She's an angel

This past weekend Lily was baptized and here are a few photos from the special day. Jenni and I chose Jenni's cousins Casey and Paul to be Lily's god-parents. Casey was able to come visit us over the weekend, but Paul had to participate from afar, he lives in Connecticut and couldn't make it back in time for the baptism. She was such a pretty baby in her little white dress.

The kids and their Great-Grandpa

While we were at the park Jenni's grandparents came and visited and here are some pictures of the kids with their great grandparents.

Wedding = mini-vacations

As with most people our age and with families our size we get to go to a lot of weddings and we had another opportunity this past weekend to head to Nebraska and celebrate. As the time got closer for the wedding we started looking for hotel rooms and the realization came to us that there weren't any rooms in Lincoln that weekend because of some big football game between the Tigers and the Corn-Flakes (or something like that). So Jenni came up with this idea that we'd take an extra day or two and stay in a cabin at Mahoney State Park, located just 25 miles from Lincoln. She had heard good things about the park and we gave it a shot. It turns out that all the good things she heard were true and it was a fantastic weekend. First off, the park has everything a water park (which was obviously closed, but looked fun), paddle boats, horse trails (and rental horses), lots of playgrounds, nature trails, and all the other great state park stuff. And it had a ton of lodging options, you could camp in a tent, camp in an RV, stay in the main lodge hotel, or rent a cabin. We went the cabin route it costs about the same amount as a hotel room and we had two bedrooms, a big bathroom, heat and a/c, and a kitchenette. It was great. They also have different kinds and sizes of cabins, all of them reasonably priced. I bet you can't pick the one we stayed in (hint-it wasn't that big).


We would highly recommend that any of you take a chance to visit Mahoney, especially if you are like us and have a couple of rambunctious kids and a low budget. The park is also close to Omaha so you can visit the zoo and the other museums around there. We really enjoyed the outside time and all the activities at the park and here are just a few pictures of our adventures.



I did say we went to a wedding as well and I'd like to say that it was also a nice event and I want to congratulate Neal and Lori, thanks for the invite.

Country kids aren't always farmers

Here's the back story...

For the last five years Jenni has wanted to plant a garden and for the last five years we've gotten to some point of starting, most years we bought seeds, one year we actually picked a spot for the garden, the next year I tilled the spot....and so on and so forth. So, this summer we decided to actually give it a go and wouldn't you know it it was the wettest summer ever. All the spring rain and our normal busy lives caused us to plant a little late, but we actually got the seeds in the ground so that's a big step for us. We planted cantaloupe, green beans, peas, carrots, corn, pumpkins, watermelon, and gourds and we watched them grow, flood, grow a little more, flood again, and grow a little more. It was pretty pathetic watching those little green bean and pea plants drown in all that marvelous rain. Needless to say we didn't have a whole lot of success with peas, green beans, corn, or watermelons. BUT WE CAN GROW GOURDS....HOLY SMOKES.

Our carrots were washed out about three hours after we planted them, we went to bed and it started raining and flooded the seeds and spread them throughout the entire garden. And we didn't do well with them either.

The cantaloupe turned out great we ate four or five and gave a couple away and we have big enough pumpkins to adorn the sidewalk for fall. It was definitely a learning experience and we'll probably try again sometime.