Memorial Day Weekend

We took our first plane flight with the kids to Earlville Iowa over Memorial day weekend. It was not what I expected. What I feared, was actually easy like dropping off and getting thru security. What was hard was the actually flight. We got seats together naturally. On the plane we had to reorganize. Turns out on a Canadian Air Regional Jet there is one extra O2 mask on the right "CD" side of the plane in the even numbered rows for infants traveling on the lap. Fortunately the other passengers were very nice about re-seating and passing bottles back and forth thru the odd numbered row. Everett slept most of the way and had no problems landing as he sucked his pacifier. Nathan was more squirmy, but made friends with the flight attendants and worked all the latched in the galley after the drink service. He had a real hard time with his ears on the landing as he wouldn't drink anything or suck his taggie.



It was interesting having two cribs and a king size bed in one room. The first day we made a road trip to the Coral ville Mall to meet Jen Emerson and Donovan. We had a great time shopping and chasing the boys around the play yard. We had a wonderful time comparing parenting notes and catching up. Jen introduced grapes to Ev and Nat and now they eat them by the pound every day!



Troy had a big graduation party. There were sloppy joes, bbq pork, and all the fixings. Lousie and Dale did a great job decorating the garage with all of Troys accomplishments and pictures from every grade of school.



Ev was not feeling well and let everyone know thru a few involuntary protein spills.

We were able to see all the Hoelscher boys, Neil, Louis, Aaron, Erin, Audrey and Colton.



That night we drove home trying to beat the rain. We spent an hour in the downstairs of the hotel for the tornado warning. A small one touched down outside of Earlville. Further west got hit really bad.



The next day we went for a drive in the morning. We stopped by Plum Creek Park, one of my favorite childhood memories was pumping water from an old well. The handle is long gone but the pump itself is still there. I also snapped a few photos of the old rusted bridge over the river.



Then we drove out to the trout farm outside Manchester. DNR grows baby trout to release in the streams. Andrea had a great time watching them go into a freenzy as we tossed in the food. The boys slept thru the whole thing. We walked across the suspended bridge and down the stream.



We went into Manchester and drove by our old home. There is a Norwegian Maple like the one planted for my baptism that was close to the same size. I remember being terrified to go down the tornado slide by myself. The old rusting slide doesn't seem so scary now. I bet the boys would love it. We didn't stop due rain.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3280/2537955996_d6a9e496f6.jpg

We ran out to Greely Iowa to look at the feed plant Wayne used to manage. Cargill Sold it and now it looks abandoned. On the way back to my sisters we stopped for a few token cow photos. Ever since I asked the bus driver to stop for a hairy coo "cow" photo in Scotland, we have to stop and take pics of cows. After a few photos, they all got up and started over to have their picture taken. Andrea loved it!