Lincoln Reconnects with Old Friends, and Makes New Ones

We had quite the busy weekend this week.  On Saturday evening Lincoln got to reconnect with some old pals at a birthday party (he managed not to "help" open presents), and on Sunday he got his first visit to Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead, a petting zoo in Overland Park.  We had a lot of fun even though our car thermometer showed 94 degrees when we left at 11:30 in the morning.

Of course,  a petting zoo would not be complete without goats.  Our first stop was by the full size goats.  The goat in this photo was tall enough to reach over the fence and give Lincoln a "kiss" while Scott was holding him. 
Later we got to go inside a pen of smaller goats for some "hands on" feeding.  The goats loved Lincoln, even when he wasn't holding any food.  They started swarming him the minute we entered the pen, prompting Lincoln to announce later that the goats were "mean".  No permanent damage, though - and Lincoln did manage to feed a couple (although in this photo he's not holding any food).

Deanna Rose also has dairy cows.  Inside the barn you can see real-life calves and a huge cow.  Lincoln showed minimal interest in the real cow, though, and went straight towards the fake cow with the fake udder that kids could "milk".

All in all it was  a fun morning, and we look forward to coming back - hopefully when it's not quite so hot!

Happy birthday, Dr. Hauner!

One more year has flown by. Happy birthday, Linda. We hope you had a great day.

More Travel Adventures

As promised, here are some more photos from our South Dakota trip. No trip to SD would be complete without a visit to the World Famous Corn Palace. You can't really tell in the photo, but the corn palace is decorated in...Corn! Naturally-colored maize is used to create the murals on the outer walls.

And what do you do at a Corn Palace? Why, get your photo taken as an ear of corn! The inside of the "palace" is actually an auditorium that houses a big souvenir shop during the day.

At the house, Lincoln had lots of fun stuff to do, like digging in the dirt with daddy.

He also learned a new "swinging" technique. Unfortunately we didn't get any photos of Lincoln at the pool, but he had lots of fun playing with my cousin Chase.

Finally on the trip home Scott and Lincoln got a photo op at a strategically placed tractor. Climbing on a tractor is a great way to break up a looooong drive.  

4th of July Fun

This year We took a 4th of July road trip to South Dakota to Linda's aunt and uncle's house. Linda's aunts, uncles, and cousins came from all over the country for the weekend, and it was great seeing everyone.

We were nervous about the nearly 10 hour trip, but Lincoln did very well in the car. Each way he needed a couple of hours of his new TV obsession (The Little Einsteins) to keep him pacified, but overall it was an easy drive. We'll post pictures of our "scenic stops" in the next post.

We stayed for 3 nights and had a great time. Jerry and Irene have a great house that overlooks the Missouri river. It has a small indoor swimming pool and comes with all the great lake toys - boat, jet ski, etc. We could have stayed an entire week and not gotten bored.

Here are some pictures from the trip...and yes, that is a picture of a turkey being deep-fried in the driveway (this is America, right?).