St. Louis

Ashley and I did a girls trip to St. Louis last weekend.  I let her have control of my camera and take some pictures of our trip.  We started Friday night at a pizza staple in St. Louis---Imo's.  Saturday we did the zoo and the arch.  Then on Sunday we did what girls do....shopped.  We found an American Girl store...jackpot!

Arriving at the zoo

They have a new glass tunnel that you can watch the sea lions swim.  Pretty cool!

We petted the sting rays and small sharks.  Super cool!

Ashley got a great shot of this grizzly bear

Getting ready to watch a 3D movie

Can't go to the St. Louis zoo without the train!

This is why we didn't go into the penguin house....

We drove right past the stadium.  They were playing the Cubs last weekend.

She didn't want to go up in it....

First Day pictures

The Horn Herd 2013-2014 school year

John---4th Grade

Nate---2nd Grade

Sara---7th Grade

Ashley----6th Grade (like her new look?  Contacts!)

New school year

Well, today is the first day of school and this blog has been silent since the last day of school in the spring. And I am ok with that. It was a really awesome summer spent hanging out with each other. I knew I would have time to document it once it was all over.  I didn't want to miss a minute of it with my hubby and four precious per-adults.  Speaking of those pre-adults....Sara started 7th grade today.  It caused me to cry.  First days are always a reminder of one of Joe's favorite statements..."we are raising adults, not kids".  So true and Sara is quickly approaching that. I cried when they stepped on the bus and Joe hugged me as we prayed for them. I cried not out of sadness (although I do miss them during the day), I cried tears of pride and thankfulness. They are such. Good. Kids. I am so thankful they have a Heavenly Father who is so powerful and is "for them" in this life. He does a much better job of looking out for them then I would ever do alone. And he knows exactly how to draw them to himself.

So I am sitting here on the coach with my foot propped up (managed to sprain it yesterday) listening to the sweet snores of my daycare kids and wondering how my pre-adults are doing. Nathan's teacher has an odd spelling to her name and to remember how to pronounce it I realized it rhymes with cow. So this morning in talking to him I called his teacher Mrs. Cow.  Haha...really hoping he doesn't do that today or tell his teacher I said that.  He would, you know..he never passes up an opportunity to share family secrets.  And I am remembering last night how I was coaching the girls to help their younger brother with switching buses.  John joins their school this year and I was concerned that he wouldn't switch to the right bus.  After criticizing the girls for not having compassion on John because they really didn't seem concern for him, my eldest gently corrected me by saying that they weren't concerned because they knew he was going to be fine.  Ah...to have the faith of a child...

And so the year begins......

End of School

Well, I officially have a 7th grader, 6th grader, 4th grader and 2nd grader as of Wednesday.  The last month we finished out the school year with the annual band concert, cub scout crossover, school field days and picnic.

Sara enjoying a spring day with a good book

With their awards...Sara also received her 1st place solo and ensemble medal

Sara and her friend Rachel worked on this castle together for a project at school

John is now a WEBELOS

Nathan is now a Wolf

John and Nathan at their end of the school picnic.  This was John's last South School picnic.  Next year he will join the girls at CEC.

She's 40!

I turned 40 on May 3 and was tremendously blessed to get to spend my birthday with family.  Joe and I also ran the Indianapolis Mini Marathon that weekend. It is a half marathon (13.1 miles!)  Here are some pictures....

 We were just a couple of blocks from the Colts stadium when we picked up our race packets so we had to take the kids by it.

To quote Nathan "I can't believe I'm standing in the parking lot of the stadium where the Colts play!"  He was so excited!

 35,000 people run the mini-marathon in Indy every year.  It is the largest half marathon in the country.  You really can't have a feel for that many people until you actually run it.  One of the highlights of running the mini is you get to run on the Indianapolis 500 race track (which is not a track that many people are allowed on).  It is also a fun race as they have battles of the bands along the route.  And with that many people if you get bored running you can simply people watch.

In the corrals

 It was a perfect day for a race.  The temperatures were in the 50s and it was cloudy.

Here we are before the race...wouldn't you know it is the one picture that turned out blurry.....

Mushroom hunting

We made an attempt at mushroom hunting again this year.  And once again, we came up empty.  So I decided to make the most of our hike and take some pictures.

for some reason I really was fascinated by this tree; it was a huge, old maple tree

this is how much John enjoys hiking ;)

Spring catch up

We had so much happen this spring.  It is time to catch a little bit on the blog with some pictures.

We had a group of bunnies that decided our backyard would be a fun place to have a nest.  I have a love/hate relationship with rabbits.  Love that they are one of God's creations.  Hate that they eat my garden.  One of the kids noticed the mommy nursing one evening.  I don't think I've ever seen this with a rabbit before.

four baby bunnies...I haven't seen them much lately.  My fear is that a local hawk found them.

 You may have heard about our area on the news this spring.  We received about 5-7 inches of rain in just a couple of days and it turned into record flooding.  This is a picture of the Illinois river at its record stage.

 

 Mulch, mulch and more mulch.  We hadn't seriously spread mulch since we moved 6 years ago.  So, in what was a family effort, we spread two truck loads and our house looks brand new.

 Joe and Nathan were able to have a Father/Son project one afternoon.  We have outgrown our van on family vacation, so Joe and Nathan put a hitch on the van and put together a carrier so we can travel with much greater ease this summer.

Joe's first turkey

My sweet hunter has been turkey hunting a lot and has never come home with the "elusive" bird...until this morning.  He shot an approximately 25 pounder.  He said the beard is 11inches.  And he says it tastes like pheasant.  (Funny how I thought it would taste like turkey...)  Here are some shots of the bird and my awesome hunting hubby...