family vacation

We're back in Urbana after our 2 WEEK vacation to California. A whopping 5 years had passed since our previous visit. And we hadn't seen my sister's family in about a year and a half because we missed the annual Park City vacation due to Janny's impending arrival.

The trip was fantastic. Firstly, our families really are a blessing. We enjoy spending time with them, even a lot of time. Mom, dad, sister, bro-in-law, and cousins all helped take care of our kids, allowing us to take it easy.

Cousin Anna enjoyed holding Janny, and despite the expression in the picture, Janny enjoyed the attention.
Sister Lisa came with us to New Brighton beach for some quality ocean time. Yup, we were all wearing sweaters in late July. We weren't sad to take a reprieve from the 'heat dome' that was oppressing the midwest.
We loved watching Clara play with the big cousins. She learned lots during the vacation, including how to climb out of a pack'n'play (which translated quite well to climbing out of her crib at home). Some additional words/phrases include 'hiiiiilllllllll' (whenever we drove down my parents' driveway), 'pool madu', 'pond madu', 'doggie madu' ('madu' is water), 'tookie' (cookie).
Lots of people have told us that Clara looks like this grandma.
Dad and I went 4 wheeling on the Rubicon trail with the Jeepers Jamboree. I left the camera with Jill, so I'll have to borrow some photos from him to post later. Quite the adrenaline rush! Dad had told me that the Jeep can handle being tilted at 30 degrees to the side no problem. Beyond that, tipping over is likely (handy tip: if the Jeep is tipping over, don't reach hand towards the ground to stop the fall. Broken bones result). We frequently approached this limit while also being pointed up or down a steep hill or rock. Throughout the first day, I completely tensed up when going over big obstacles. Eventually I consciously relaxed my tensed muscles, realizing that being tense couldn't help in any way.

I drove some, enough to scare myself and to develop some confidence. The Jeep is a manual transmission, which I haven't driven in years. The most tricky places were manned by spotters, good for pointing the way and bad that someone saw my poor driving skills up close.

The most memorable experience was changing a wheel on Cadillac hill (probably 15-20% grade) due to a sheared valve stem. Big thanks to the guys behind us that told us to use a strap to compress the suspension -- much less lift is needed to get wheel of the ground.