Look! Stairs!

Two years ago, no wait. Two LONG years ago, Allen decided that our deck off of the back door wasn't safe and tore it down. He was right. It didn't have galvanized screws or anything, and was quite unstable. The problem was, Allen's not much of a carpenter, and putting it back up would be quite an endeavor on our part. Well, the wait is over! Keith Harders (a member of our church and Allen's new assitant wrestling coach) IS a carpenter. A real one. Certified and everything. He came over yesterday and started the long process... Pre stairs. This is what we've been seeing for 2 years. That first step is a lu-lu! Four feet down! The stairs in the back of the Aztek. They can't wait to get out! The process begins... Some progress... Getting there... Could it be?... WoooHooo!!! They're still not completely done, but we can actually lock the house when we leave in the morning. Speaking of which - we can actually lock ourselves out. Like this morning when I left for church. I didn't know the door knob lock was locked, but I had my key, right? I had a key, but not THE key. Luckily, I was going into town anyway, and Allen had THE key. (We got duplicates made.) The reason we went into town was to see two precious babies in the NICU. My friend Jenny was pregnant with twins a while ago, but God called them home before they were to be born. She got pregnant again with twins almost three months later. She was due middle of October, but was trying to hold out until Cael's birthday (Sept 19). She had her babies on Friday. Miraculously, everyone is doing great. Their lungs are developed and everything. Aubri - 4lbs. 8oz. Seth - 4lbs. 11oz. Not bad for twins! They're peanuts! They do have feeding tubes for right now because their sucking reflexes aren't developed quite yet. We just praise God that there weren't any problems, and they continue to grow quickly so they can go home!

Shrimp Boil

So we had our shrimp boil, and everybody was stuffed. Then we had homemade ice cream. It was a great night!

A Day Trip

For the first time in a long time, Allen has a weekend off! Saturday we woke up, and Allen said, "I want to get out of town and do something fun as a family." He remembers his dad taking his family to the SAC Museum (Strategic Air Command) by Omaha, and since it's only a few hours from us, we decided that's where we were going. We told Cael we were going to go see some planes, and, oh my, we were excited. When you walk into the museum, the first thing you see is an SR-71 hanging from the ceiling. This is Allen's favorite plane. He remembers this plane arriving at the museum when he was little. He saw it before it was hung up. He remembers walking underneath it with his dad, and now he's showing it to Cael! I love this picture of the boys walking into the hangar. There were two big hangars full of planes! They have a mock cockpit of a B-52 that you can sit in. So many buttons and levers! Cael is sitting on the fuel tank of a MIG-21. After the SAC Museum, we went to the "Wildlife Safari" drive-through exhibit. We saw lots of cool animals. Being from rural Nebraska, though, it was funny to see people getting excited over seeing white tailed deer. We drove on through that one without stopping. Allen said, "If I can't shoot it and eat it, I don't care to see it." This bull elk was posing for cars as they passed by. He even called to his buddies. Cael was impressed. These silly pelicans were fighting and snapping at each other. Cael was trying to tell them to not be naughty. A timber wolf. There was also a black bear in the same inclosure, but Allen said the pictures didn't turn out.

It's been a while

I haven't posted for a while because sometime between my last post and now, school started. We started last week, while the public schools in GI started yesterday. Last Sunday was our Rally Sunday, which is "church in the park." Cairo has a great pool, so we have church and then swim until lunch. Lunch = big potluck and lots of fun. Cael and I had to have a talk about church before we got there. It went something like "Cael, we're going to church, but it's at the park. We can play in the park, but not until after church, because it's still church. Except it's in the park." I'm not sure how much he understood, but he must have gotten some of it, because he was pretty good all the way through. We also went out to our friends' Tara, Jim, and Mason Janda's house on Sunday afternoon. We got to ride their horses and then had supper. I took Cael with me on "Doc," and Tara had Mason on "Sisko." After about 45min, we dropped the kids off with their dads and went to ride through the pasture. I also wanted to see if I could get Doc to trot and lope, but the only good place to do that was in the alfalfa field. I am now having the worst allergic reaction I've had in 3 years. Hopefully my antibiotics will kick in soon to relieve my sinus infection. Allen's trying to get registered to take an online course at UNK to finish of his coaching certificate. He's frustrated, though because he had to call all over and get transcripts sent. Oh well. It will get taken care of eventually. I should have some good pics this weekend to show. We're doing a shrimp boil at our house on Sunday. The Janda family and Brent and Kassidy will be coming over. Can't wait!

At the Fair

Since we weren't going to take Cael on any rides this year, we wanted to at least take him to the animal exhibits. They had the show animals, and then a small petting zoo. Kyle Dibbern (one of Allen's wrestlers) had a pen of three that were quite tame. He helped Cael pet them. Cael had to honk back at this goose that was making quite a racket. Cael helped his friend Emily Harders feed her bunny that won Junior Grand Champion. Emily's mom, Vanessa, held "Spitfire" the bunny so Cael could pet her.

CHICAGO!!!

Last night was the Chicago concert at the Hall County Fair. It was awesome! They played for a good two hours that went by way too quickly.

Who knew?

Friday, Cael was all ready to go swimming with Allen when he came home from work. "Mommy, I'm going swimming with Daddy! Ouch! My tummy hurts!" It was like someone flipped a switch. Well, they didn't go swimming. Saturday, we went shopping, but Cael was in his stroller most of the day, and slept a lot. Sunday at church and at the teacher installation he was fine, then that evening just got plain scary. He was doubled over and crying that his tummy hurt. He wasn't throwing up or anything, just a lot of pain. I slept with him, and Monday morning Allen called our doctor and said that he would be there first thing. Our doctor and his nurses know us pretty well. We don't freak out at little things, so if we're worried, they're worried. I went to my teacher meeting at 9am while Allen took Cael to the doctor. A blood draw and a CT scan later, our doctor and a surgeon didn't like what they saw, and we are now appendix free. Keep in mind Cael's 3 in September. Who knew one so little could have that trouble? We now have a completely different kid. He came out of recovery to his room and ate one popsicle and drank half of my smoothie. Allen got him the black Spiderman and the Green "Globum" (Cael speak for Goblin) for being so sick (Daddy was 5 when he got his appendix out and received Optimus Prime as a "sick present," so he thought Cael needed something too). Between playing with his new toys and watching Shrek, he ate yet another popsicle. Some family members called to talk to him, and he was happy to oblige. He was sitting up and laughing this morning, so I think we're pretty much on the mend. We just need to take it easy for a couple of days and keep on top of the pain meds. His incision is less than a 1/2 inch long and is butterflied shut. No stitches. I think the whole thing was harder on us than on him. Remember, he was in the hospital in April with Rotavirus, which was scary enough. We told our favorite nurses that we really just need to get together for a BBQ when we want to see each other, because seeing them this way is getting awfully expensive.

End of a season

July 31st was my last day in the fields. I turned in my work car and said goodbye to my counting. It's exciting, but also a little sad since those are MY fields (not really, but I do have a feeling of ownership since I've been watching over them for a month). Wood River garage sales tomorrow (HUGE!!) and I'm also going shopping for new school clothes. I haven't gotten new school clothes for several years (try 4), so it's about time. We've been at VBS this week. Cael started out in the 18m-2yr room, but since his buddies were in the 3-4 class, and he's 3 in September, I asked to have him moved up, and just became a volunteer for the class. He did quite well, and he's in the program on Sunday. I'll give the camera to Kassidy so maybe she can get some cute pics and video while I'm helping. I also went to the chiropractor yesterday. I wore him out, I think. He worked me over from the top of my head to my feet. He even had to work on my nose since Cael headbutt me last Sunday as we were getting ready for church. I'm going to be sore for a couple of days, but it's worth it to be back in alignment!