Family Fun at the Omaha Zoo...

Recently, we took a family trip to the Omaha Zoo. The weather was gorgeous. We (I) couldn't have asked for any better weather. The day started out with 60 degree temps and warmed up into the 70's. It was perfect. We spent the entire day there. We arrived early in the morning and were they very last people to leave after dusk! It was so nice to be able to walk around without running into a lot of people. Benjamin and Ada loved the zoo! Benjamin's favorite animal were the giraffes while Ada's favorite animals were the rhinos. For some reason the only animal that Ada wanted to see was the rhino and that was her favorite hands down!

I love watching Dave interact with Benjamin and Ada. Isn't this the sweetest thing ever?

Here these two are trying to see how they measure up to the different hand sizes.

Two years ago when we went to Omaha Benjamin had to have his picture taken by every monkey, gorilla, etc. that you could measure up against but this year he was more interested in looking at them then posing by them.

The bear took a liking to checking out Benjamin. Ada preferred to look at the animals from the safe confines of her stroller!

Yes, this is my son feeding the birds. He loved it! It was his idea and he was all about it. The birds seemed to tolerate him just fine. He didn't seem to mind them flying over his head, walking beside him, or anything. Ada tried to feed the birds too but she just wasn't as quiet or gentle.

The other thing Benjamin loved doing was playing with, touching, and feeding the goats. He has always loved animals but has never been the hands on type of kid. Currently, his sister is following in his footsteps as she preferred to look at the goats from her stroller. The whole time she would yell at the goats and tell them not to drink her water. She was pretty concerned that they would take her cup away.

Benjamin enjoyed checking out the trails and look-out areas at the zoo. Ada attempted to do it but landed in the water. Yep, she was petrified and terrified all at the same time! We calmed her down and we were able to continue on our adventure.

I wonder what Benjamin and the gorilla are thinking right about now?

It's hard to take any action pictures of Ada when she doesn't want to leave her stroller. Hopefully, next time we go she will be a little more assertive with checking out the animals and cooperate for the camera. Most of the time we heard, "no picture of me".

Summer is...

corn on the cob time!

Decorated Cupcakes...

Each summer we have an activity called "Summerfest" for the 4-H kids in Turner County. This year I taught the 4-Hers how to decorate cupcakes. It was a lot of prep work and a fast hour but it was fun. Each 4-Her got to decorate 6 cupcakes. So I made almost 100 cupcakes for the class. I also made all the icing. I made way too much icing but the nice thing now is that I have icing in the freezer for spur of the moment cupcakes! These are the cupcakes that I taught the kids how to decorate. If I do any cake, cupcake, or cookie decorating with the kids again I will either have more time or split age ranges. I think these cupcakes turned out so cute and are so springy/summery in appearance.

Czech Days...

We were actually able to attend Czech Days this year in Tabor, S.D. It was a very hot day! Standing on all that asphalt with no breeze certainly did not help things. We watched the kiddie parade. Benjamin told us he was so excited to see kittys not realizing this was a kid (kiddie) parade but luckily for us the parade was full of kids, kittens, cats, puppies, and dogs so both kids had a good time watching the parade. Unfortunately, there was no candy being passed out but that was okay! Benjamin and Ada had to take flat Benjamin and Ada along too. We (I) had to get a kolache because it was Czech Days. I am still not impressed with kolaches. They seem so tasteless. Give me kuchen any day!

Benjamin and Ada love cotton candy. I can't blame them--I do too! Dave can take it or leave it. The only person that Benjamin was willing to share his cotton candy with was flat Benjamin. That lucky little guy!

Benjamin went on a few rides and loved them of course but he could only take the heat for so long till he finally sat down and said "I want to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house".

Here Dave is enjoying his time in the beer garden with flat Benjamin and flat Ada. We had limited cash, no ATM, and we had out-of-town checks so let's just say we had to be very creative how we spent our $ 20. We ate dinner, got cotton candy, Dave got a beer, Benjamin went on three rides, and Ada went on one ride. I think we did pretty good!

Ada is enjoying a few rare pieces of cotton candy that we were able to snitch away from Benjamin!

A father/son moment. Benjamin idolizes his dad and always wants to make his dad happy and to be with his dad. Plus, I think he was working on his dad to let him go on more rides! Ada, on the other hand, would prefer to watch Benjamin on the rides. She does not like Merry-Go-Round but spotted a ride that she wanted to go on. An elephant car ride. So we bought her a ticket and then she freaked out. She would only go on the ride with me. For whatever reason, that ride made me sick. I thought I was going to lose it on the ride and all the ride did was go in a circle on a track. It had a tiny hill of about 6 inches but it was too much for me.

Ada...

is hamming it up for the camera!!

Our Hedge Project...

For those of you who have never seen our place or what are hedges looked like here goes. We have hedges that go all the way around our property (sides and back but not in the front). Here is a picture of what some of our near 8 feet tall hedges look like. You can tell that they are misshaped as they look like a V and are supposed to look like an A. Dave loves our hedges as it is our living fence and really isolates us from the neighbors (you feel like you are out in the woods) and reduces a ton of noise, etc.

I convinced Dave to let me cut down some test pilot hedges to see how the rejuvenational method would work. He told me in no uncertain terms that I could only cut down 6-8 hedges in the back of the house. Well, I did that back in April. Every day since I cut them down he would run out to check to see if there was any growth. Here is how far I cut them back. I cut them down to 2-3 inches from the ground/root stalk to rejuvenate a healthy shrub.

As we were nearing June our hedges were still brown but had a few random green leaves here an there and looked like the bottom was trying to come back. I quick visit with Dr. John Ball, SD State Forester and he confirmed that our hedges were winter killed and injured and gave me/us two options. Cut them down now (had to be done the first week in June--no later) in hopes of rejuvenating them or wait till next spring and see what over winters and then cut them down to 2-3 inches. Basically, we needed to cut them down and we needed to decided when we were going to do it as there was no guarantee that they would come back either way. We decided to go for broke that weekend and cut down all the hedges. We did leave the small patch that came back--basically because we were sick of cutting hedges and hauling branches! Let's just say with all the hedges being cut down around our place we are left feeling totally exposed.

Here is a picture that we took about a month ago showing the sprouting hedges. We or I should say Dave has already trimmed the hedges once this summer. You get two sprouts for every one cut you make and our plan is to shape the hedges into a healthy A hedge where you have green growth/tissue all the way to the bottom and not as much hedge towards the tops. Our hedges are about 2 1/2 to 3 feet already and need to be cut back again. We, I mean Dave needs to cut them again but all this rain that we have had lately has really put a damper on his hedge trimming opportunity. FYI, we have had all but one hedge come back but you know for as big as our hedges were it could have been dead last year and we may have just missed it.