Friday, August 13, 2010

Pedal Pullers


Garrett at the Czech Fest Pedal Pull.




Anna at the Czech Fest pedal pull.



A few weeks ago we made the pedal pull rounds in our area. Anna got 2nd place in her age group at the Russell County Fair. This was her first competition and she hopped on and just about ran over the toes of the man helping run the pull. She pulled the full distance and then was in a "pull off" with 2 boys. Our little farm girl came in 2nd place.

A few days later we went to the pedal pull at Czech Fest in Wilson. Anna took 2nd in her group and Garrett won his age group. He also pulled the full distance in his first round and then had to have a "pull off" with 2 other boys.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Planes, Trains & Automobiles


We took a vacation to Des Moines, Iowa. We had a great time staying with our friends, Wayne and Marlene. In fact, the kids wanted to know when we get to go back, which might have something to do with our outing to Incredible Pizza. While there we did drag the kids to a few boring sites.

TRAIN--we went on the Boone, Iowa Scenic Railway. The town of Boone is NW of Des Moines. The train ride was 1 hour and 45 minutes. We decided to ride the caboose which did not have a bathroom. This was a bit of a gamble on our part as Sam has just been potty trained this summer, at that age, when they gotta go, THEY GOTTA GO! The gamble was worth it. We were the only ones in the caboose so the kids got to climb up to the top seating and they could look out of the caboose and see to the front of the train.

AUTOMOBILE--Of course we drove the blue mini van on the trip but I thought this made for a much more exciting automobile. It is amazing what kind of FREE entertainment you can find. We drove by a Dodge Dealership and saw this sitting in front so we stopped and got a free ride in the back of the monster truck. The kids loved it, although I'm not sure you can tell from this picture.

PLANE--On our way home we stopped to see a distant cousin of my late father-in-law. He has a couple airplanes. We opted for this plane as oppose to his stunt plane. I wasn't sure a stunt plane would be good for the kid's first airplane ride. It was great fun. We flew over Lawrence. Garrett told our pilot Nick who happens to be a KU fan that it smelled when we were over Lawrence. We also went over The Plaza, Arrowhead and The K. This was the first airplane ride for the kids. They didn't even need the barf bags I brought along.


Anna, loving her first airplane ride.

Garrett enjoyed the ride as well.


Sam was not quite as into the plane ride as the older kids.


A farmer can't drive through Nebraska and Iowa without checking out the corn.

Incredible Pizza

Incredible Pizza

Yes, more Incredible Pizza

We took a quick self guided tour of the capitol building in Des Moines. The dome is covered in 23 karat gold sheets. It really is pretty, inside and out.

Inside the capital.

Inside the dome.

More inside the dome.

One final story of our vacation: The night we arrived in Des Moines we were on the back deck visiting with our friends. The kids were playing in the back yard. I don't know about everyone elses kids, but mine can not stay away from water. Anna and Garrett were lying on their stomachs reaching into a very small fish pond. We told them they could not play in the water so as Anna was getting up a rock wobbled and she went into the pond head first. I looked soon enough to see her slither into the pond with a splash and her legs kicking around. As we lunged for the pool it seemed like it took her a long time to come up out of the water. If it would have been one of the boys they would have been crying, but not Anna, she came up out of there "madder than a wet hen." She marched into the house saying, "I did not like that." Of course we kept teasing her about going swimming with the fish and how she got to go swimming more than the boys on our vacation. I'm not sure she thinks it is that funny but we sure got a lot of laughs out of it. I'm sure glad my kids have a good sense of humor.