A Good German Breakfast

Today we went to our friend Wilma's house for a good German breakfast.  We had fresh baked soft pretzel buns with different meats & cheeses to make a sandwich, hard boiled eggs, blueberry muffins, and fresh fruit (from her garden).  It was a wonderful treat.

Wilma has an amazing garden, we took a quick tour this morning.  Some of the flowers we have at our house are from Wilma's garden, and surprisingly I haven't killed any of them, that is a miracle.

The first picture is Emily with her cousins Susanna-Jane and Katherine under the grapes, and the second one is inside with Great Grandma.

Milking the Cows

Today we went to a friends farm (Horning Farm) to see them milk the cows.  They milk 330 cows which produce about 3000 gallons of milk daily.  It was very neat, as you can see in the first picture, they have automatic milkers which they were just about to hook up after my brother Dave tested the cows utter to make sure it was ripe.  

We also went and saw all of the baby calves and checked out the steer, lambs, pigs, and sheep.  My immediate family was there and all of my nieces and nephews.  You will see a picture of all of the cousins sitting together on the small tractor.  Our friends Julie and Blake joined us (pictured petting a calf).   Emily pet the animals too, I carried her in a backpack most of the time.  

I am not sure if the kids enjoyed the ice cream, riding the big tractor or seeing the cows the most.    Sorry there are so many pictures, I was trying to pick a couple of fun ones, but there was over a 100 to chose from.  

First Cousins, Second Cousins, Lots of Cousins!

Yesterday we got together some of our cousins at my parents pond and went swimming.  It was a lot of fun, here are a few of the pictures from our get together.  

I couldn't resist sharing the first one of Emily blowing a kiss.  The second picture is of Emily with her 2nd cousin Claire.  The last picture is Amy, Patty, Linda and Grandma enjoying a snack at the pond.  We need to do this more often, what fun!  :)

Cousins day 2

 Yesterday was another fun filled day with my sister and her family.  We started by going to the Manchester Bakery (top picture), did I tell you my cousin Melanie Weidmayer owns the bakery?  It's a great bakery in downtown Manchester, my favorite are her colorful sugar cookies or her cakes.  If you are in the area you should swing by and try a cookie or donut.

The next two pictures are from last night, we had dinner at Travis Pointe.  It was teal shirt night, no actually it was steak night, but we happened to all wear teal.  Here is a picture of my sister Sarah and I, and then a pretty good family picture of Jim, Emily and I.

Cousins from New Orleans

My older sister Sarah and her family are here from New Orleans.  Here are a couple of pictures from our day together.  Susanna-Jane is 6 and Katherine is 4, they really enjoyed playing with Emily.  We had lunch, went to Timbertown, played on our swing set, visited the horses next door and went for a walk, took a bath, played dress up, etc.  They haven't seen her since Christmas, and she sure has changed in the last 6 months.

Our new God Daughter Jada

Here is a picture of our new God Daughter Jada.  This is from her baptism on Sunday, what a special day and honor for us.  Her parents are Kelly and Tim, friends of our, and I used to work with Kelly.  Jada is 3.5 months old, and such an angel.  Kelly and Tim have a little boy Luke who is not in the picture, he will be 3 next month.

Water baby

We went swimming in my parents pond last night.  Emily is enjoying the water a lot these days.  As you can see we had fun too.  

It's hard to get all of our work done, all we want to do is fun things with Emily.  It's so fun to watch her expressions as she tries new things.  

We also went to the Manchester fair on Friday night.  Emily liked the tractor pull, animals, auction and of course the cloggers.  She got to pet some baby bunnies, lambs, and a donkey that was only 6 weeks old.