Update from last Monday...

We are thankful to share that Jack continues to do better and that Jarrett and I are pretty much healed up. 

We continue to worry about Jack as it is obvious he continues to be in a lot of pain and that he is no where near back to his old self.  We've been to the vet 5 times since Monday and with each examination we learn more about the extent of his injuries. 

On one of our last visits, Dr. Benesh was assessing Jack's spinal injuries and as he was feeling around his neck, he stopped, paused, gave his assistant in the room a "look", which she must have understood, immediately he said, "We'll be right back, please excuse us."  and they disappeared quickly out of the room with Jack. 

Minutes later we heard Jack yelping in the back, and knew something else was wrong.  When they finally returned they said, "we found another puncture wound and it is pretty bad."  Then they proceeded to turn Jack in a way to see a hole in his neck that about made me faint.  The bit mark/hole is larger than a quarter but not as big as a half-dollar and the bite is an inch deep at least.  When they turned Jack's neck I'm not sure what inside parts we were looking at but it was definitely more than I was expecting or prepared to see.  Dr. Benesh explained we now had the responsibility of flushing out the incision twice a day for the next several weeks as the hole has to heal from the inside out. 

After yet another pain killer, antibiotic and fluid wash prescription we returned home with our little Jackers. 

Each day we continue to be thankful that he is with us and hopefully in the next few weeks he'll continue on the road to recovery.

As for the other dog, we shared the events with our neighbors in case they happen to see the dog and to make sure to watch their kids and pets around it.  We have not seen any sighting of the dog or person at all.  Animal control has been patroling the neighborhood.  One of the neighbors that lives a street or two away stopped over on Wednesday night to ask us if everything was okay.  Jarrett usually walks Jack around the same time he walks his dog and being that he hadn't seen Jarrett and Jack out, he wanted to see if everything was okay.  We were thankful he stopped by because after Jarrett told him what happened he said, "I think I know where that dog is."  He lives a few streets over.  He then stopped back with the address which we shared with animal control.  They are suppose to stop over to that house and report back to us if they were able to locate the dog or not.

We're thankful that our life is returning to normal and are thankful that things were not worse.

Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.  It is truly appreciated.

Until next time,
angie

It was terrible...

Two days ago our family had a terrible day.  Normally I wouldn't use such a strong word but as I continue to relive exactly what happened over and over in my head, there is no other word that I can use to best describe it.  Warning, this post contains details that are hard to write and may be hard to read...

To give some background on the situation, Jarrett and I volunteered to provide respite (or babysit) 3 foster children for another family.  The three boys (2-twins age 3 and 1-1yr old) arrived to our house on Thursday night and were scheduled to stay with us until yesterday (Tuesday). I think it would be fair to say, this experience alone, 5 kids ages 5 and younger, was a huge learning lesson in itself.  Jarrett and I looked at each other multiple times over the time the children were with us and said, "Man are we thankful for the two boys we were given" and "I'm fine with only having two kids, what about you honey?"  I will spare the details of the experience of providing respite but it would be fair to say, it was not a pleasant experience and not because we couldn't handle having 5 kids, there was some additional behavior information about the children that was withheld prior to us agreeing to do it.  Anyway I digress...

On Monday morning, day 4 into our 5 day- 5 children marathon, Gabriel and Michael had swimming lessons and being that Jarrett had to go to work, I took the other children with us and off we went.  After successfully surviving the hauling, carrying, redirecting and watching of the three kids away from the pool, while keeping a corner of my eye on my own boys, we loaded everyone up into our car and headed for home.  As I turned the corner onto our street, approached our driveway and pulled in, little did I know of what was soon to be experienced.

I remember seeing a man walking a dog a few houses down from ours and thinking, "huh, I've never seen that man before or that dog," but with 5 talking children, I quickly pushed that thought into the back of my mind and focused on how to get them all in the house and what we'd be doing next.  I was surprised (as it was out of the ordinary) and relieved to see that Jarrett hadn't yet let for work so I went to the door, rang the door bell and yelled for him to come help me carry in the kids.  Immediately he came out to help me with our precious little Jack following right behind.  Jarrett and Jack went to one side of the car while I was on the other getting the baby out. 

The next exact details I must admit are a little blurry and I guess that is probably my mind/body's way of protecting me but the next thing I remember after seeing Jarrett set the second twin on the driveway and me pulling the baby out of the car seat and holding him, was the image of this huge pit bull (the same one I had just seen walking on a leash with his assumed owner) leaping up and striking me with his mouth.  Immediately I screamed out with a blood curdling scream, "NOOOOOOO!" As I tried to move away I riped my hand away from his teeth and fell to the ground.  I don't know how or why but I immediately thought of the baby in my arms and fell in a way to protect the baby and shield him from any possible danger. 

After falling to the ground I looked up to see Jarrett pulling his hand away from the dog and our precious Jack riped up into the teeth rearing mouth of the pit pull.  It was and is an image I continue to relive over and over and over, every time I close my eyes, start driving in our car and sit down. It is an image I hope no one else ever has to experience.  In the middle of the chaos and the horrific event, Jarrett screamed at me to get the baby in the house along with the twins who were at this point standing at the front door screaming in tears.  I remember racing to the front door as I looked over to see Jack being thrashed around from side to side with his neck in the mouth of the horrible dog.  I think the whole time I continued to scream "NO NO NO" over and over as I watched Jarrett grab Jack's lifeless body to try and hold him still while we pleaded with the man holding the leash with the dog on the end, to help us.  He remained frozen, I can only guess in shock of what was happening, and didn't help at all.  I raced back over to Jarrett, Jack and the pit bull and pleased with the man to help us.  I screamed, "Please get your dog... please please please..." to which he only replied, "He's not my dog." At this point I said, "please help us... poke the dog in the eye, we have to get Jack out of his mouth, please do something!"  Jarrett, with one arm holding Jack steady in the mouth of the dog and one hand in the dog's mouth trying to get his jaws to release Jack, I went straight over shoved my already bitten hand back into the dog's mouth and pushed with all my strength to pry open the dog's jaw.  With Jarrett and I, we were finally able to get the 90 plus pound dog's jaws to open....  I looked up at Jarrett who had Jack in his arms and I knew we were too late...

Jack laid lifeless in Jarrett's arms with his tough out of the side of his mouth and no movement of air in and out of his lungs.  Again I screamed "NOOOOOOOO, and immediately started screaming with tears rolling down my face."  I then yelled, "Jarrett go just go... we got to get him to the hospital, go... go.... go..., I'll call them and tell them you are coming.

Within seconds Jarrett was in the car and I raced to the door to make sure all of the kids were inside and okay.  I admit, I was a wreck to put it lightly, I raced through the house, trying to figure out where the number to Jack's vet was.  I threw all the papers in our office on the floor, frantically riped through binders where I filed the records of all of Jack's visit to the vet, and tried to restrain my shaking and bleeding hands as I quickly tried scrolling down the list of contacts in my phone.  In the state of panic I was in, I seemed to miss the listing for "Jacks vet" in my phone but thankfully found the phone number on an old vet visit receipt.  I dialed, and upon them answering, I blurted out, "Our dog Jack, Dr. Benesh's patient was just attacked by a pit bull, my husband is bringing him now, Oh My God, I think he's dead.  Please help us please help us.  He'll be there soon."  And then hung up to again focus my attention back on the children. 

I was confident none of them had been hurt but I wanted to see, I prayed out loud over and over and over... Oh my God, please help us, please help us, please help Jack. Please don't let him die."  While tears of fear, sadness and shock filled our entire house, I looked out the front door to see where the man and the dog were.  Less than 2 minutes after the entire event happened the man and the dog had disappeared... I went out the front door and looked down the street... they were gone.  I'm guessing the man had to have known the outcome was not good and would not be good for the dog, so I guess he thought it best to just leave.

In my state of craziness, the only next thing I could think of was to call my dad as as soon as he answered, I feel into a deeper state of shock as I lost almost all control of myself, and could only sob and scream out about every other word of what had just happened.  Even as I type this now, two days later, I find myself shaking in fear and sick to my stomach about the whole event.  Dad, tried his best to calm me down but I had lost it.  It was terrible.

Moments later Jarrett called me to say he was at the vet clinic/hospital and that the doctor had greeted him outside calmly, picked Jack up out of his hands and raced inside to begin assessing just how bad it was.  My dad called me back, and began to give me instructions of what I should do next.  As I raced around the house, praying, I held clothes on my hands to try and stop the bleeding and tried to comfort our boys, the other children had calmed down by this time and were playing with toys.  I must admit, I do believe I failed in trying to be a good comforter.  Together we hugged each other, prayed and sobbed. 

My dad instructed me to call the police and to get help.  So I dialed 911 and tried to calm my voice.  I said, "I do not believe I need to have someone come out but I have to report that we were just attacked by a pit bull."  After answering a few questions, the dispatcher on the other end of the phone said, "Ma'am we are going to send someone out, it is policy with dog bites that we respond."  I acknowledged that I understood and he asked me to remain on the phone until the police, firefighters and paramedics responded. 

Less than two minutes later, the street in front of our house was filled with a huge fire truck, a first responder vehicle, and two police cars.  The kids hearing the sirens and seeing the commotion immediately became scared all over again and started screaming.  Upon hearing the screaming coming from the front door of our house, 8 firefighters, 2 policemen and probably more people raced through the front door expecting to see all of us injured.  After clarifying that it was just me, the firefighters were wonderful in calming down the boys and playing with them while 2 other paramedics assessed the extent of my bite wounds.  I'm so thankful for the help the emergency personnel provided and I can't say enough about just how wonderful they were.

They reviewed my injuries which thankfully were contained to my fingers (my thumb and middle finger on my left hand and my middle finger on my right hand) and gave me instructions for what do to as follow up with my doctor.  Meanwhile, my mind was really only processing every 10th word as I was really only focused on how badly Jack was hurt.

I want to stop at this point to say that I know it sounds crazy to talk about our dog like this and trust me, prior to owning Jack, I was one of those skeptical people who thought there was no way to love an animal as much as some others had told me you could.  I know now just how wrong I was.  Jack, was and is just as much a part of our family as I or anyone else is.  Jack was greatest gift to us after Jarrett battled cancer and after we tried for many years unsuccessfully to have children of our own.  He was our first fur-child and gave/gives us more love everyday than some people give in a lifetime.  He is always the first one to greet us when we come home, the first one to say good morning to us and the last one to say goodnight.  I know it sounds strange to say, but Jack owns a piece in each of our hearts... Jarrett, Me, Gabriel and Michael. 

After the firefighters and the paramedics left, the police offers remained to take a report and record exactly what had happened.  Throughout the time with the responders, Jarrett called me intermittently with updates, and to share that Jack was still alive although things did not look anywhere near positive.  I also learned at that time that Jarrett had been bit two, and after communicating that with the police officers they indicated that these two bites would be handled as two different incidents, meaning Jarrett had to come back home to issue his statement.  It was terrible.  The whole thing was terrible.

Hours later we continued to relive the situation in our minds, replaying different scenarios, all which ended with me sobbing and Jarrett comforting me.  What if the dog would have grabbed one of the kids? What if the dog...and the images would flash again in front of me sending us down a huge downward spiral of emotions.  Two hours later I remembered that I was wearing a hat when it happened and asked Jarrett to go look for it as I couldn't bring myself to go even into the front room of our house because there are windows out to the street), let alone the front yard.  Jarrett went out and not only found my hat lying in the neighbor's yard but also my car keys in the middle of the street.  I guess when the dog knocked me down, my hat and keys went flying.

As the day progressed we tried to gather our emotions, which would be lost minutes later and then we'd start the process all over again.  We asked our families to pray for us and that Jack would make it.  Jack's vet told us that we weren't allowed to come back as they sedated him to try and keep his heart from stopping due to going into shock.  We checked in every couple of hours and they continued to tell us, that he was still breathing and to call back. As the day wore on, they told us to hope that he'd make it through the night and that we should call first thing in the morning to get an update.  On our last report of the night they said, Jack would not eat or drink anything, which concerned them and his heart rate was racing.   We hoped for the best.

I don't believe Jarrett and I slept very much, if at all Monday night, partly because of Jack and partly because every time our eyes would shut the vividness of the event flashed over and over in our minds.  We talked most of the night and tried to reassure each other as we took turns having our moments of doubt and guilt... "why did I think it would be good to agree to respite....if I hadn't said yes, you wouldn't have had to come out to help me carry in the kids.  why did I let Jack walk out with me to carry in the kids... if I hadn't done that, he wouldn't have been attacked... he's only 5 pounds.  an so the night wore on slowly... by 4:45 a.m. I had given up sleeping and watched the minutes on the clock pass by until 7 when I immediately called to ask if Jack had made it through the night and if we could come see him.  Relieved, I learned he had and they agreed to let us see him.

The boys and I were there by 7:20 and waited patiently in a room as they brought him to us.  He was immobile and didn't move at all, but he slightly picked up one ear, giving us hope that he knew it was us and was happy to see we had come to him.  He was laid down on his special blanket made by Nana (Jarrett's mom) and seemed  relieved to watch the boys talk amongst themselves and debate several topics which had no relation to the situation he was in.  For Jack, it was probably a sense of his old normal life.  The doctor explained to me that Jack had experienced multiple puncture wounds from the bit marks, his bottom lip was riped apart from being mulled by the bit pull and his spine was injured due to the whiplash he had experienced in being thrashed around from side to side.  At that point Dr. Benesh shared they hadn't done x-rays as they wanted to make sure his heart and lungs were stable and there were still in the watch period for that.

Extremely thankful that Jack had made it through the night we were hopeful that he'd continue to fight and be able to rejoin our family someday. 



Jarrett and I are doing better also.  Jarrett's hands where he was bitten are healing up nicely and I followed up with my doctor today.  Given that we don't know where the put bull that attacked us is from, whether its shots are up to date, and if the dog would test positive for rabies, I was told I may have to have the series rabies vacation shots.  I went to the doctor today because the bite marks on my hands have since gotten swollen, become red and are oozing puss.  I realized when I could feel my blood pressing or the throbbing of the blood in my hand, that my home remedies of care were probably not enough.  I learned today at the doctor that I do not have to have the rabies vaccination (thankfully) as the risk is extremely small, however I have developed an infection in my hand from the dogs teeth going into my hand.  Hopefully after a good dose of antibiotics, some soaking of my hands in peroxide and some triple antibiotic cream, I'll be back to good in no time.

It would be fair to say, that the events of Monday morning, July 25, 2011, will be remembered for us as a terrible day.  We learned a lot and count our blessings that it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  Tonight we look forward to hopefully resting comfortably as we give thanks to God that Gabriel, Michael or the other children were not injured, that Jarrett and I were not hurt that badly and that Jack survived.  God is good.

Until next time,
angie

Car Conversations...

Sometimes I wish I would record the conversations the boys and I have in the car.  I tell you, I really feel like we have some of our most meaningful and pointed conversation while we traverse the roads across Phoenix.

Today, while running errands we came across a sad scene.  A dog was standing along side the road, no owner in sight and immediately I thought to watch out for the dog and wondered why it was standing so close to the road and not moving.  It was then that I saw that its companion, another puppy had been hit by a car.  I guess my immediate reaction was to gasp in sadness which of course immediately grabbed the attention of the boys.  (Again one of those moments of reacting before thinking).  Right away the boys said, "Mom, whats wrong" and then asked about the sad puppy in the road. 

As we continued driving along, because I was very confident the poor doggy had gone onto better places, the boys begged and pleaded with me to go back and help it.  Gabriel said, "Mom, call 911, its an emergency!"  Michael said, "Mom, we got to go give that dog a lot of shots to help it feel better" and even though I tried everything, I could to change the subject, distract them enough.  I even turned on the music, but they were NOT moving away from the subject of the poor doggy.  It was then I decided to tell them that we should just pray for the dog and that someone will stop to help the doggies. 

Immediately Gabriel started to pray, "God, since Mom won't stop, please have someone else stop to help the doggy to get better and be happy.  Amen"

Then Michael "Dear God, please let the doggy get a lot of shots so it can run across the street again. Amen"

And then they said, "Now you Mom"  so I began, "Dear God, please let the doggie be out of pain and please let it be happily welcomed into Doggy Heaven Amen."

Upon my final word, Gabriel immediately interjected, "Mom, there is no doggie Heaven, there is only one Heaven and Mom what will happen to the dog's body."

Again, not thinking before speaking I said, well Gabriel someone will bury the dog's body and the dog's spirit will go to Doggy Heaven."  (Why do I decide to have these conversations with a 4 and 5 year old?  Why do I feel the need to go so in depth about things... why did I have to open my mouth to begin with?")-- the thoughts running through my mind.

Can you guess what their next question was?  "Mom, what is a spirit and why does it go to Heaven?"

"Well boys, your spirit is what is on the inside of you, how you think, how you feel and the one part of you that makes you special.  When we pass away, we leave our body behind and it is just our spirit that goes to Heaven."  Thinking I had done a pretty good job coming up with that answer on the fly, I was hoping I had put that subject to rest.   Instead, not more than a minute later Gabriel said...

"Oh I know what spirit is Mom, it is what Tom sees on "Tom and Jerry" (as in the cartoon) right?"

Shaking my head, sighing internally, I just responded, "Yes Gabriel, it is just like Tom and Jerry."  And with that, our conversation about spirits was over.

Until next time,
Angie

I O W A...

It seems our summers are no longer complete, unless we take a trip back home to Iowa and this past week, that is exactly what we did.

We had decided several months ago that we wanted to have the boys baptised in the church in Iowa where Jarrett and I were married.  And after talking with family it seemed that traveling back over the 4th of July holiday would be allow us to see the vast majority of our families.
I decided to ask the boys for their highlights of our trip.  After scribbling down more than two pages of their highlights, I'm excited to share with you now, our wonderful 2011 trip to Iowa... in Gabriel and Michael's words.

• Mom, Dad, Michael and Gabriel went to the airport to go to Iowa.
• Nana, Papa, Uncle Jeremy, Alex and even Uncle Nolan from New York came to Iowa to watch us get bapsized.
• We got to see a lot of people like Grandpa Chip, Grandma, Grandpa Ray, Grandma Doris, Grandma Hazel MaeLyn, Megas, Jonas, Adam, Jonas, Aaron, Kacey, Carolyn, Ava, Stefani, Eric, Kelly, Jordan, Kat, Claire, (pause).  Mom, we got to see so many people my brain hurts from saying all their names.
• We got baptised and everyone was looking at us as we was closer to God.
• We learned that bad guys were chasing God and trying to put needles in his hands on the cross. (I'm not sure what part of the trip they learned about this, but I must not have been paying close enough attention, because I do not recall any sort of this being a part of the Church service or any other part of our trip).
• We played at a park for a long long long long long long time.  It was so fun!

The cool part about this pictures is that I can almost guarentee 30+ years ago, this picture could have been snapped and you'd see a Jeremy and Jarrett about the sizes of our boys.  Crazy!

While the kids played the adults talked and enjoyed catching up. 

Jarrett and his counsin's on the Haskovec side.

• We got to put on the fire suits at the fire station but MaeLyn tried all the suits on.
• We get to drive the cranes at Jonas's.
• We went to the Kings Kingdom Bricks place (turns out this is actually a rental house my mom is working on.  When she was showing us, the construction crew was putting bricks on the outside... I guess they must have assumed it looked like a castle and decided it was the King's Kingdom)
• We was swimming at Jonas's pool.

Arica (my siter's best friend), the boys and my youngest sister MaeLyn took the boys swimming.

I just had to add this photo to embarras my sister... even though this photo looks "R" rated, she really does have a swim suit on.

• We didn't get to see Lucas or Bree, who Michael really likes.
• The two doggies were trying to jump up at me.
• We saw rabbits.  The mama will run away and then the babies don't have food.  (We were able to see a mama rabbit who had just had babies.  We told the boys we couldn't touch the babies because they were too small and the mama wouldn't feed them if we touched them.  I guess this is how the boys understood what we were explaining to them).
• We caught a lot of fish and Michael was holding a worm at Grandpa Rays.  (interjection by Michael--- Yeah, I was holding worms)
• The funnest part Mom was when Grandpa Ray was opening the door and he saw a big animal so he quick shut the door and then it went running and Michael chased it, right mom?.  (Transition:  When we were at Grandpa Rays, the boys wanted desperately to fish or feed the fish, so when we went to the shed that has the fish food and fishing poles.  As the boys crowded around Grandpa Ray as he opened the door, Grandpa realized a huge raccoon had gotten into the shed and was right inside the door.  Immediately he tried to shut the door so the raccoon wouldn't scare the boys but before he could get it shut the raccoon became determined to get out.  Being that the boys have never seen a raccoon before, they just assumed he was a friendly pet and as the raccoon scurried right past the boys out the door of the shed, Michael started chasing after it and calling for the "thing" to come back.  
• We was playing with Kat and Claire at Grandma Hazel's and the park 

The famous Claire and Kat and their mom Annette from Chicago!

• We got some berries and go to go by Grandma Dorie's lake.
•  We went in a CVS at Grandma Dorie's, you know Mom, its a car with no top.
• Margie-Love gave us a duck cap we can wear in the shower
• We got some Applepine (translation: combine), tractors, wagon and truck from Aaron who works at John ReinDeers (or more famously known as John Deere)
• We got to collect lightening bugs.  We got 1 bee and a (dead bug***) and I put them in a jar.  (***after saying that Gabriel decided to retract his statement and said Mom, I shouldn't say it because dead bug is a bad word and it is sad the bug is died)
• We got to wear masks...
• I was watching for squirrels, skunks and rabbits in the morning when everybody was sleeping.  When Grandma was awake, I said can we collect bugs outside and she said yes and Grandma let me borrow some of her socks.
• Mommy, I got to kiss pretty girls.

Although this is just a quick recount of the many more things the boys recounted of our trip, there were a few comments the boys said while we were there that made me laugh.

One night as we were driving through the country to one of the local great restaurants, we noticed a flock of geese grazing on the grass near a road.  Just as we were driving by them the leader goose started to cross the road.  Drawing the boys' attention to the the birds, Gabriel noticed them and immediately said, "Mom, they need to put one of those signs up, you know, like the ones that have a deer on it but only with a picture of the ducks, so the ducks know they can cross the road.  It isn't safe now."  All I could say was "Yes, honey that seems to be a good idea!

Until next time,
Angie

Iowa... a collection of photos part 2

A trip to the farm... When we told the boys we were going back to Iowa, one of the first things they asked if they could do was go back to the farm where Ava, Kelly, Jordan and Brenna live.  My Aunt Donna, Uncle Rick, Cousin Eric and his wife Stefani were very kind and let us come out again. 

They had baby chickens and guess who wasn't afraid to hold one.  You might be able to see the "elder" brother in the background... he wasn't so sure about that idea.

And baby calves to feed...

Gabriel learning from Kelly and Ava how to feed the baby calf how to drink from the bottle.

And the farm isn't all about animals... another highlight for the boys was the girls "jeep car"  Jordan was suppose to drive Michael around but I guess somehow the plans changed and Michael took charge.

With a face like that, I think I'd cover my eyes too Jordan.

And the girls had a great set up in their backyard where they could slide right into their pool.  It didn't take long before everyone was wet.  They sure did have a great time, thanks again for letting us visit!

Fishing, wild animals and more... When we visited Great Grandpa Rays house last week the boys were very excited about going fishing.  Given that Grandpa and I were wise to the point that "fishing" for the boys means all work for the adults and all play for the kids, we tried to convince the boys just to throw fish food in.  After continuious begging Grandpa Chip and Grandma Darlene volunteered to do the work and then Grandpa Ray and I got on board and let the boys begin to fish, but not until we had fed the fish first.

On our way to get the fish food, which is stored in Grandpa's small shed, we had another highlight in that when Grandpa opened the door to the shed (see picture below), immediately he noticed a huge raccoon inside and tried to slam the door shut so the boys wouldn't get scared.  Being that we are from the desert and we only have "pets", the boys saw the huge racoon, thought nothing more of him than they would seeing a dog, and decided it would be fun to see more up close of what a racoon is all about.  Thankfully Grandpa Ray shieled them and before we knew it the racoon scurried out of the shed only to have Michael chasing behind calling for the little "ting" (thing) to come back...

I think the perfect caption for this picture would be...
"Is this Heaven, no its Iowa" Maybe I'm baised but the peacefulness, serenity and beauty that is what life is all about and when I look at this photo, that's what comes to my mind.

The reason why we insisted the boys wear life jackets.  This was the farthest from the water we could keep them.

You can't do this in the desert... 
Needless to say, the boys can't wait to go back to Iowa!

Until next time,
Angie

Iowa... a collection of photos...

It wouldn't be a recap of our vacation without a few photos and by a few, I guess I mean quite a few.

Here's a few images that capture the fun we had...

BAPTISM: First off the Baptism... the reason for our trip.  The boys did a great job and listened carefully as the Pastor told them about what it means to be baptised and as the boys put it, now they are "closer to God".

A celebration at the park... I guess I was too busy talking as I only snapped a few pictures that day.  The boys had a blast and I forget what it is like to live in a small town where you can let kids run and play without fear of them being abducted or worse.  The boys had a blast and ran from the moment we go to the park until about 9:00 p.m. (the sun is still up then in Iowa).  Needless to say it didn't take them long to fall asleep that night.  It was great to see so many family and we were so thankful to all of our family and friends who stopped by to say hi.

Here's Katherine "Kat" and Claire pushing the boys and Alex their cousin on the tire swing.  The boys LOVE LOVE LOVE Kat and Claire and are begging we take a trip to Chicago (where Kat and Claire live) just so they can play with them again.

Again, we are so thankful to the family and friends who traveled great distances (including New York and even Phoenix) to be there as we celebrated the boy's baptism).  Thank you again!

Michael with Barb and Bob.  This is the Bob, whom the boys like to quote with the phrase "Ah well, there you go!"

This was Gabriel moments after walking into Grandma and Grandpa's house following our day at the park

Camping, Wisconsin Style... I guess I don't know what is exactly different about camping in Wisconsin versus everywhere else in the country, wait, I do know..the mosquito's are much bigger there than everywhere else!  Joking aside, the boys were thrilled with the idea of camping in Megan and Adam's backyard.  We decided to spend the 4th of July with them and no 4th of July is complete without fireworks.  Adam did not let us down and put on a spectacular show for us and his neighbors.  Even if the fireworks came a little too close to call for my nerves (that's another story), it was impressive no doubt. 
But before the firework festivities started and before the sun went down, the funniest part of the night was setting up the tent and  peeling the corn on the cob after cooking it the grill. Here's a few videos that recap what happened...

The guilty party that watched and provided commentary while the others set up the tents.

Does this face look like trouble or what?  This is after he "sneaked" into the tent and got caught.

Wisconsin Cheese Factory Tour... you can't go to Wisconsin without going to tour a cheese factory.  So that is exactly what we did.  We learned a lot including the fact it takes 8 hours to make a block of cheese... who knew?

This huge vat of liquid will eventually become cheese after hours and hours of stirring.  For 10 gallons of milk, you get 1 pound of cheese.

Of course we couldn't leave the place without buying a few things.. including these really annoying "toys" (the one you see Gabriel holding there) that makes the sound MOO every time you turn it over.  Why would anyone in their right mind invent this toy to give to children.  I know a Grandparent must have invented it... because they get to send their grandchildren home with it to drive their grown children crazy.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, the boys LOVE to make the cows say MOO.

Farmers market and petting zoo.. On our way back we visited a farmers market and petting zoo that was recommended to us by Jarrett's Aunt Sara and Uncle Wayne.  It was a great place and the boys enjoyed it immensely...

While Michael was interested in touching, chasing or feeding every animal, Gabriel enjoyed watching the baby deer the most.  We recently watched Bambi and he's become infatuated thinking every deer is the one and only Bambi.

Madison Children's Museum... and before leaving the great state of Wisconsin we fit one more activity into our day.  We stopped at the children's museum where the child in all of us was allowed to play...

Does anyone look a little tired?

Speaking of tired... I'll post more about our trip in Iowa... a collection of photos pt 2.  Coming soon!

Until next time,

Angie