Memorial Day Festivities

Friday night was spent relaxing wrangling our children on our neighbor’s patio overlooking the Mississippi River.

Saturday day Harper and I headed to the farmer’s market to buy our vegetables for the garden.  During nap time I borrowed our neighbor’s bush trimmer and went to town on all of the bushes around our house.  I originally wanted to pull them up and replace them with other bushes (I HATE SPIREA) but ultimately decided to just trim them down to nothing and see how they do.  That trimmer may be my favorite tool ever.  It was awesome and so fun to use.  I’ll try to get an after picture.  

That night we attended the local Baseball game with Ty’s old roommate, Ben from College and his family.  Ben, his wife and two kids live in Nebraska but annually come to the Quad Cities over Memorial Day weekend to stay with her aunt and uncle that live here.  They invited us up to their skybox.  It was perfect for little kids to be able to move around freely.

Miles pointing to the baseball players

Barrett (3.5) and Harper (4)

Barrett talking to Hazel. 

Sundays always consists of bringing the kids into bed one by one as they wake up in the morning.  In hopes they’ll lay peacefully with us and allow us to get a few extra minutes of sleep.  Instead they like to wrestle whoever pays the least amount of attention to them.  As you can see Tyler was the victim this time.

We braved church and made it about 45 minutes into it before it became a shitshow.  Miles was not having church.  No rhyme or reason, just him being a two year old.  After church we opted to not acknowledge how awful of an idea it would be to meet our friends for brunch.  They always rave about this restaurant in Iowa’s only island city (bet you didn’t know Iowa had an island, did you?) J  The restaurant was about 45 minutes away in the little island town of Sabula, IA and I was hoping the kids would fall asleep on the way there and be all rested and polite at the restaurant.  That did not happen. I thought maybe once the food came that would entertain the kids.  That did not happen.  However, I do need to report it was the BEST breakfast I have ever had. EVER. Our friends insisted we try the pancakes and cinnamon rolls. I’m not really a fan of either, but when they all got delivered to the table, I became a lover of both. I have dreams about returning to that restaurant.  I cannot wait to go back. I don’t even care how much of a “Big Gal” that makes me sound like... J

Monday we went to a little festival a couple towns over where they have a small Pioneer Village. There were activities for kids, historian actors and animals.  We had a picnic and waited for the reenactment of an 1800’s bank robbery.  Our kids didn’t really understand the whole concept of a bank robbery or why someone was acting dead when they kept itching their head.  Nor did they understand why they were roped off and not allowed to go where they pleased.  So we spent the majority of our time watching the duck and turtles.  Miles was downright hysterical (he slightly redeemed himself for his behavior the previous day).  He would say, “DUCK! DUCK!” and then have a really fakey, cheesy laugh and then say, “HI QUACK QUACK” and laugh again. Then repeat the whole process again. J  Every once in a while he’d go over to see what the turtles were doing.

Harper was excited at the 1900’s house they were making patriotic necklaces out of strips of fabric.  She wanted a head band. After I helped her braid it she pulled the lucky button out of the jar to win a quilted baby blanket!

 

In line waiting for Cheetos and trying not to fall asleep...

One of their favorite activities at Pioneer Village is to literally run circles inside the gazebo.  This time Harper requested I play some music and then they just run in circles screaming and laughing at the top of their lungs.  Ohh, to be 2 and 3 and be entertained so easily...

We finished the night with the tradition of getting ice cream to kick off summer!  

The only way to eat ice cream--in your swimsuit.