En Route to Reunion

William and I attended the Oien (Grandma on my mom's side) family reunion held in Karlstad, MN on July 20th. It was quite the operation to get the two of us to the reunion as John has limited time off right now. On Wednesday, John drove William and myself to Iowa City (approx halfway) and met Grandpa. William was super excited to see Grandpa, although usually when he sees Grandpa he is done riding in the car. This time, we had to get back in the car and ride the rest of the way to Rochester.

An added bonus to driving early to Rochester was getting to see my Aunt Sheila and Uncle Bobby all the way from Massachusetts! We don't get to see them very often, so it was a real treat. William enjoyed playing cars with everyone who would get down on the floor with him. He was in heaven!

A phrase I heard a lot over the weekend was: "Oooooooooo, cars!" William loves playing with Uncle Mike's old matchbox cars at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Good thing Uncle Mike knows how to share!
One of the best parts is the cool carrying case the cars come in. Hours of entertainment for us: put the car in, take the car out. Repeat exactly 7.54687816819897 katrillion times.

Checking out the car options with Bobby. As you can see this is a serious discussion.
Trading in, trading up. Also you might consider this the early stages of sharing. Bobby got to hold a car for more than .123243 seconds before William reclaimed it.
Look out if you have a smallish digital camera. William has learned that it is very fun to look at himself in the pictures/video stored on the phone. Here he is patiently looking at pictures of Bobby's friend Woody hoping to catch a glimpse of himself.
Even Sheila admires the handy, organized carrying case. They don't sell 'em any more Sheila!
And for a few minutes we played with something besides a car! Playing with the barn and sharing!

The breakfast of champions! Bananas, milk and a diet coke (no, he it isn't open). Also, we're training him to multitask at a very early age. "Don't do just one thing when you could be doing 10!"
Playing cars with Grandpa
Grandpa put together a little bit of track to race the cars down. William really liked this after he got over the issues he has with actually letting GO of the car.
William is starting to line the cars up. I guess he really is related to John. All the cars must be end to end with their front parts (hoods? noses? bumpers? headlights?) facing the same direction. Then, he likes to count how many cars he has. So far he'll point to his line of cars and say "Onnnne, duo..." and wait for you to do the rest of the work. So much for working on our colors next. I guess he wants to learn about numbers first.
Another extra special treat was a quick visit with William's cousins from Des Moines, IA. They drove in Friday and left Saturday. We caught them for a few hours on Saturday morning before we had to leave to go to Grand Forks. Reading books with Grandpa and cousin Mike. Guess what else the kids played with? Correct answer: cars.