A few more final vacation pictures...

The last Saturday we were in Walton we rode up to a little shelter up on a tall hill down at the farm and had a cookout with all the family. It was really an enjoyable time. Grammy drove a tractor up with most of us in a wagon behind it. We parked once up at the shelter and the boys especially had a fun time playing on the tractor.

Titus and Keegan on the John Deere

Keegan found another fruit he liked and gobbled the watermelon right up.

Katelyn quite enjoyed her hot dog.

As did Titus, who dove right into his hot dog middle first.

A family photo of Joel, Shana, Keegan, and the dogs.

Katelyn and Keegan playing in the bucket.

Joel and Grampa cooking some hot dogs

Grammy and Joel talking while Grampa was working on the fire

Colleen holding Lydia

Titus was apparently driving on this joy ride.

The kids enjoying the shelter

Enjoying the wagon ride up

Titus looking silly with the brim of his hat flipped up

Lydia smiling

Titus and Keegan enjoying some grapes out on the deck

Grammy doing some laundry with Lydia lounging

A closeup of Lydia's posh accomodations

Titus enjoying sitting in the truck

On Thursday morning Grampa and I did some cutting and loading of firewood. We got quite the workout, and here was Titus giving Grampa some company during a break up in the sawmill.

Loading up some logs in the back of the truck

Grampa doing some cutting

Lift with the legs! (My arms were quite sore after this morning workout)

Titus and Katelyn playing on a dirt mound near the barn

Some how some of the dirt managed to make it down to the middle of the driveway...

Baby Breylynn

We visited my brother and his wife and their new baby daughther, Breylynn, this evening. Below are a few pictures from the hospital.

Only 10 weeks difference between Lydia and Breylynn, but there's certainly a difference in size.

Eyes open a little bit.

Katelyn holding her

Titus getting his turn holding her.

Another day at the fair

We had intended to go back down to the fair last night for the firemen's parade, but two smaller but quite strong thunderstorms rolled through about the time the parade would have been going on, so we decided to stay home. Katelyn was disappointed, but we assured her we'd go back down again in the morning. So we went down along with Joyce from about 11AM to 2PM. The weather was much nicer this time, with partly cloudy skies and temperatures a more enjoyable 80 degrees or so.


Cousin Joyce holding Lydia at the fair.

Katelyn and Titus playing some instruments listening to some music.

They really had quite fun with this and wanted to stay longer.

More playing with the noise/music makers.

Here's a video of them listening to some of the music.

Here was a video their first taste of cotton candy. Colleen was quite excited to have the kids try it. Unfortunately, I don't think Katelyn gave it much of a shot. She acted as if she had put hair in her mouth or something. I think it was a texture thing. Titus, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy it quite well. We made sure to get our cotton candy from the folks who also run the Miller's chicken tent where Colleen had worked when she was younger, and the same cotton candy stand where Colleen's sister Anne had worked.

Titus certainly was enjoying his cotton candy, complete with a little bit of a cheesy smile.

Katelyn, as you can tell, wasn't quite as interested. Titus had no problems finding a spot for the cotton candy in his mouth.

Sitting on a bench holding their balloons.

No trip to the fair is complete without sampling some food, so we had a nice lunch together. Pizza isn't exactly unique to a fair, but it's always fun sitting under a tent and enjoying lunch together with all the sites, sounds, and surroundings.

Katelyn enjoyed her pizza as well.

Without a doubt this was the highlight of the day for Katelyn. Right next to the horse's rink where they were showing horses, there was a petting zoo, and I noticed that they were offering horse rides. I thought they were free at first (silly me, they were actually $5 a ride), so I asked Katelyn if she wanted to go ride a horse. She was a little timid at first but did acknowledge she would like to ride one. So we went over and paid our money. The lady led the horse in a small circle for maybe 3 minutes, so it was very short, but it was well worth it. Of course as soon as we got close to the horse Katelyn suddenly became less certain she wanted to get on, but her desire to ride one eventually won out as I lifted her up onto the horse. In the above picture she was trying to convince me to hold her hand and walk with her, but after a few steps I let go and she was on her own (with the guide leading of course), and her face instantly lit up. It was very short, but it was all she could talk about the rest of the day, including a couple of requests for more rides.

Katelyn quite enjoying herself.

No fear, just fun!

Here's a short video of part of her ride.

In the petting zoo they had 9 little piglets that were only 6 days old. Titus especially seemed to like them and watched them for quite a while.

This was towards the end of our time at the fair today, and as you can see from his face he was past his nap time, though that didn't seem to faze him too much. He kept trucking right along.

Here are the piglets feeding. It was quite funny. When we first got over to the pen, all the piglets were sleeping. After a minute, one of them woke up and went over to start feeding. But as soon as the first piglet started nursing, the other 8 immediately woke up and sprinted over to feed as well, and then it became a free for all. Piglets were climbing all over each other to get some milk. After a couple minutes of mayhem, the mother pig finally got annoyed and rolled over on her belly preventing any of the piglets from nursing. Noises and squeals ensued as several of the more ardent pigs began jumping into the side of the momma, butting their heads against her in hopes of getting her to roll back over, but nothing fazed old mom. Feeding time was clearly finished.

Titus also found the baby chicks and ducks quite interesting.

And no trip to the fair would be complete for Titus without at least a little play time on the tractors. Here he is on an old antique Ford. While Titus has enjoyed all of the fair, throughout the day we'd hear pleas for "more baroom baroom?" (Titus speak for more tractors).

Titus on another old John Deere. Most of the antique tractors on display, and they probably had 30 or so, were from between 1920 and 1950. I'm sure Titus didn't have any appreciation for how old these tractors were, but I found them quite neat and fascinating. Many of them had been restored into excellent condition.

On our way out there was a tent that had some live country music being played, and Katelyn couldn't help but dance a little while we stopped.

We were on our way back to our car and we weren't more than 50 yards off the fairgrounds when Titus fell asleep. It had been quite a busy and fun late morning and early afternoon, and he was about 2 hours past naptime, so this wasn't surprising. He and all of our kids have really done very well and have been enjoying themselves. Even Lydia has done quite well.