Champaign Fire Department Field Trip

September 6, 2012

Love Letter from Charlee

This drawing is for Grandma, Grandpa, Sydney and Tommy. The far left is Grandma with her "bumpy hair", next is Grandpa with his mustache (look closely). Tommy is in the center with his red hat on, Sydney is on the right and she is "brushing her hair" she CLEARLY has a comb in her hand.

Fair Oaks Farm

August 2012

Fair Oaks Farm, Fair Oaks, Indiana.

Sometime in April or May of this year Charlee's school had an auction to help benefit the school. I, being the sucker I am, bid on this Fair Oaks Farm basket that included a giant sized stuffed animal bull and 8 passes to the Fair Oaks Farm. We finally had a free Saturday and figured we go check this place out before the weather got too cold.

We were able to see a calf being born in the "birthing barn". We were told that an average of 8 calves were born a day. They had a giant traffic light on the outside of the barn to indicate what was going on inside. If the light was red a birth was not in process. If the light was yellow a cow was in labor and if it was green, a cow was having a baby. The look on Charlee's face was priceless as that little calf was born. She could see the hooves hanging out but didn't quite understand what was going on. She was convinced that this cow had pooped out another cow. She would say, "That cow had a baby cow come out of his butt."

We were able to see the giant milking process which I thought was pretty fascinating. The cows line up and patiently take their turns walking on the giant rotating turn table, to get strapped to the milking machine and have their utters pumped for an entire rotation before being let go to wait for their turn again. What the life! Having nursed my kids (at least for a short while) I could feel these poor cows' pain! Having the life sucked out of me every two hours day and night. Oh, I could feel their agony! The looks on these poor cows' faces seem to show their true emotion. I could relate.

Mani Pedi

July 19, 2012

Monticello Pool

July 15, 2012

The best purchase of this summer would have to be pool passes to the Monticello Pool. I honestly don't know how we could have survived without them. We went to the pool nearly every day. By the end of this summer Charlee was jumping off of the diving board and swimming by herself to the side of the pool without ANY help. She wouldn't even need to come up for a breath along the way! And of course Van wanted to be like big sister and he was making every attempt to swim like her.  I am glad that both of my kids love the water and that they have both are learning to swim. So proud of my little fishies!