Home at last ...

What a wonderful, but exhausting 24 hours we've had here at the Jones Junction! Mr. Jones and I drove out of Grand Rapids at about 1:00 yesterday afternoon and headed to Chicago to pick up Diana and the kids from O'Hare. Mr. Jones tried to tell me we were leaving way too early because their flight wasn't scheduled to land until 6:25 Chicago time ... but what if we encountered heavy traffic ... or got a flat tire on the way ... or had an accident? We certainly wouldn't want Diana and the children to think we had forgotten to come!

We actually arrived in Chicago at about 4:00 Grand Rapids time (3:00 Chicago time). We were about 20 minutes from the airport when we received a call from Diana (I received it on my mother's borrowed cell phone) telling us that there had been a slight delay of their connecting flight out of Dallas and they were just boarding that plane! Hmmm. It's about a 3-hour flight from Dallas to O'Hare and we were only 20 minutes away. So we stopped at one of those Oasis things, had something to eat and read for awhile.

We arrived at the airport a little after 5:00 Chicago time and since security is so tight at the airports now, we just waited for them down by where the luggage was going to be sent. It seemed like forever, but FINALLY at about 7:15, Diana and the kids were descending the escalator and we were all happily having hugs! The picture I took of them coming down the escalator didn't turn out and then I was so excited to see everyone that I completely forgot to take any other pictures at the airport. Diana got some good photos of the kids sitting in the cockpit of the airplane, wearing the pilot's cap! Perhaps she will post them on her blog soon so that you can see them.

It was a long drive home from the airport and traffic was pretty heavy. We stopped mid-way for some hamburgers and just to get out of the car and move around for awhile. We walked into our house at 2:00 this morning! I was thinking the little ones would probably sleep in the van on the way home, but they really didn't do too much sleeping. Everyone was talking and laughing and just having a nice time together. I think it was close to 3:15 this morning before everyone was actually sleeping!
Emma was the first of the kiddos to wake up this morning and so we spent a little time together looking around the place. This is Emma on our big backyard rock.
The Pahman grandchildren hadn't seen our basement playroom yet, so it was fun to show them all of the toys down there ~ and it was a nice cool place to play today. All of the kids really enjoyed the marble run. Plus, I don't know if you can see the little marionette puppet that Chris is playing with ... I found it in early December when I was cleaning the basement ... I don't even know who it belongs to! But it's kind of a furry little chicken kind of animal that we named Charlie. Christopher was very taken with it.
Like I said, everyone was pretty tired today, so we stayed here at home and basically went from room to room to room, inside and outside, up and downstairs, and just played with every little thing we could get our hands on! With three children this close in age, it's pretty constant activity and a lot of refereeing! It's hard to share, but it's just something that MUST be done!
It was fun to watch all of them building and pretending and playing ...

All of them really enjoyed our road rug from Ikea. We had all of the Matchbox cars and the micromachines out ~ the very same ones that Jesse, Shane and Dylan used to play with. Emma enjoyed these building blocks ... who is that soundly sleeping on the couch behind her?
That's okay, Mr. Jones! He did a great job driving to and from Chicago yesterday. I had fleeting thoughts of just taking the trip myself, but I'm so thankful that I didn't attempt it! Chicago has SO many various ways a person can get lost! And even the airport is immensely confusing to drive through! And parking! I NEVER would have found my car again in such a long time!
I pulled the train table out from the wall in the family room so that it could be walked all the way around. Everyone enjoyed playing with Thomas the Train, Percy, Donald and the other trains today. There were quite a few train wrecks today and our police cars and emergency vehicles were very busy!
We colored for awhile too. The boys weren't too interested in art work today. Emma seems to find art work very relaxing!
We played outside for about 45 minutes, but it was really hot out there this afternoon. We played baseball but missed Uncle Adam's very professional pitching ... we managed to hit a couple of fly balls and played trucks for awhile too, but it was so much cooler inside in the playroom!

We took Diana and the kids over to their Grandpa and Grandma Hand's house by about 4:00 this afternoon. We have a lot of family to share the kids with these three weeks. Tomorrow, I'm going to pick the children up and we are going to drive across town to have pizza with and visit their Grandpa Pahman and Uncle Shane. Dylan is going to meet us over there too. I'll try to do a better job taking pictures tomorrow ... I think I was just a bit too tired today!