Goodbye, cows

While back in my hometown for the funeral, we said another goodbye.  After milking cows for most of their lives and managing a very successful and well-respected dairy business, my dad and uncle have decided to sell the cows and transition into semi-retirement. 








Although we didn't live on the "home farm" growing up, I have many fond memories.  The most distinct is the summer I turned 16.  My job for those months was to do the morning milking of approximately 125 cows, bottle-feed approximately 20 calves and power-wash the parlor six mornings per week from 6:00-9:00am.  I gained so much respect for my dad and his vocation that summer.  My favorite part was helping pull calves.

Here are some other highlights of our goodbye tour:

The "shop" in the machine shed

No green tractors here!

Great Uncle Kevin's go-kart (they've never seen it actually run)

Riding the Kubota around the muddy yard

Feeding cows with Grandpa

Goodbye, cows.  Donsons Farm won't be the same without you!

Swimming!

After another unsuccessful attempt at swimming lessons last winter at the W, I was lucky to find a private teacher able to get some lessons in at the municipal pool before it closed for the season.  Emily has become so much braver and more comfortable in the water.  By the end of four lessons, she had passed the equivalent of two levels and was doing multiple strokes.  She also started going down the water slide.  I was so proud!  Lincoln also did well and passed another level.  He is still very hesitant about getting his head wet or putting his face in the water, but he loves floating around in a ring in the big pool or splashing around the kiddie pool.  I no longer feel like I have to hover over either of them.  There are some videos from an afternoon at the pool in the August play list.

Emily rides a bike!

We have struggled for three summers to get Emily to ride a bike without training wheels.  She had determined that she couldn't do it and would either purposely crash or just flat out refuse to try.  We had even acquired a small bike with the pedals removed to act as a balance bike to learn on.  Finally, this afternoon I told her I'd buy her a Razor scooter if she learned to ride without training wheels.  She thought about it and then got out the balance bike.  Within an hour, she asked to have the training wheels removed from her bike and started cruising up and down the hospital parking lot.  Who'd a thunk?!?  Here is the video proof...

Chicago

We chose Chicago as the destination for our family trip this summer.  Austin travels to Chicago quite a bit for work, so he's somewhat familiar with the city (although he doesn't go to the tourist attractions).  The kids have never seen a big city or a large body of water like Lake Michigan.  It had been 10 years since I had been to the Windy City.

Ready to roll!

We arrived Thursday night and checked into our hotel.  Friday was the 4th of July.  Our big activity of the day was Shedd Aquarium.  Both kids loved the water show.  They also got to touch several animals.  The video of Lincoln pretending to be a penguin is in the July play list.
 

We enjoyed lunch on the terrace with a gorgeous view of the Chicago skyline.

After checking out the swimming pool at the hotel, we experienced Chicago-style pizza.  It was late by the time we were done eating, so we sat down in Millennium Park to watch the fireworks display off Navy Pier through the trees.  We were far enough away that we barely heard the booms, but it was just fine. 

Before leaving the park we had to take a picture by "The Bean" (aka Cloud Gate).

It was a pretty short walk back to our hotel, although still very crowded.  Let's just say the kids got a glimpse of mass humanity. :op

Our second day featured a trip to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower).  We took the subway to Shedd Aquarium, so today we took the "El".  Lincoln was fascinated.  Riding the "train" was the highlight of the trip for him, although he said he preferred the underground subway because it went faster. :o)


The wait time to get up to the Skydeck was almost 90 minutes, but the line continually moved and there were lots of displays and different things to look at along the way, so it didn't seem that long.  We spent a long time enjoying the views of the city.  Emily later said the Willis Tower was the highlight of the trip for her.  Both kids were fearless on "The Ledge" which is a see-through plexiglass ledge that sticks out from the top floor.

Instead of taking the train again, we walked to the lakefront and took break by Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park.  Lincoln got a kick out of trying to feed the birds (see video in July play list).

Then we walked along the lakefront all the way to Navy Pier.  It was quite a distance (which we heard about), and we had to take several breaks, but we made it!  The pictures below are suppose to show how tired and miserable the kids were and then how happy they were to finally make it.  Navy Pier itself was very crowded because of the holiday weekend.  We just looked around a little before heading back to the hotel to go swimming.  According to my new FitBit Flex, we walked 6.75 miles that day!

We got an incredible deal on our hotel thanks to a contact Austin had.  We stayed at The Langham (the first 14 floors of the black building in background) downtown on the river right next to the Trump Tower.  I didn't realize until we got there that it was the #1 rated 5-star hotel in Chicago on TripAdvisor.  It was definitely the nicest hotel I've ever been in.  This was the lobby overlooking the river.



The swimming pool was on the 4th floor.  We spent a lot of time there.  The kids even got in a hot tub for the first time!

The room was over the top.  The kids got a real kick out of the turn-down service at night.  They also loved flipping the switch for the privacy glass between the bathroom and sleeping area.

 They also enjoyed the view out of our 8th floor window.

Despite the amazing accommodations, Emily's overall assessment was that she'd rather stay in a lower class hotel where we could eat [continental] breakfast.  We packed our own breakfast food and gave strict instructions about not touching anything in the well stocked mini bar or food drawers.  I think I might agree with her when it comes to family trips.  However, I have to say the complimentary Nespresso was superb! ;o)

Our last morning was spent at the Adler Planetarium.  I'm sad to say I wasn't terribly impressed.  We did get to see the cool Destination Solar System show in the domed Grainger Sky Theater.

We had to stick our toes in Lake Michigan before leaving.  It was COLD!

As we headed out of town, Austin showed us where the Concur offices are in Oak Brook, IL and the Marriott next door where he spends most of his time when he comes to Chicago.  We also had to take part in the Portillos experience.  It didn't disappoint!  (Okay, so it didn't disappoint me.  The chocolate cake was ahh-mazing.  The kids weren't too excited about the poppy seed hot dog buns.  Their loss.)

It was a fantastic trip.  We had great weather and the kids did awesome.  The highlight of the trip for me was seeing them experience so many things for the first time.  Great memories were made--and that's what it's all about!

VBS at Grace Baptist

The kids attended VBS at Grace Baptist Church in Waverly.  I volunteered to be on the planning team and helped with "busy activities" between the family meal and the start of the programming.  It was a lot of fun to share some of our favorite toys with 45 kids!

The Grace Baptist team did an amazing job of putting together a completely original curriculum called "The Incredible Journey" based on Little Pilgrim's Progress, which is a children's adaptation of John Bunyan's famous Pilgrim's Progress.  In preparation, we had been reading the book as family devotions.  Emily & Lincoln loved it and couldn't wait to go to VBS! The programming included worship dance songs, a narrated mime of the story and smaller groups of age-appropriate activities with a workbook and crafts.  The decorations around the church were amazing and all handmade especially for VBS.

During the week, the kids were challenged to memorize Isaiah 12:2 using hand actions. 

“Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;
For the Lord God is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation.”   (NASB)

The deal was if they could recite it on the last night they could squirt the "bad guys" from the mime story with water guns.  Both Emily & Lincoln practiced and knew it by heart.  Unfortunately, it was raining the last night.  Fortunately, it was a Baptist church, so they went with Plan B and had the kids squirt the characters in the baptismal pool.  The kids LOVED it!

Because of time and age constraints, the programming only covered the story through Christian's arrival at Vanity Fair and then jumped to entering the Celestial City.  It was a beautiful gospel message!  When reading the book to the kids, we had to do a little bit of ad-lib editing since there are still some scary, violent parts of the story that may not be appropriate for younger kids.  However, we look forward to reading it together again and remembering the fun time we had at VBS!

Final kitchen pictures!

After some last minute details and decorating, the kitchen project has been declared complete!  It took about three months from start to finish with a bunch of waiting at the end for final things.  It was all worth it!  We LOVE the new space and can hardly believe it's our house.  It truly is my dream kitchen.  We look forward to hosting many friends and family in the future!  Below is a before & after slide show.

DM Half Marathon

Austin signed up to run the Des Moines half marathon with his dad, sister (Brandi) and her husband (Adam).  However, his dad hurt his leg the week before the race, so Austin's brother, Tyler, ran in his dad's spot.  Here are the runners getting ready to leave for the race:

The kids & I parked by Gray's Lake around the 10 mile mark to cheer them on.  Unfortunately, we missed Austin because he was running too fast!  We stayed until we saw the other three and took off for the finish line.  Because of construction downtown, the finish line was moved to one of the bridges going across the river.  It made for very crowded conditions.  We saw Adam & Brandi finish but were too late for Austin & Tyler.  Austin set a new personal best at 1:39.02.  Here are the runners after the race:

 

We couldn't find Tyler in the crowd, but he was waiting back at the van.  Here was his finish picture:

 

 It was fun to see them run as a family.  It might become an annual tradition!

Post-Summer bucket list

With summer traditionally ending, here's how our bucket list turned out.  We pretty much crossed everything off except bowling and another park tour.  Oh, and the closet organizing.  There's always next year!