More Vacation: The Ledges

Ezra tried SO HARD to get that wrapper off, but gave up and bit right into the plastic and ate the caramel with the plastic!! :) He was so determined to get it!

Have you ever been to the Ledges? Oh my goodness! Probably the most beautiful spot in Iowa! You almost don't even feel like you're IN Iowa! It's amazing! We enjoyed an afternoon of walking, riding, hiking, and finally a snack at the end of our hike! :) I'll let the pictures speak for themselves! No better way then to top it off with making caramel apples! Mmmmm, mmm!

Visit to Gpa & Gma Cowley's

Aunt Cheryl setting the dinner table!

Uncle Dave (the birthday boy) and Cousin Nicole carving the chickens!

Kids playing in the yard! BEAUTIFUL FALL DAY!
See all my Gpa's raspberry bushes! WOW! YUMMY!

Ezra picking his first batch of raspberries! :) Most of them got eaten! :)
Can you blame him?

Family all around the table eating! Big family, and this is only PART of our family!

Gpa & Gma Cowley! Still madly in love!
(My grandmother just had a stroke and heart attack! Doesn't she look GREAT!)

Cousins! :) Grew up close!

Bailey, Nicole's baby! Enjoying her chocolate cream pie.

Grandma with a few of her MANY GREAT Grandchildren

Laine climbing the tree in the front yard.

Thursday we drove down to Ames and arrived around noon. To our pleasant surprise, my uncle, aunt, cousin, her husband and two kids were all there to have lunch! It was my uncles' birthday! Happy Birthday Uncle Dave! They brought lunch for everyone! So yummy! Grandma Cowley actually had made a fresh raspberry pie from her very own raspberry bushes! SO YUMMY! (That happens to be my favorite pie! :)) Sat around and visited all afternoon. It was great.

Tuesday

On our way to the Blank Zoo! In the drenching rain! :)

Ezra's thumb is in his mouth EVERY time he's in his carseat! So sweet!

Laine in a cool "kids" size cave!

They had a fun wooden swaying bridge. Laine, Anissa & I all attempted! It was fun.

Marilyn B, a very longtime friend and really, considered a family member in my life, came from Cedar Falls to see me! I am SO BLESSED with people that love me! It's amazing! Anyway, this is Marilyn and Laine looking at the turtles in the water!

Ezra very much enjoyed his trip to the zoo! He's pointing at the blue frogs! Coolest looking frogs! Isn't it amazing how God so distinctly designed every single creature and living thing! WELL THOUGHT THROUGH! I'm in awe!

My sweet, SWEET boys! They are so precious! In front of the coolest Jellyfish display I've ever seen! See below for another picture!

Cool window seat looking into a huge aquarium. Ezra loved watching the fish swim right up to him!

This is the jellyfish set up I was talking about! Isn't it so cool!?

Laine acted out his own story of "Laine and the Hippo" much like "Jonah and the Whale!" :)

Marilyn and I trying to read the water sogged map of the zoo! The rain was pouring down but we had SO MUCH FUN!!!

This for me, was the highlight of the zoo! I've never seen a lion this up close and personal! We were literally one sheet of glass away from these lions! Again! IN AWE, of God's creation! Speechless!

This picture just doesn't do it justice! Hard to capture!

Monday

Our day started at Panera with some dear friends from Oskaloosa!!! Thank you Amy V & Cathy F. for driving up to spend the morning with us! We had a great time! Here is Ezra enjoying his PB&J sandwich! It was the thickest amount of jelly ever and guess what Ezra went after first! :) Ezra is our food man! He LOVES to eat! Any crinkle of cracker bag or the opening of the refrigerator door, wherever he is in the house, he will come RUNNING to partake! :) Secretly, it's one of my favorite to hear, those little footsteps coming to look for the food! :)

My friend Suzanne W. came to visit me from Waterloo, IA, thank you Suzanne for taking time out of your busy schedule to come see me! The day was GORGEOUS! We took our kids to the park and they played for three straight hours and it FLEW by! Here are our four kids. (L to R: Alexis W, Ezra, Conner W, & Laine)

Laine learned how to "pump" his swing to get him to go high!

Alexis and Laine feeding the ducks!

Anonymous Comments!

:) I am SO THANKFUL for the viewers of my blog! I truly am! THANK YOU for visiting when you can. We welcome you any time!

I have a small favor! If you write a comment and don't have a registered account where it will publish your name, is there a chance you could at least put it in your message? I LOVE knowing who is saying what! :) This has happened several times throughout my blogging and I haven't figured out who they are! :)

KEEP LEAVING THOSE COMMENTS!!!! :) Love them!

Our attorney.............

...............called us this morning to let us know we have an OFFICIAL date to mark on our calendar for Ezra's "gotcha" day. His adoption hearing will take place Tuesday, October 28, 2008 @ 0900. This is when we will meet in the courtroom, with the judge and he will grant us full legal guardianship of Ezra and actually officially change his name to Ezra Daniel Baltzly! If you've spent this day with me, you KNOW that my repeated phrase of the day has been, "I can't believe it!" "I just can't believe it!" :) Thanks so much for your prayers! There are more details to come!

Pray on now for Chavalah's hearing this coming Wednesday. They will decide whether or not to set a termination hearing next or not. We're praying the judge sees fairly and that he agrees to set a termination date, within this Wednesday's hearing, for the following month!!! That would be so fantastic!

We've had a wonderful day today! I'm exhausted at this point and am needing to close my eyes and go to bed, but I will blog about our day tomorrow and try and post pictures!

Good night!

WE'RE HOME (IOWA)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW! Have you ever seen so much luggage!?
What was I thinking traveling with two little ones ALONE!?

Buddies! Brothers!!!!!

Getting on the plane! So excited!

Laine got spoiled! WOW! He got to go INSIDE the cockpit and look around and play around a bit. The pilot even let him try his hat on! He was ELATED!

Ezra got to be in there too! :) He was the "co-pilot."

Waiting for our next flight from Memphis to DesMoines!!

Aunt ShiSha picked us up inside!

Granny & the boys!

Besides Ezra being so darn cute, this picture is special!
The stool he is sitting on is the same stool I used to sit on
at the big farm table with Granny's yummy meals at the farm!
I miss those days so much! :( Just being a kid, playing like kids!

The boys played for a few hours this afternoon in Granny's GREEN midwest grass!
Ezra immediately found something to "drag" around!

Granny has a "play" bird that is on a stick and Laine was absolutely glued to. He went around pretending everything the bird would do. He even found a "real" bird's nest and landed him there (hope it was an old one and that we didn't "desensitize" it for the bird living there. He also connected it with some food from Granny's bird feeder! So sweet!

Ezra found a nice cool spot underneath Granny's porch, in the dirt and was having the time of his life crunching on the oyster crackers Granny had thrown out for the birds! :) Oh yes, that's my Ezra. If Ezra sees food, Ezra thinks he HAS to eat too!

And finally, at the end of our day we sat out on the back porch and swang on the swing.

"There's no place like home!" "There's no place like home!" "There's no place like home!" I LOVE being back in Iowa. I am so thankful and so BLESSED to be here. I'm loving every minute and there's just something special and unique about bringing your own kids back with you. We had a GREAT flight out here. Our flights were on time, no delays, Ezra did great considering the first flight was almost 3 hours. We got a bit restless towards the end of that one, but we did it! With no seat! He was literally in my lap, in front of Laine, or sharing a seat with Laine. We had a nice break with a 2 hour lay over. JUST enough time with kids. We stopped and had dinner then found our gate and boarded just about 15 minutes later! PERFECT! Our last leg of the trip was only about an hour and Ezra slept half of that finally. Otherwise had not slept or napped the entire day! Got to Granny's and set up beds, put the kids to bed and everyone was asleep shortly! Ezra had a rough night with waking up several times! I just think it was an unfamiliar place for the first night, but we made it!

Went to church with my Granny this morning, enjoyed seeing some old faces. We grandkids grew up going to that church whenever we'd be visiting for the weekend, and a lot of the same people are still going to that small church in Polk City. Came home and had lunch, and my friend Lisa came from Davenport to see me! We had a FABULOUS time together. Went and visited the graves today. It always takes me a few time going out there to "readjust" to the harsh reality of that. I plan to go a few more times this week. Grabbed a few pizzas and had dinner, then Lisa took off for home again and the boys went to bed! Much smoother tonight! YAY! Hoping now that they sleep well tonight. They both actually took fairly good naps today, but they needed them! ;) So did mommy! :)

Good night for now! I'll post again this week!