insights. She is also such a good listener. Sometimes I drag on talking too long, but she listens and cares about my thoughts.
-Shantel is hard working. Shantel takes care of our home and our kids and it takes a monumental effort and she is up to the challenge.
-Shantel is so funny and thinks I am funny. There are so many times when you just need a good laugh to fill her soul with joy and happiness and Shantel helps me with this so much. She says such funny things and we can end up just laughing until we cry. Our favorite joke right now is about the "portal" to another universe which can be reached through our bathroom. We got some lights in there that are the "daylight" lights and so when we turn off all the other lights as we go to bed, often, it is just those lights left on and it seriously looks like there must be a skylight letting light into that room. So we started telling a joke about how it leads to another universe. Almost every night, one of us will try and make some play on that joke. Whether it is that or some other random thing from they day, Shantel will make me laugh, plus she thinks my jokes are funny. Important side note: We are fans the "Bright White" lights. "Daylight" looks like it is outside, "Soft White" is way to yellow and not as bright. Bright White is perfect. Shantel and I can not understand why anyone would choose soft white over bright white. However we have found that stores most often stock soft white which makes it seem like the favorite. We do not understand it all all. Bright white is clearly the only way to go.

Shantel, there are not words enough to express my love. I could share a million stories about how you show me love so frequently. Just know that I love you. You are everything to me. You mean the world to me, and I love you. Happy 11th anniversary, we'll see you when you get home!