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.

She's mobile

It has finally happened, Lily is mobile. For a couple of weeks she has been accidentally scooting and rolling all over the floor and about two weeks ago she finally did it...she started crawling. There is now nothing stopping her, she is everywhere and she's getting there quickly. I can't believe that she my baby is growing up this fast.

Kayla can hear again

Many of you probably don't know but Kayla gave us a little bit of stress over the past several months. During the last school year it was brought to our attention from her teacher that she was having difficulty hearing, we had noticed it at home as well, but we thought she was just ignoring us and causing us grief. We got her hearing tested and she failed four different tests and we found out that she had significant hearing loss in both ears because of an inner ear infection. The good news was that they said it was correctable with tubes. We scheduled her surgery for this summer and got it done at the end of July. She had tubes in both ears and her adenoids removed. It was pretty hard on us to take her in to have surgery at such a young age, but she was a super champ and went through all the motions like it was nothing. We were so proud of how she did and we had the follow up doctor's appointment and her hearing was perfect. Here is her picture in her hospital gown right before they took her off to the operating room...she's awful cute.

Garage Sale cleanup

This summer Jenni and I held a much needed garage sale and cleaned out a lot of the extra stuff that had been cluttering up our home for years. We had a very successful sale and netted enough to by ourselves a much needed new recliner. Anyway, as we were cleaning up the kids found my old ironing board and decided to play surfing with it. It was pretty funny to watch them cart it around under arm and pretend like they were hitting the waves.

Our Big Boy's Birthday party

This was the year that our baby boy turned the big 5, so it was his year to have a big birthday party with all his friends. It is a little stressful on us as parents to figure out what kind of party to throw. Jon has a summer birthday, meaning getting all of his daycare friends' address's for invitations and finding something that they can all do. Then we received our Friends of the Zoo pamphlet and it showed that the KC Zoo will throw your party for you. Jenni called them up and set up our date, we invited all his friends, and we had a great time. It definitely was the way to throw a kid's birthday party. The zoo provided a place to party, the cake, ice cream, drinks, gifts, and of course animals for the kids to touch and learn about. Jon really liked his party and it seemed that his friends had a lot of fun as well. It's just hard to believe that Jon is 5 years old, he's getting so big.