Summertime

Sorry it's been a while, but since we got back from our Mackinac vacation, we have been busy.  Summer is when the corn grows which means long days for Rick and I including travel and weekend work, so I have little energy at the end of the day to update.  So here's a brief review of the past 6 weeks or so...

After we got back from vacation, our good friend Kristen got married.  It was a beautiful day and a beautiful venue and a beautiful bride.  We took Natalie (Kristen is not only our family friend but her babysitter as well) and it was adorable to see how excited Natalie was to see Kristen in her dress.  She thought she was a princess.  It was so cute.

The third week of June was the Worth County Fair.  I took Natalie up to spend the weekend and we had a nice time.  The fair is very 4-H focused and pretty small, so it's a great place for small kids to explore.  Natalie loved going on the rides with Grandpa and looking at all the animals.  But the highlight of the fair was the girls showing their first calf.

 I knew that my dad was hoping that he could get the girls to show a bucket bottle calf this year, but they're only 2 and Natalie had been pretty afraid of the cattle.  Until the morning of the show when she saw Grandma washing the calf (Cinderella) and taking her for a walk.  Suddenly Natalie was a little cattlewoman, wanting to brush her and walk her and talk to her.  It was hard to pull her away from the calf--she kept trying to sneak off to be with Cinderella.

When it came time to show the calf, we talked the girls into doing it together (strength in numbers) and to keep them safe from getting in front of or behind the calf, we had Kendall hold on to Grandpa and Natalie hold on to Kendall.  They were so adorable.  Luckily my cousin's son who is great with the girls was also in the ring and talked to them while they were waiting for the judge and kept them entertained.  Kendall was a bit shy when interviewed by the judge, but Natalie was loving the attention.  They did so well and were so cute (I know I'm biased).  It was a very successful morning!

The following week, Rick's parents came to visit.  We went to the National Junior High Rodeo Finals down at the state fairgrounds which was pretty neat.  It was fun for everyone.  We spent a lot of time reading and playing at home with Nanny and Papaw.  They stopped back through the following weekend and we all took Natalie to her first movie in a theater and saw Inside Out.  Very cute, and Natalie did awesome in the theater.

The weekend of the fourth was very busy.  Rick's parents were here Friday and left Saturday morning.  Saturday afternoon we went over to some friends' for supper and to play--they have a young baby and Natalie loved her.  She even asked if she could hold her and did so happily for a few minutes.  The kids played hide-and-seek for a long time and it was nice to catch up with those friends and their growing family.  After leaving their house, we headed home to meet up with my sister and her family and the 6 of us went to watch fireworks.  We weren't sure how that would go since the fireworks didn't start until 10 (2 hours past bedtime!) but it went relatively well.  Natalie got grumpy just before the finale and wanted to lay on the blanket by herself and watch and Kendall wanted to do the same and our kid was too grumpy to share...  It didn't end particularly well, but she loved the fireworks nonetheless.

The following weekend my sister and niece came back to visit and we had fun playing at the library, in the kiddie pool in the backyard, and at the park.  My parents were in town for the same reason as my sister and spent the night as well; Sunday morning the whole family had fun playing around the house and watching the girls take turns on the scooter and tricycle.  That was the same day we got a new bed... Our weekends had been very busy!

The past three weekends have been slower in the fact that we haven't had any visitors or real plans, but I worked at least a few hours every weekend.  Gotta love pollinating.  Yesterday was my last weekend day (and only an hour), so I'm excited to have weekends back, though I'm running out of "easy" things to do around the house with a toddler.  We went to the Minion movie a few weekends ago (Natalie was pretty good in that movie as well) and this past Friday we checked out the splash pad and pool in Ankeny and will definitely be back soon.

August won't be any slower, but at least work will be slower.  I get my weekends back and I'll be taking some PTO for the Iowa State Fair.  We have a vacation booked later this year as well, so another thing to look forward to.  We're on the downhill slide of summer.