A Real American Hero

Kimberly has been wanting to add a peat gravel play area near our play structure for years. In July when I made her go to Menard's for other landscaping materials, she picked up a few bags of peat gravel.

One nice Saturday afternoon, we decided the "rock quarry" should go under the play structure. After we poured in the gravel, I decided the middle boys needed some motivation to try out the new play opportunities. So, I brought out the top-secret containers that have been hiding in our basement for years. By some people's standards, these containers would be nothing short of a jackpot:



That's right! Most of the G.I. Joe toys that Nick and I adamantly collected as kids were saved for years by our mother. Then, while cleaning out the basement, she decided to make the collection my problem. I couldn't just throw that stuff out!

The boys went crazy and commenced playing non-stop for several hours.





While some of the stuff looks "newer" (late 80's versus early 90's), there are still a few of my original figures and vehicles from when the 2 1/2" toys first came out. I won't name names, even though I could. It's crazy that those guys are pushing 30 years old at this point.

Bike Train

It's been a crazy busy/fast summer here on the farm (when we were actually here). Baseball season consumed the first half of the summer, and weekend driving trips seem to have consumed the second half.

We were home on a hot Sunday morning three weeks ago when I finally told Ethan we could ride our bikes to Homer. Of course, his brothers wanted to come too. A quick trial revealed that Owen and Aidan could fit in the trailer together...and they looked like sardines.

I hooked up the Trail-a-Bike and forced Owen to ride down the driveway against his will. I finally convinced him it was safe by holding the bike up and letting him try to push it over. Fortunately, he couldn't do it. After that, he was really excited about the Trail-a-Bike.

All that was left was to hook up the Burley to the Trail-a-Bike and we were ready for town. It was a nice ride, but really hot on the way home. We were all a bit pooped. My arms ached the next day from counterbalancing Owen's haphazard balance.



Here we are, finally back in the shade. Ethan is posing here, trying to take credit for being on the bike train. He was actually our scout