At IRCHA - helicopters EVERYWHERE!
Steve & Sheryl Clemens - aka PaPa & Nana by the grandkids.
Magnus - 1 1/2 & Reagan - 2 1/2We just got back from our little vacation yesterday morning at 8:30am. (After driving all night!) We made the 11 hr. drive - to and from Muncie, IN - during the wee hours for Magnus' sake. We did end up taking quite a few naps on our vacation because of it though! (Maybe sleeping isn't your idea of a vacation, but I happen to be rather fond of it myself, so it didn't rain on my parade at all.) Our reason for choosing Muncie for our vacation was two-fold. One reason was that IRCHA was being held at the AMA headquarters there. IRCHA is the biggest annual R/C helicopter event in the country (world?). There were around 800 pilots (Joe included) that registered for it, and many more spectators. We enjoyed watching the world's best R/C heli pilots do their thing - it was quite impressive! Joe spent much more time at the event than Magnus and I though, since Magnus would have to get his daily nap-time in, and then just wanted to play with all the toys at Steve and Sheryl's. Which brings me to our second reason for choosing Muncie. The Clemens' have always been good friends of ours (they've known Joe forever) and we've been wanting to visit them for a while. They also have 3 children around my age (the 2 boys live nearby - see blogs "Shawn & Melanie" and "Scott and Kristina") who each have 3 children of their own - all aged 4 and under. So, Magnus got to play with 6 of the grandchildren after church on Sunday, and we got to visit with some of our favorite people. They treated us like family, and we had such a great time visiting. We kept Scott and Kristina's little boy Reagan (2 1/2 years old, but just Magnus' size!) one day/night, so that was extra fun for Magnus. They had so much fun - Magnus followed Reagan everywhere, and Reagan followed me everywhere. Then Saturday we ate supper with Shawn and Melanie (and kids) and they joined us later on for the helicopter night-flying at IRCHA, where they put neon lights all over the heli's and fly them after dark - very cool! Plus the kids were all given glow-sticks which made it fun for them. Shawn and Melanie have 2 Mastiffs, and though I didn't get a picture of their big male named Xander, you can imagine what he looks like if you close your eyes and picture a dark brindle colored dog that weighs over 180 lbs and has a head the size of a pumpkin, paws the size of my fists... and a neck girth of over 30"! He was so sweet, and I fell pretty much head over heels. We told them to put us on their waiting list when it comes time to have puppies! (Probably next year sometime.) Anyway, we had such a wonderful time with everybody that when it came time to leave, we couldn't believe that we'd been there 5 days already! All we could say was, "Man, I wish we lived closer!" We will miss them - until next time!
