Oma & Opa's Golden Anniversary

Congratulations to Keith's parents for their upcoming 50th wedding anniversary on the 27th and their recent celebration around it.

We made our way down to Texas at the end of July to celebrate with family and friends. I flew down with Baby Erik and Keith took the older boys and made a long drive out of it- stopping in places like Wichita to visit his brother, Branson, Missouri and other areas to explore caves, camp and have fun.

I had a couple of nights with my family and spent a lot of time visiting. Went to dinner with a group of friends, went to the dentist to finish the root canal work and even had lunch with my old Fossil friends!

It was a great time (it was a HOT time)! I do not miss the 100+ days.

Keith had a rough time getting back home, including the car breaking down in Illinois and getting pulled over by a cop when he pulled off the road to try and find a bathroom for Kolbe. I felt so bad for them.

I'm looking forward to a few years from now when we can all make the drive. Erik is still too young (or shall I say my tolerance level is too short) for the long drive.

We plan on making our way back to Texas every summer with the whole gang.

In the meantime, congratulations again to Oma & Opa and thank you for showing us a successful marriage!

National Mustard Day

Several weeks ago, on a Saturday far, far away, Keith decided to go hang out with some friends for the day and leave me with the kids. So what do I decide to do with them…take them to the National Mustard Museum in downtown Middleton. I mean…it is National Mustard Day.

Really the only reason I wanted to head over was because I read they were giving away free hot dogs. Who can pass up free hot dogs when you have 3 boys?

I expected a small, semi-quiet air-conditioned building with maybe a stand in the corner with food.

Nope.

They had the whole area blocked off with bounce houses shaped like cheese, the huge Oscar Meyer-mobile, games, a stage with a concert going on (which all cost money). I decided since we drove all the way over and the boys needed to get out that we would brave the crowd. We made it far enough in for a picture with the hot dog and to get a free hotdog (which Kolbe dropped about 60 seconds after he got it loaded up). In all the chaos and in the middle of the meltdown he was having over this I told him to pick it up, dust it off and it'd be just fine. So he did.

Happy National Mustard Day!

Ella's Deli & Ice Cream Parlor

Ella's Deli & Ice Cream Parlor

This past weekend we were looking around for something inexpensive and located indoors to take the boys to on Sunday (since it was supposed to rain), and came across a link to Ella's Deli & Ice Cream Parlor.

Perfect!

Kolbe and Nickolas both love ice cream, even though Nickolas can only get about 5 licks in before it's melted because he's so slow when he eats (that's a trait from me).

We get to Ella's a little before lunch and pulling up we see the huge carousel outside that you can ride. We went inside and they asked us "how many" and we just went with the flow and sat down, but we really weren't anticipating staying to eat, we just wanted ice cream. After about the first 15 minutes of stress from the boys not wanting to sit and not knowing what to order we settled in and enjoyed it. The inside is very impressive and it kind of had a flavor of "Roadside America" in PA. The room is filled with toys, gadgets, themes and circus-type activities all around and hanging from the ceiling. Trains, carousels and acrobatics at a small, yet whimsical, scale. Lots of fun sounds, and even built-in activities in the tables. Our table had pens attached that you could use to move the magnets built inside-genius!

The food ended up being excellent (I happen to love deli/diner type places) and I would definitely go back.

We're looking forward to taking Keith's parents here when they are in town in a few weeks, and we know this is a place where the kids could have a meltdown and they would kind of just blend in.

On the other hand, the people who work there have to be seriously underpaid.