Competition

Over the last month we've entered a few competitions starting with Ethan, Amelia and I entering projects in the Southern Iowa Fair. This week was registration for school, it's the same evening as our towns Sweet Corn Serenade, we make a evening of it and like to go up town for supper and to visit with friends. This year I remembered they did a pedal pull for kids, so three of the four participated in that. Finally yesterday Mark raced in his second hare scramble race. Ethan and I went along to cheer him on!

Ethan got Best of Show on his bird house, it was a kit he got for Christmas and put together himself.

Amelia got all blue ribbons on her crafts and a red ribbon for her flower.

Elijah couldn't fully touch the pedals, but wanted to do the pedal pull anyway!

Amelia got to pull in the rain!

Ethan got to use the biggest tractor, he placed 3rd.

There was a big crowd in Fremont yesterday for the Hare Scramble! I don't understand why so many people like to beat themselves and their bikes up riding hard through the woods on a very hot day!

Each rider puts a bar code sticker on their helmet and gets scanned in each time they cross the check point. Mark placed fourth in his class. Not to bad considering he broke his clutch handle on his last lap, 6 miles from the finish line deep in the woods!

Amelia's Birthday Party

Last week was Amelia's 6th birthday. To celebrate we had over one of her cousins and a couple friends. Amelia loves to do crafts so we made sure to include this hobby at her party. She is growing up so fast and is looking to starting kindergarten in a few weeks! Happy Birthday Amelia!

If you ever need to come up with a birthday cake idea just do a "image" google search on the topic and let your kid sit in front of the computer. Amelia loved doing this and found this Little Pet Shop Pony cake for her party.

Poor Amelia, I think it took her at least 10 tries to blow out her candles, and they weren't even trick ones! :)

The girls enjoying the water balloon flip flop craft we made.

The finished product!

This was the best group shot I got, silly girls!

Washington County Fair Race

Thursday evening Mark, Ethan and I headed to the Washington County fair for a motocross race. The weather started off extremely hot and cut our night short with a big thunderstorm!

Ethan ready to race!

This isn't good! Mark's bike was locked up and he had to have a friend pull start him before the race. It seems that Elijah watched Ethan wash his bike earlier that afternoon and he thought he would be nice and "wash" Mark and his Uncle Kurt's bikes. Well he ended up getting water in the mufflers locking them both up. Thankfully no damage was done to either one!

Ethan in line ready for his practice with all the other 50cc riders. They have two 50cc classes, one for 4-5 year olds and one for 7-8 year olds, at this track they all raced at the same time.

These young riders have a lot to watch out for during a race. There's jumps and ruts, other riders and often times the little ones will fall over and need help starting again, so they even have to watch out for parents on the track!

Ethan did great and never wrecked once!

Passing on the last half lap to win second place! Ethan was very disappointed the rain came cancelling the second moto, he would have loved to race again!

Mark also raced, this time in the Open B Class. This class is mainly teenagers that are very aggressive, with out a wife and kids at home to support. :) Next race I'm going to encourage him to go back to the +30 B Class, these guys don't have the " I'm invincible" attitudes of teenagers.

Vacation 2011 - Elephant Rocks & Camp

This will be my final post on vacation. I've already posted way to many pictures for one small trip! On our last full day we took a short drive to Elephant Rock State Park. It was fun for the kids to climb rocks and explore. The added bonus was no long walk to get to it!

Elijah and Ezra off to explore.

Bigger rocks for bigger kids. Ethan is using the tree to get down rather than back tracking to move on. There were several very high places that kids could fall and get hurt so we had to watch them close.

Back at camp Anton enjoyed his first smore. As you can tell he liked it!

A family picture in front of our cabin.

Don't let this sweet smile fool you, Anton was a crab most of the way home!

About 5 minutes into our drive home our truck started acting up. After a stop at a dealership we found it was the injectors giving us problems. Kurt pulled Mark part way home until we met up with a friend who brought a trailer and Mark hauled it the rest of the way home. We all made it home safely and thankfully it's looking like our insurance will cover the repairs!

Thanks for a fun vacation everyone!

Vacation 2011 - River Rats

We spent a good part of a day swimming and riding in the Black River which was near our campground.

Elijah sporting his river swimming wear!

A FULL tube!

Someone got in a little deep!

Mark and his siblings in the river.

Three boys floating down the river.

Safety Disclaimer: The water was so shallow they had to get out because they kept getting hung up. Plus Grandma was riding with them but got off before I snapped a picture. :)

I've added a couple vacation posts which I started Saturday. They are coming up before the the St. Louis Zoo post. So if you want to check them out be sure to scroll down!

Vacation 2011 - St. Louis Zoo

I've added two more vacation posts which are after this one.

We spent a few days vacationing in Southern Missouri with Marks family this past week. We had a fun time despite extremely hot weather most of the time. Our trip started with a hotel stay in St. Louis were the kids spent lots of time in the pool and watching cartoons in the lobby. The next morning a few of us braved the heat and went to the St. Louis Zoo. I was surprised to find out the zoo is actually free to visit. They charge to park but we opted to park on a side street and walk for free. I would love to go back on a cool day with the family, Grants Farm is another free attraction in St. Louis I would enjoy going to.

The two young ones looking very hot! Anton wouldn't give up his blanket even though the heat index was over 100!

The penguin house was 45 degrees, it was a wonderful way to cool off and was Anton's favorite part.

I tried to get Ethan to kiss the cobra statue but he wasn't interested, I was lucky just to get him in a picture!

Amelia getting up close to a huge hippo.

Elijah's favorite animals were the elephants.

Three hot little boys shedding clothes.

Hey you girls aren't babies! Poor Karl had a heavy load!