On the way to South Carolina we stopped in Wabash, Indiana, my mom’s hometown and the where my 88-year-old grandmother still lives. Here are a couple photos (and a video) taken by my mother’s friend Melody when they walked down to see the trains roll by, and then two photos of grandma when I stopped for sleepover by my lonesome on the way back home (we went to breakfast and the grocery store).

From FollowArt Album 2

From Follow Art 4

Jess and I both attempted to write a bit about our trip but it all seems a bit of a blur right now. So hopefully these photos tell the story! Click here the photos in a full screen slideshow.

we’ll be posting a gallery of photos from our recent trip tomorrow. Jessica is working on captions!

It's the FOURTH OF JULY! Right now I am waiting for Art to come back
from his Big Boy fun time with school friend Henry, Henry's dad, his
preschool teacher Ms Jen and her two boys, Wil and Henry. They all
went to Powderhorn Park to see the fireworks. Art talked about seeing
the fireworks all day. I think he must have asked me 30 times when he
got to see them. Well, he's probably being walked back from the park
right now. I hope he had a good time!Lewis saw some street fireworks after dinner and said it was too loud.
And then "too loud AGAIN, Mama." He would cover his ears, but only
buried his head into me one time. Mostly he still wanted to watch
them. What's interesting is that when I checked on him after he was
asleep tonight there were firecrackers going off and he covered his
ears in his sleep.Tonight we will all three sleep in the Giant Bed with the a/c on. Ben
is still on the way home with the minivan he wisely spared the kids
and I the torture of another long road trip to get home. However, I
must admit I envy his two+ days of alone-time and self-determined
stops and sleeping until he feels like waking up. Question: Why do
kids who go to bed at nearly 11pm wake up at 6:30am? That's just not
right.

Today we leave this beautiful place and return home to minnesota (jess, her mom, and kids by plane, I'm driving to return Monday). We have a plethora of great photos to share, and happy memories that will slowly fade until we return with a family twice as large. We will miss it here. And I especially know Jessica's mother Adria will. She loved it here and I'm so happy she came. –Sent from my handheld device.–

So we rolled in today around four to the Center in Myrtle Beach. Jess was especially happy that we arrived when art and lew were sleeping–she has fond memories of magically arriving at her family's cottage after a long car nap. We saw a small alligator tonight swimming through the dark lake, something art was especially excited about. His bright red eyes lit up when our fashlight beam hit him. After we saw it Art immediately wanted to go home and tell mama who was having some time to herself. "Let's go Papa, come on," he said as the thing swam in our direction–I wanted to get a closer look but art just wanted to go tell mama. "I just really like to tell mama about the things I see," he explained. Meanwhile Lewis was scared of the loud secadas and wanted to be held. "ascared uhbugs, Papa." Wimp!!! There are so many spiders here. We stopped to watch one as it built its web. Amazing, really amazing. He looked chaotic and unfocused, barely holding on as the wind shook him violently on his weak web. But as he pranced around he trailed a strand of material and this semetrical thing of beauty took shape. I could have watched a long time. We swam in the ocean a bit, the surf was high and sorta dangerous, pulling sideways and outward. Jessica, who loves combing the beach and finding cool things,  has devised a shell collecting strategy. Collect shells each time at the ocean, bring them back the next day and replace shells she's fallen out of favor with with better finds. Repeat for entire trip until she's left with shells she really loves. Its hot and humid, all sleeping bodies in our cabin have a non-rotating fan aimed at their mostly naked body. We will be off the map and not blogging for a while, although on the map here:
http://m.google.com/u/m/z8q5zD These 2 pix are from my cell phone taking a photo of the display of my nicer camera. Anywya, one is from here and the other from our hotel last night. The beds were super bouncy…
Take care, ben –Sent from my handheld device.–

After the baby girls are born we will have 80 finger and toenails to trim, not including our own, of course