Preview of Rochester

For Spring Break this year we took the kids to Minnesota to find a house to rent. We are so happy to have our friends, Paul and Summer Gunn, there already, so we could stay with them and find out all about Rochester. They have three kids, one of whom is also named Noah. He's six, so it's a perfect age, right between Brigham and our Noah, so all three played REALLY well together. So well, in fact, that we could hardly get them to come inside to eat during the day. Luckily it was nice weather the whole week we were there.

One afternoon the boys were at the top of the hill in the Gunns' backyard, busy for hours. What good boys, we thought, staying away from the TV and using their imaginations. Chris asked Brigham what they were doing up there. Brig told him that they were making things out of dirt that looked like pooh. GREAT. Later Summer saw the boys in the front yard (with Noah looking like the above picture) talking to a lady who was walking by. Summer soon found out they told this lady that it was pooh smeared on Noah's face. EVEN BETTER. Perfect way to use those imaginations, isn't it? Oh well, at least that lady won't be our neighbor. Sorry Summer :)

Also, do you notice Noah's red-rimmed eyes? That's because he's going on about 6 hours of sleep. We let the two Noahs and Brigham sleep in the basement (Annie wanted to sleep with us upstairs. I wonder why). The boys, of course, took a LONG time to get to sleep. Then at 4 the next morning, Summer heard noises from the basment, and when she went down, she saw that they had turned on "Wild Recon." She informed them that it was 4 a.m. Her Noah had the decency to look ashamed, but our Noah jumped up with his arms in the air and yelled, "We know!" Summer went back to bed. Sorry again Summer :)

So we didn't let the kids run wild with pooh smeared on their faces the whole time. Here's when we took them to Rochester's "zoo." Although small, the kids liked it. I'm sure we'll be going there a lot.

We also took them to the nature center, with trails behind it.

With it being early spring, it was pretty mucky. This is what Hudson looked like by the end of our walk.

Okay, I'm so lame - that's pretty much all the pictures I took. I guess I can attribute it to the pregnancy brain. I didn't feel that great while we were there, but we really had so much fun. Late night talks, GREAT food (thanks guys!), meeting some wonderful people that will be in our ward, and yes, we did find a house to rent. Although it won't be any bigger than our house here ( and maybe even a little smaller), it has a great fenced-in backyard, and it's on the end of a dead-end street. It's about 4-5 blocks from the kids' elementary school, and it's near the community pool and a Great Harvest (sooo excited about that!).

Thanks, Paul and Summer, for letting us stay. I know it's not easy to have 6 extra people in your three bedroom house. We are so excited to get back out there!