We survived our first major road trip with both girls… woo hoo! It took us about 6 hours to get to Erin’s parents in central Iowa, but we made it. Her brother Nick and his three little girls were already out there and Molly had such a fun time with her cousins! By the next time we see them, little Nora will be able to keep up with them all, too. Grandpa took his girls out to the Pine Lake spillway for fishing, then we hit Ahoy Fountain for ice cream and splashed around at the Eldora Aquatic Center. Good times!

From there, we all traveled onward another 4-5 hours to South Dakota for a Robbins family reunion. We stopped in Sioux Falls on the way to see the Heckel side as well. Grandma Jo has Alzheimers but she was doing ok and seemed happy. I hadn’t seen Grandma Jo for two years, and it was tough seeing how the illness has progressed since I saw her last. But at least she was smiling and having a good time with all the little ones running around her house.

The Robbins reunion was a lot of fun… the weather was incredible and everyone was able to make it out. It was bittersweet, though, as Grandma Dorothe will be moving off the farm in the fall. This will be the last time we’ll get to enjoy the farmstead… Grandma’s porchswing, her beautiful gardens, her kitchen, the narrow and steep stairway, the mailbox… even the mile-long gravel road that leads up to her house… Erin was trying to soak it all in one final time. And seeing our girls ride on that porchswing brought joy to her heart.

On Saturday evening, we were able to get the Robbins cousins together for another round of volleyball in the grass. Some things never change! Trevor is still able to dominate the net without even lifting his feet and the trash talk between teams was as vibrant as ever. We thought of every conceivable way to divide teams, but seemed like the most even distribution was “Robbins” last namers vs. the “others” and the cousins vs. the spouses/fiances. Good times. And we even have t-shirts to prove it!