Our trip home

We were So excited to fly home for a visit the day after Christmas. An international flight with four kids is about as fun as you think it is...but it is SO, SO worth it!!! 

I got to sit next to this cutie on our flight. She and I were in the middle row of the plane, Chris and Mary were a row ahead of us on our left and Allie and Michael were side by side about two rows in front of me on my right...Yeah, not ideal but when you're flying as a party of 6 and you're outnumbered by kids you do the best you can. I was crazy impressed with how well Allie and Michael did on the plane and it was so amazing to have two kids totally independent. I know every flight will be different, so I considered this one a solid win!

We flew to Detroit and spent the first few days at my parents house. My sisters were both there when we arrived and the kids could hardly wait for the car to stop moving before they jumped out and loved on everyone! Allie and Gemma were the best, I wish I would have gotten a video of them seeing each other, but I swear my heart will never forget. It was precious!

We arrived on Monday night and jet lag was ROUGH...the whole house was awake by 3:00am Tuesday morning...my poor parents!!! We all slowly got adjusted to the time change, but we had lots of early mornings! 

Michael's birthday is December 28th and we had a big party for him at Hartfield Lanes in Berkley for all his buddies from school (and Allie's too!) 

We drove to Spring Lake to spend some time with Chris' family and ring in the New Year...the kids had a BLAST With their cousins...I don't know how I don't have any pictures from our time there!!! I'm usually pretty camera happy, but I think this trip I was just "happy" and enjoying all of our family time together...that being said, I'm kicking myself now and I will do better next time we're home!!

We tried to see as many people as we could, but there just wasn't enough time. The days flew by WAY too fast and we didn't have the chance to see some of our closest and dearest friends. Thank you everyone for being patient with us and understanding...the kids are finished with school for the summer on July 28th and don't go back to school until September 11th..we haven't booked our flights home yet, but I'm hoping to fly back to MI on July 29th. I don't want to waste a minute of our summer vacation!!!