This Sunday Mike, Sullivan and I headed to Austin, MN to visit Mike's grandmother and to celebrate Mike's mom's birthday. We had a great little road trip cruising through Mike's hometown and visiting family. Mike's grandmother, Carrie is in a nursing home and has not met Sullivan up until yesterday. It was great visiting with her and letting her met and get to know her great grandchild. After our visit we went out for a birthday lunch with Mike's parents and uncle Fred. Sullivan sure has fun with his grandma Nelson. She makes him giggle and shares all of her food. :) Happy Birthday Sandy! We wish you many more wonderful years of happiness and good health.
This weekend we explored, touched, and learned about several different kinds of animals. Sullivan and I explored a cute petting zoo in Waterloo on Saturday. It's a free will donation petting zoo called Sunnyside Petting Zoo that lets children touch, feed and get up close to several different types of animals. This petting has a very small fee to get carrots to feed cows, donkeys, horses, llamas, and goats. They also have chicken feed for the ducks, chicks and chickens. We had such a great time, some of Sullivan's favorites were the donkeys, pot belly pigs, horses, cows and baby chicks. He was very sad to leave so we will have to return another time and bring daddy along.
On Sunday we made a trip back home for an early birthday celebration for my grandpa. Before the afternoon potluck, Mike, Sullivan and I made a trip to the Decorah Fish Hatchery. Again this is a free field trip with the only small cost for food to feed the fishies. Cross this off on our 2014 Bucket List and another favorite. Sullivan squealed with delight watching the small, medium and big size trout fish flop around to get the food. After burning through a half cup of fish food we took a little walk to the beautiful waterfall. We will definitely be making another trip back before summer is over!!
Toys in our house are in abundance. At times, I feel like I want to go through them all and weed out. But then I find myself accepting more toys in the house or buying them myself! One of Sullivan's new toys is his very own computer he picked from Target. This toy is actually a great learning tool. It sings songs, "checks mail", counts, and educates on letter, animals, and their noises. So far he seems to play with it at least twice a day, but it is still new. Enjoy this video of him dancing to the different songs as well as singing his ABCs. Not too bad for a two year if I do say so myself. Oh and those dance moves are from his daddy. :)
Here's a quick update on my garden. So far, things are looking pretty good and are finally starting to take off. My green beans are almost ready, and I have a couple of cucumber plants sprouting. We're waiting on the red peppers to grow and hopefully tomatoes will be ready as well. I'm having a tough time with my patio tomatoes. Darn streaked gophers will not leave them alone. This morning they tried to get into my big garden but kept getting caught in my net. You may not be able to see it in the pictures but those orange/red hoops have a purpose. I have a very fine, breathable netting protecting my garden. We have lots of squirrels and bunnies in our neighborhood as well which is what I put the netting up for. But it seems that the real problem is those pesky gophers. They keep digging in my tomato plant dirt and kicking it all out. On top of that problem, my tomato plant also keeps getting yellow spots on some of the leaves. I trim all the leaves off that get those spots but I'm worried my plant is going to struggle. Any suggestions would be helpful. I also have lettuce and it's been delightful. We've already had some with yummy BLTs and sandwiches.
It's been great weather in Iowa this weekend. Despite being a little too hot and humid yesterday, today is a gorgeous sunny day. This week looks pretty awesome as well. While Mike headed over to sell shirts at Newbo Market this weekend, Sullivan and I made the most of our Saturday. We laid low in the morning with snuggles, Mickey Mouse and pj's. After the house was clean we got ready and headed out to run a few errands, then back to the house for lunch and little nap.
Mike and I had big plans for the evening, we were headed out on a date. It's not too often we get to go out just the two of us. So far in Sullivan's lifetime, we've only had my family watch him when we go back home or one of my good friends in town. Needles to say, it's sad that our actual dates can be counted on one hand in the last two years. We've been talking about hiring an actual babysitter for over a year but it's really hard for us when we don't know too many people in town. One of Mike's former coworkers has a daughter in high school who does a lot of babysitting. She seemed perfect for the job and Sullivan also had some time to warm up to her when we went over to their house for dinner a month ago. Mike and I chose to go one of our most favorite places in town and it did not disappoint. I love the Montage and highly recommend it to anyone looking to have a nice dinner. Beef brisket for me, steak and goat cheese risotto for him and shrimp spring rolls for an appetizer. It was fun dressing up and taking our time eating a good meal. Of course we talked about the two things we always talk about....Sullivan and Red Piglet. At first time seemed to go by really slow but then toward the end, before we headed back home, it seemed like we could stay out a little longer. We were only gone for a couple of hours. We wanted to ease into this and 2 hours seemed like just enough time for Sullivan to have some fun with Maggie and us to have a nice, quiet and fantastic meal.
Today, we've had family time. Sunday our usually our day to all be together. With working all week long and Mike at either Newbo or Farmer's Market until Saturday afternoons, it seems like our family time for the three of us runs short sometimes. Time slips away and before we know it, our little baby is now two! We need to soak him up before he gets too big on us. So today we watched morning cartoons, ate a yummy breakfast that daddy made and took a trip to Waterloo. We picked up more grass seed at Menards and got a kiddie pool at Toys R Us. Home for a quick lunch and then out to the pool. The water was cold but Sullivan didn't care. He had a blast with the little built in slide, water hose and throwing the football around with daddy. I pulled weeds in my garden and then joined in. Life is good!
Yesterday, our little firecracker turned two! We had a wonderful day with family and friends. This year again we had a special birthday party with Sullivan's cousin, Asher. Asher turned 3 on the 5th and Sullivan turned two on the 6th. We decided to have a classic birthday party, with streamers, balloons and everything fun for summer. Bright colors filled our carport as it transitioned into a room for a party. We had classic summer BBQ food with chips and dip, homemade potato salad, BBQ pork sandwiches, watermelon and cold refreshments. The party wasn't complete without cake and ice cream. Everyone had fun, especially watching Sullivan get dirty. One of the highlights for Sullivan was trudging through the fresh dirt from our recent landscaping renovation. Two outfit changes and two baths later the party was done and Sullivan fell asleep in the chair. Sullivan is such a joy to our lives! We love him more than anything else imaginable. We are looking forward to what this year will bring and how he will continue to grow and change into an even bigger boy. Here's some photos of the birthday party!
