Merry Christmas

Special Lunch Date

At XXX

Happy Thanksgiving

Our after-Thanksgiving tradition of breakfast at Mary Lou Donuts continues! Grammy Pammy, a self-proclaimed donut connoisseur, approved.

Klondike Dance Performance

It wasn't that long ago that we were pulling teeth to get Kari through a one-on-one dance routine with Allie at church.  This week, though, everything has changed.  The Klondike Middle School dance team offered a one day clinic to the elementary students and culminated with a performance at halftime during the 8th grade boys basketball game tonight.  Kari had a great time and I had fun observing junior high behavior in preparation for what lies ahead.

The Long Awaited Combine Ride

Friday was a great day... It was the day Bryce has been looking forward to for months, literally. Back in August, we again won a silent auction prize that allowed our son to ride in a combine with a local farmer - Mr. Morehouse.

So, you can only imagine how eager he's been recently as we routinely pass fields in Indiana being cleaned of their corn stalks. "Daddy, when is Mr. Morehouse going to let me on his combine?" "Mommy, is that field one that Mr. Morehouse works in?" "I think Mr. Morehouse is in that combine out there." And on, and on and on it's gone.

But Friday afternoon we found the very field and combine in which Doug Morehouse occupied. It's one of his smaller fields measuring roughly 150 acres. In total, he and his staff farm nearly 2,000. And for a mere 30 minutes, Bryce and his father sat in a pretty fancy 2010 John Deere combine and made 4 "swipes" through this field.

It was a pretty awesome experience for both father AND son. Mr. Morehouse has one of those combines that is GPS driven, requires very little steering but plenty of attention to be paid to his iPad and other computers.

Once the combine was filled, a tractor appeared next to us with a giant trailer to get help lessen the load we were carrying. This was the highlight of the day as Bryce was allowed to push the yellow button that dispenses the corn into the trailer.

While it was very enjoyable for us, I think Mr. Morehouse also found the intrusion a welcome break in an otherwise predictable day of farming. With two trips in the combine under our "city belts", we have actually been invited back for a Spring planting, too!

A Frightful 2014 Halloween

Friday night's weather could have been one of the worst on record for a Halloween night.  20 MPH winds, blustery, and....SNOW!!!  Fortunately, we were in good company with our neighbors, and the Clawson's graciously hosted the Halloween party in their garage.

Bryce's costume this year, sadly, was straight out of the box from Amazon.  Kari, on the other hand, enjoyed helping me create her cupcake costume.  I found the idea here.

I was only able to get one short video.  Kari trick-or-treated down one side of the street and called it quits.  Bryce made it up and down both sides of the street, but we didn't venture beyond Windflower. Handing out candy was a much more desirable task Friday night than being outside even though we only had about five groups come to the house.

Here We Go Again

It doesn't seem that long ago that we were switching out baby seats for high back boosters for Kari. Now Bryce is upgrading to the high back and Kari is graduating to the backless.

Wow, there's suddenly a lot more room in the back seat of my car!

Happy Friday

I was inspired to make this shirt because Bri is going to take Bryce over to her sorority house this afternoon after school.

Kari's Family Tree

Kari made this during Reading Group Time today.

I've encountered numerous spelling variations of my maiden name over the years, but this one takes the cake.

Camping With The Presbyterians

We wrapped up Year 4 of Camping With The Presbyterians last weekend and called it a success!  This has turned into a really fun weekend for the kids and I to spend some quality time with Gran and Beep Beep at Turkey Run State Park.

The elder Kecklers arrived mid afternoon on Friday to set up the campsite, which had been carefully chosen right next to the playground and far enough away from the bath house to not get extra traffic and noise.  Ben and Cheryl upgraded to a pop-up camper this summer, so camping had an even greater appeal this year for the kids and me.  We arrived close to dinner time, which Cheryl had prepared an old favorite casserole recipe of Kevin's and heated it up on the campfire grates.  It was a simple yet delicious chicken and macaroni dish.  The kids gobbled it up too!  We anticipated a decent rainstorm coming in Friday night, although nothing compared to two years ago when the storm got so bad that we ended up staying a night in the lodge.  Regardless, this one was windy enough and noisy enough to rattle the kids; fortunately we were off the ground and safely stowed in the camper for the evening.

Dinner before the big storm rolled in

The rest of the weekend was perfect camping weather and allowed us to relax by the fire, visit with church friends, play on the playground and take a short hike.  Bryce's favorite part of the weekend, for sure, was riding his bike through all the mud puddles.  I brought four changes of clothes for him (2/day) and wouldn't you know he went through all four before the end of the weekend and we still had to "recycle" an outfit.  Here's why:

Ben would take Bryce over to the water spigot and literally hose off the mud, and clearly Bryce was not a huge fan of this process.

We took a short hike on Trail #7 before getting ready for dinner.  Saturday dinner is a potluck meal over at the tennis shelter.  The camping group as well as some additional church folks will drive in just for the meal.  Cheryl served one of my favorite dishes- Amish pickle salad.  Everyone really enjoyed it. simply because it's so unique.  Gran headed back to Indy for church the next morning.  Biscuits, gravy and a casual church service rounded out the weekend on Sunday morning.

We did a bit more exploring of the campsites again this year and are already eyeing site #36 for future camping.  Exceptionally shady and a bit more private, but I really think Gran and Beep Beep like its proximity to the bathrooms :)  Looking forward to camping again soon!

Take them off, take them off NOW!

It's the second time in the past few days when Bryce has come through the garage yelling for Holly or me to take his wheels off. The days of training wheels are officially behind us after some envy of his buddy Evan and his lack of training wheels.

So tonight Holly took them off Bryce's little bike. Of course, it's the hottest and most humid it's been all summer so we were REALLY looking forward to running up and down the street with him to make sure he didn't fall over.

Well, little did we know he'd get it with the very first try!



After Holly scooted down the street next to him, she quickly realized he got the hang of this much faster than anticipated.





So, we're officially finished with training wheels. Next up: pull ups!

Indiana State Fair

We had a great time at the Indiana State Fair yesterday.  I think Kari and Bryce had been in a previous year with Gran and Beep Beep, but this was a first for Kevin and me, and first time together as a family.  We hit the Dairy Bar for grilled cheeses and milkshakes and then the Midway:

Here we are on The Crazy Mouse roller coaster.  This was a perfect gateway coaster in preparation for heading to one of the major roller coaster parks next summer.  We rode this twice- it was that good- and not your typical county fair midway ride!  We also found my all-time favorite ride, the Tilt-a-Whirl, bringing me back to my childhood Kiddie Kingdom days.  I taught not only the kids, but Kevin too, the strategy in leaning to maximize the spin on this ride.  I think the ride operator purposely sped up the ride at the very end after observing our leaning strategy.  I was actually a bit nauseous after getting off the ride, and that's never happened before!

This NASCAR inspired ride, at first glance, looked pretty tame.  Upon closer observation, the real thrill is in the corners; where the cars whip the riders around at a pretty good pace.  Notice Kari's hair in the video!

Bryce was, of course, super interested in riding the tractor-train.  It's fair-style public transportation that circles around the perimeter of the grounds and you jump on/jump off as needed.  This allowed us to peruse the vast number of exhibits, where we disembarked at Pioneer Village and the farm equipment displays.  Bryce seems to be gravitating towards the big red Case IH brand of tractors; sorry John Deere fans!

 This was the biggest tractor we had ever seen- complete with those army tank style track wheels.  Nicely priced at 500k, too!

Bryce is already talking about when we can go back to the fair!

A Great Night

For roasting marshmallows in the fire pit.

2014 First Day of Second Grade

We kicked off second grade today and Kari couldn't have been more excited to go.  She was particularly excited for her teacher, wildly popular Mrs. Schwecke, and to see her friends, many of whom she had seen only briefly over the summer.

We'll take a picture of Kari against the garage door on the last day of school for a point of reference.  

 The gang's all here!  Bryce can't wait to finally be in the picture next year.

After school.  Kari took great pride and responsibility in making sure Kindergartner Aeva safely made it on the bus, got to her classroom and got off the bus.

Aviator Birthday Party and Ice Cream Social

Bryce's birthday celebration continued all the way into last week, culminating with the family birthday party.  This year's theme: airplanes, but not to be overshadowed by the food menu!  We went in a totally different direction and it was a smash hit.  We offered a make your own grilled cheese bar.

Runway, complete with airplanes and "05" runway marker.

The grilled cheese bar featured a variety of breads, cheese, meats and veggies.  We should give credit to the Food Network magazine for this idea.  They featured an open-faced grilled cheese sandwich with lump crab meat and asparagus.  From there, the idea took off.

Our master griddler creating all the custom sandwiches.

We also had 7 layer salad, deviled eggs, watermelon and corn on the cob.  Perfect summertime food!

It was cool enough to comfortably eat outside.

Bryce and his love for chocolate is clearly represented here.  He requested a chocolate cake with chocolate icing.  I couldn't be more proud.

We continued the sugar fest with our annual back to school ice cream social.  We provide the ice cream and neighbors bring the toppings.  It was sugary good fun for everyone and a great way to visit with the neighbors before getting back into the school routine.

8th grade all the way down to two new kindergartners are represented.  Next year, Bryce will finally be able to officially join the crew at the bus stop.

Silly faces!

Birthday #5

We just wrapped up an incredibly hectic week, so it was nice to sleep in a little (7:37 little feet padded into our room) and spend some time together.  It was short lived as there were two birthday parties on the docket and neither of them were for Bryce!  We spent the early afternoon at Columbian Park for a neighbor birthday party and then Kari and I left to head across town for an afternoon bowling party.

We reconvened as a family just in time for dinner.  Bryce had the choice of choosing his favorite meal for Daddy to prepare or eat out.  Not surprisingly, he chose to eat out; surprisingly, he chose MCL Cafeteria.  We definitely brought down the mean age, but the food was good and everyone cleaned their plates.

We started off the morning with personalized blueberry pancakes and finished the evening at Dairy Queen.

Family birthday party with grandparents happens next weekend.  Bryce is excited to see everyone!!