10-10-10

Happy birthday to me! October 10, 2010 is a pretty cool birthday to have! I had a fantastic birthday! I got to spend time with Benjamin, Nathan, Mom and Grandma! I have always liked having the birthday October 10, but 10-10-10 is even better! We had a great day just hanging out at home. We made some of my favorite food that day and it was gorgeous weather, so we spent a lot of time outside. We had hot beef sandwiches for lunch and steaks, mashed potatoes, beef & noodles, and green beans for supper. Grandma made an amazing white cake with homemade vanilla frosting (my favorite)! Grandma, Mom and I finished out the day playing Skip-bo, which is one of our favorite games to play when we get together. Great company + great food + great weather=perfect birthday! Can you tell that I really love birthdays?

Pumpkin Time

My mom and grandma came to visit us the weekend of my birthday. We had a lot of fun while they were here and they were only here for a few days. I really wanted to go to the orchard while they were visiting because it is one of my favorite things to do in the fall. We ended up not staying long because it was over 80 degrees that day and it was hot! I think the high was 82 and the record high for October 9 in Kentucky was 83.

Millennium Park

Ben and I went for a walk at Millennium Park this morning and then played on the playground. I took some pictures of him chasing the ducks and playing on the playground. Then, he started playing with some kids so I stopped taking pictures because we didn't know them and I didn't think it was appropriate to take pictures of kids we don't know. He had a lot of fun and wore himself out. He fell asleep in the car before we got home and it takes us five minutes at the most to drive to the park.

It was interesting because I only saw one other mom there with a child and the rest were all dads. I chatted with a couple of the dads because Ben was playing with their kids. Ben played with a 2 year old girl. Then, a father with three children came and Ben played with them too. There was a 4 year old girl, a two and a half year old boy and a girl Ben's age. He got to teeter totter with them and run and play!

Need to Update!

I have not updated the blog in a really, really long time! My apologies to anyone who actually checks our blog to see photos or get an update!!! I have worked a lot this summer and we have been busy and it takes awhile to upload photos to the blog, so I have neglected it!!! Anyway, I am going to try to update it more regularly from now on and slowly post photos and updates from this summer. Please check for backdated posts because I will date them when they happened rather than when I post them. Hopefully soon I will put pictures from our trip to Iowa and Ben's birthday party in July. There will also be photos from Ben's first trip to the zoo and Luke and Rachele's wedding in June. I need to transfer pictures from our camera to our computer so this may take a little while.

Quick update: Ben is talking more and more all the time, he is one of the busiest toddlers I have ever seen (he literally never stops moving), Ben is mean to Leo and his Mommy and Daddy, but well behaved at daycare, he is currently cutting his molars, and hopefully soon we will have a better idea of how much longer we will be living in Kentucky!!!

Grandma and Grandpa Come to Visit

Cary and Brenda (aka Papa and Nana, aka Grandma and Grandpa) came to visit us over Labor Day weekend. They drove in on September 1 and left today. We had so much fun while they were here! The time went by entirely too fast! Every time anyone comes to visit or we visit any of our friends and family, it makes us realize how much we want to move back to Peoria so we can be so much closer to everyone and see everyone more frequently!

Nathan had to work on Thursday and Friday and I had to work on Thursday until after lunch, so Grandma and Grandpa babysat Ben while we were at work. They had a lot of fun!



During the day on Friday, Brenda and Cary had an errand to run and stopped to looked at some antiques. They bought some really cool hand tools used for harvesting tobacco, which used to be a major cash crop in this area. There are still tobacco farms scattered about but they are much smaller and rarer than they used to be. On Friday evening, Nathan and I went to the Festival of Ales (a beer fest) in Lexington and Papa and Nana babysat again. We had a lot of fun and they had fun too! I am not sure who was more tired when we got home, Papa or Ben! I think they wore each other out!

On Saturday, we had lunch at a local diner in Burgin because we love their fried catfish. It is so yummy, even Ben loves it! Then, we went to a couple of different wineries in the area for wine tastings and to buy some wine. We finished up the day with ice cream from Dairy Queen, which Ben is always a huge fan of!


Nathan smoked pork loin on Sunday morning and we had that for lunch. It was delicious, as always! Then, we went to Boyd Orchard. When we got home, we took some pictures and played outside.

I had to work on Monday, so Nathan brewed beer and Nana and Papa chased after/entertained Ben. When I got home from work, we drove around to find a tobacco barn and field for Brenda to take photos of and we found a really cool barn and field next to each other that were just what she was looking for.

If you can't tell by the pictures, Ben had so much fun with his grandparents and we are pretty sure that his Papa is his favorite person in the world!