Johnny Cash vs. The McIlravy's

There's that song by Johnny Cash, "I've Been Everywhere Man". I think we have him beat. It feels like we have been everywhere! Don't worry I won't break into song.

August was crazy. We went to visit Granny and Papaw in Minnesota which included side trips to Oma's and Great Grandma and Grandpa's house. There were tractor rides (thanks Loren), there was airplane flying (thanks Merlyn), there was semi-truck driving (at least pretend, thanks Ed!), movies were watched in the Granny Vanny, kids of all ages were spoiled. It was crazy.

Then it was off to Omaha with Marisa's family. We did Valentino's buffett, swimming, the children's museum (highly recommend this, it's contained educational chaos!), more swimming, flooded the hot tub (not entirely our fault) and Misha fell out of bed!

Next, I know you have all been waiting for this! GOOSE HUNTING OPENER! I know! The excitement was probably killing you. So it was back to Minnesota where cranky mama (Marisa) put a hault on the "side trips" (she was tired of competing with Johnny). Both of the boys got to "hunt" with Papaw and Papa. Good time was had by all. Marisa and Twilla went on a cooking marathon which produced freezer meals of breakfast burritos, turkey hotdish, chicken hotdish, lasagna and chicken enchiladas...both Twilla's and Marisa's freezers!

Jason made a couple quick trips to the Quad Cities and Waterloo for work. Marisa jumped on a jet plane and headed for India. No I did not mean Indiana, I meant India. It was great! The people are so amazingly nice. It made Marisa think that we American's treat our guests horribly. She ate the whole trip everything from pastries, pasta, crepes, satay's, Indian food, twisted mac n' cheese, Pizza Hut, Indian sweets, cereal, brats...everything! The work part of the trip was good too. Marisa loved meeting the teams that she's been working with for years. They seemed to like having her there because they asked when she was coming back (january...shhh).

Meanwhile, Jason called in re-enforcements, our underpaid nanny. She goes by the name Granny. The kids and Jason loved having her at the house. Granny and the kids played, made cookies, ate cookies, played some more. Granny also helped out with food prep, cleaning, grocery shopping and who knows what else I'm forgetting.

AND THEN....it was DEER SEASON! I know, you thought that goose opener was exciting. Holy cats hang onto your hat. Deer season is here! Jason has a bow this year. So we have switched from giant chunks of metal to thin sticks of wood as our method of attack...not sure on the logic of that but we will see how the season progress's.

With Deer season came our first trip to Urgent Care! Marisa always thought her first trip there would be for one of the younger boys....no, it was Jason. Covered in spots from head to toe! The happy part of this is when you are covered in spots, all those coughing, sneezing, oozing people in Urgen care don't want to sit next to you. Have no fear, it was just a reaction to some medication he was on. A few days of steriods and no sleep and he was almost as good as new.

Deer season also took us out to the farm to see Grandma and Grandpa. We got to ride in the tractor, the ranger and the combine (thank you Gerald!). Misha, who is always observant, noted that a cow would not fit through the combine. Not that we tried. He just decided a cow was too big.

And THEN was our first Halloween. We partied all weekend. Marisa's office had a family Halloween event on Friday, firemen and police department had a festival on Saturday, Night Eyes at the Zoo was Saturday, Sunday was a fall festival at the church and since we live in Iowa it was Beggar's night (Marisa still thinks all trick or treating should be done on Halloween). So it was a full weekend of costumes and candy. Misha declared himself Bob the Builder for the weekend and Alik was frequently referred to as Spidy.

Next Stop! Trains and reptiles...