What's Up?

Kaitlyn lost her first tooth today.

She has been asking me WHEN she would lose a tooth.  I couldn't figure out if she was after the experience or the money. 

My parents are here.  I browbeat my dad into putting in a new front door which included moving it.  He has been a good sport...but I'm not very popular with him. 

The old door wasn't centered and let in tons of cold air.
Obviously, the front of our house needs some work.

The front part of the house was built in the 1880's.  (Looks like we haven't bothered with it since, eh?)   It doesn't have studding, just back to back boards.  It was a bummer to cut through.  Lots of the boards are 10 inches wide and they have hand made square head nails.   

Dad's ditching me tomorrow.  He's had all he can take of my kind of fun.  :P

In other news, we took Emily back to see Dr. Li in Milwaukee.  If you haven't already heard the news, she's a miracle!  She's only #3 of the calendar kids that they've successfully kept from vomiting this long (Fourteen months!).  Most of the time all they can do is push an episode off a week and then it lasts longer.  This would have meant instead of spending every 3rd week in the hospital, she would have spent every 4th week in the hospital.  

Our trip got bumped a day earlier because Dr. Li was flying to Japan.   We had to get the kids up at 2:30 a.m. to get there in time.  Miss Emily didn't sleep much...until her doctor's appointment.  She wasn't very excited to wake up for her check up and pose for a picture.  Someday though I know she'll understand how grateful we are for the way Dr. Li has been able to help her.   In a year she has grown 5" and gained 8 lbs.  Dr. Li told her she gets an A+.  We think Dr. Li should get it.  

In a twist of fate...Dr. Li is two hours from the World Dairy Expo.
This was our next four days.

All your senses are tingling, right?

You are wishing that YOU could have been the lucky one in stadium seating for four days, entertaining five excited children, while eating yet more sandwiches and apples.

Surrounded by people totally enthused by bovines.

Filling your spare time with countless trips to the restroom, trying to protect your priceless kindle from stampeding cattle ( formerly known as our progeny), and answering the same question 500 times, "WHEN are we going to leave?"

This man totally shared my enthusiasm.

How much longer?

At least the Brown Swiss liven things up with a bit of yodeling and some costumes.

BUT...

Jamison acquired his own JCB hat, a stack of JCB literature, a DVD about JCB, talked to the salesman...are you seeing a theme here?

We should have given him a different middle initial.

He wasn't the only kid enamored with equipment.

The kids came home with lots of vendor treasures: pens, candy, paper, mints, candy, chapstick, backpacks, toy cows, candy, pencils, rulers, candy, and did I mention candy? I'll be digging most of those treasures out of the cracks between the van seats for years.    We were also treated to grill cheese, ice cream, shakes, and hamburgers by vendors.

And since we're on the subject of tractors, our church had Bring-Your-Tractor-to-Church Sunday (awhile ago...)

We had no trouble making a contribution or two.

Our neighbors Jim and Ruth brought a couple of their red ones.

That's all the catching up I'm going to do tonight.  Maybe we'll just move forward from now on.