4th of July Fun

Jamie and I spent the weekend with his family travelling up to Illinois for the Mueller family reunion (Jamie's maternal grandmother's family). Friday we drove up to Waterloo with Jamie's parents, brother Shane, grandparents, Aunt Judy and Uncle John and cousins Alex and Cameron and Alex's girlfriend Katie. It took about 10 hours to get there, but it wasn't a bad trip at all. It's a pretty area of the country to drive through.



Friday night after checking into our hotel and getting some dinner, we got a tour of Grandma Kerr's hometown. She took us past the house her parents had lived in, her old high school and the first home they had lived in after moving to Waterloo. It's such a neat town. The houses are so pretty and historic and people seemed to take a lot of pride in their lawns. There was a lot of very green, thick grass and gorgeous gardens. Back at the hotel, we played around with a frisbee and a giant rubber ball before heading over to St. Louis for the fireworks. Watching the 4th of July fireworks over the Mississippi River sitting under the Arch was a really neat experience. The light from the fireworks reflected off the Arch and looked so pretty. The sound bounced off of the high rises behind us in the city and made it probably the loudest fireworks show I'd ever been to. The traffic in St. Louis afterwards was insane and by the time we got back to the hotel, it was after midnight and we all went straight to bed.



Saturday was the reunion held at Camp Wartburg. We were there pretty much all day. In the morning, we met up with the family at the camp for family pictures and a LOT of introductions. There were 7 siblings in the Mueller family, so with all the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it's quite a big group! The rest of the morning (and much of the rest of the day) was spent playing four square. After lunch, Jamie and I, Shane, Cameron and Glenn Tatum (a young relative...I could explain how exactly he's related, but is that really worth it?) went exploring through the camp. There was a high ropes course that we weren't able to use, but we went to have a look at it and found some low ropes elements in the woods nearby. So we played on those and then hiked through the woods. It's a really pretty piece of land. Later in the afternoon we went swimming at the pool (Grandma's brother had worked as a lifeguard at the same pool when he was in high school!). We had a family worship time (the Mueller family is very Lutheran) and then dinner followed by a talent revue. After the talent show and a little more four square, we went back to the hotel and headed to bed. We needed to get to sleep pretty early, because on Sunday we left at 6 a.m. Jamie's parents and Shane had to get all the way back to Orlando so that Shane could be in school Monday morning (he's taking a summer course to get ahead). I was really grateful we only had to get back to Georgia! It was probably right around 2 a.m. or so by the time they made it to Orlando. The travelling was a little bit exhausting, but the reunion and the time we spent with Jamie's family was definitely worth it!



Tomorrow is our closing! Look for pictures of the house soon!