4 years later...

It’s hard to believe, but our little baby is now four years old! While Lincoln's actual birthday is today, we had a birthday party last Sunday to celebrate. Luckily our family room is large enough to hold a lot of people, because almost everyone we invited was able to attend. We had seven 4-year olds, plus parents and assorted family in attendance. Overall it was a success!

We started off with a couple of semi-organized games – pin the tail on the cow and limbo. It worked pretty well, considering that there were 4-year-olds involved. Most of the game time, though, was spent playing with trains and determining who was best friends with who.

The highlight of the party was the cake and presents (of course!) Lincoln helped me bake white cupcakes the day before, and I added “Mickey Mouse” heads to them – ice cream scoops with two chocolate cookies for ears. At Lincoln’s request (or insistence, as it were), we also had a small round cake for blowing out candles.

As for gifts, Lincoln received some pretty cool stuff – including lots of car stuff, motorcycles, and games. Here he is wearing another of his gifts – a superhero cape customized with an “L”. After he put it on all of his friends asked him if he could fly. He can’t yet, but he’s still trying!

Tour de Grandparents

While Scott was off having fun bicycling, Lincoln, Guy, and I went on our own tour - first to Grandma and Grandpa Kings, and then on to Grandma and Grandpa Hauner's. To add to the fun (and chaos) we were joined by Everett and Mary. The boys had a great time together, and the adults had an interesting time trying to keep up with three very active boys.

At Grandma and Grandpa Kings, we spent our first evening at the pool where Lincoln, Everett, and Guy all had fun floating and kicking. Guy proved to be our water baby by wading out until he was up to his chin in water. We originally had hoped to visit the Loup River the next morning, but were met by rain. When we finally made it to the river, it was too high from the rain to wade in, so we played on the swings and headed to Jenner's Park (where there is an actual, old bear cage from when it was a zoo).

We headed out to Grandma and Grandpa Hauner's that evening so we could get an early start the next morning at the Lincoln Children's zoo. The weather cooperated this time, and we had a fun morning with Grandma Hauner visiting the animals and (of course!) riding the train.

It was an exciting weekend overall, and now we're ready for a vacation to recover from our vacation!

BRAN 2010

We're back home, unpacked, and dried out from BRAN 2010. Tracy, Randy, and I did 230+ miles during the last 3 days of the week, and Dad, Aaron, and Kyle did the full ~500 mile ride, 7-day ride across Nebraska.

The weather was pretty crappy with rain, wind, and thunderstorms almost every night and a few of the days, but in the end good times prevailed.

I've posted a few other BRAN pictures from the start and finish - but I didn't have a camera during the ride. Aaron took some great riding action shots that we'll try to share later.