A Trip to the Dairy

A couple of weekends ago we went to the Fair Oaks Dairy with our Farm Bureau Young Farmers group.  Ben and I had been a couple of times before, but this was the first trip for Andy.  It was a great day!

 Checking out the "cow carousel" with Daddy.

 Looking at the brand new baby calves.  We even got to see one being born!

 Katie tried her hand at rock climbing...she did great!

Jumping around :)

Celebrating 40 Years!

My brothers, my sister, and I got together with my parents to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.  In today's world, 40 years is quite an accomplishment, and I think my parents would be the first to say that marriage is work, but it's very worth the effort.  I'm so happy for them and so proud to have such a wonderful example of what marriage should be...love, trust, work, dedication, and above all, respect.

The happy couple!

Our fun gift to them (thanks to Pinterest...of course).

Grandpa

I can't believe it's been a year since Grandpa passed away.  I think of him daily and miss him so much...wishing I could still stop by his house and sit in front of that kitchen window and talk to him...so many memories.

Love you Grandpa!

My newest Pinterest project!!!

Andy spent Mother's Day and tonight finishing up my new pallet table.  I found this idea on Pinterest, and Andy modified it a bit to meet our needs.  He added boards between the slats, so that glasses wouldn't tip over.  He also drilled a hole for our umbrella, and put it on casters so that we could move it around the pool deck.  Needless to say, I absolutely love it!  All it took was two pallets (we have plenty of those laying around the farm), a 4x4 post, 4 casters, 8 L-brackets, some screws, Thompson's water sealer, and elbow grease! 

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my awesome husband!  I love it!!!

Bubbles make EVERYTHING better!

Are bubbles magical? Can they really make your troubles disappear?

 I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. Let's just say that April is a month I'd like to forget. It was a busy, sad month. We had a student pass away, which was just a horrible tragedy. The students are starting to get back to their old selves, but it will be a very long process. She was such a sweet girl. One positive has been seeing how the students have come together to support her family...they definitely have hearts of gold and are doing all that they can to lift them up.

On top of this, I had to be gone several days this month for field trips and conferences. This made it very hard to be there for the students as they worked through the grieving process. I think I was gone 9 days during the past 3 weeks...absolutely crazy!  

It was so bad, that even Ben noticed. I had him come in to my Advanced Child Development class a couple of weeks ago because we were learning about toddler development. Here is how the dialogue went:

Me: "Ben, who's that?"
Ben: "That's Daddy"
Me: "Who am I?"
Ben: "You're Mommy"
Me: "Where does Daddy work?"
Ben: "At Purdue"
Me: "Where does Mommy work?"
Ben: "At meetings"

Ugh...not exactly what I'd like for my toddler to remember! It's definitely time for a slower schedule, and I'm hoping that May will bring exactly that!

Tonight, we were working hard to put my garden in, spray Round-Up, and plant my flowers. When we were all finished, Ben asked if we could blow some bubbles. Sure! What started out as a quick bubble session before the bathtub, ended up as a full blown bubble-fest.  Ben started out blowing the bubbles, but quickly gave that up to be the "bubble popper"!  He was running, jumping, squealing and laughing the whole time. 

Hmmmm, maybe bubbles ready do make everything better.  They're sure helping May start off better than April ended!  Here's to a great last month of school, and many more nights of bubbles!!!