Justin's 4th Birthday

We celebrated Justin's birthday the weekend before his actual birthday. We had BBQ ribs and hotdogs. Grandma and Grandpa came over to help celebrate. On Justin's actual birthday, he got to pick where we went to dinner as a family. He of course chose McDonald's!

Kathy and Lauren did a great job on Justin's birthday cake. Justin loves anything to do with Disney's "Cars".

Lauren's Room

As the only daughter in our family, Lauren gets the largest kid's bedroom in the house. This is a very rare occasion when her room is actually clean! She has an incredible amount of stuff for a 13 year old! Her closet is completely full.

Pinewood Derby

Our Cub Pack's Pinewood Derby took place on 10/23. Jared and is father had a good time fabricating his car (his is the car in the far lane). When Jared finally got to race it, he ended up finishing fourth place overall out of nine. We have a couple of people in the ward that really get into designing the cars for their boys to the extent of using computer aided design and precision cutting/drilling machinery! Their sons came in first and second of course. We still had a great time. One guy in our ward has a business where he machines components and builds engines for the racing industry. He was able to obtain some cool posters for the event as well as some giveaways for the boys.

Daddy's Birthday

We celebrated Daddy's 37th birthday on August 28th. Kathy and the kids made a yummy cherry cake with homemade chocolate frosting. Daddy got a Lego set, a book, and a reservation for the Wii game that goes with book.

Jared's Star Wars Figure Collection

Part of Jared's collection of Star Wars figures. These are just the Imperial forces. He has 94 stormtroopers and clone troopers now.

Trip to Shipshewana

We took a short two day, one night trip to northern Indiana to celebrate Kathy feeling better and the end of summer vacation. Kathy isn't up to a theme park type trip quite yet such as to King's Island or Holiday World. This was sort of a continuation of our trip that we took to this part of the state last October that was cut short by the tornado in Nappannee. Shipshewana is in the heart of Amish country. We drove home along the Amish "Heritage Trail" past Amish farms and buggies. This is a very beautiful part of the state, but not as hilly and lush as southern Indiana. In the fall, we plan to take a trip or go camping in southern Indiana or western Tennessee.

We stayed at a swim park-themed hotel. The hotel was really nice. The indoor swim park was fun, but less than amazing. The kids enjoyed the arcade more than the swim park!

We ate a huge Amish-style family dinner at this restaurant. Good food - especially the homemade noodles, fried chicken and pie!

We took a carriage ride through town and stopped at a number of Amish shops. The weather was great! The highs were in the 70s and lows in the 50s for the weekend.

Waiting for the carriage ride.

Lego Collection

Our family is Lego crazy! We have our creations divided up between a "bad guy" table, a "good guy" table, and a couple of town tables.

Indiana Jones

Sith base

Imperial base 1

Imperial base 2

Imperial base 3

Imperial base 4

Rebel base 1

Rebel base 2

Jedi Council Chamber 1

Jedi Council Chamber 2

Rebel base 3

Town area and Hogwarts. We still have a few containers full of loose bricks to build with even after everything that we have created. We have built up a good portion of our collection from sets and other pieces bought at yard sales.