4 days off

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Over the last 4 days we spent time with my wife's brother's family in Indiana. We also traveled there with her parents. On our way back we were commenting on how are kids really have some neat opportunities when they visit their cousins to spend time outside. Her brother, Chris, has a place on about 10 acres and the kids had a blast taking out the power wheels on some paths in the woods. Chris also took us out around the property on all an old Jeep that he restored. The kids got to paint pumpkins, have a bonfire with s'mores, watch some movies, play games, crack open hickory nuts, and just play outside.

When we first got married I thought of vacations as only when you have a big trip planned and you stay at a vacation property or something like that. But, I've come to think of these little family trips to visit family as a sort of vacation as well. When your kids are little it helps for them to have other little kids to play with.

A couple highlights for me were seeing our kids play tetherball with Chris and Amanda's little kids outside. I think the played it for an hour and they were having a blast just making up the game. The other highlight for me was watching my two older kids, Josie and Baer, driving the power wheels. They absolutely loved it. I could tell they were feeling like big stuff by the end of the weekend on them.

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