June Road Trip

WARNING - This is a VERY long post!
After helping with our church's vacation Bible school for a week in June, we packed up and headed to Knoxville Iowa. Tyler hung out with Grandma & Grandpa Haselhuhn while Mom & Dad went to Adam's 15-year Melcher-Dallas Class Reunion. Here is Tyler enjoying the sprinkler at Grandma's house.
Tyler also went with Dad and Grandma to the Melcher-Dallas Coal Miner's Day Festival Parade and lunch...no pictures from that though, Daddy forgot the camera. But Tyler did come home with a HUGE bag of candy from the parade! On Sunday we went to the Haselhuhn Family Reunion and then headed back home for one night to repack and then left again Monday morning driving this time to Traci's home town of Clarinda, Iowa. We arrived Monday afternoon and stayed with Traci's Grandma & Grandpa Geer until Friday. Traci's Mom, Janelle and her sister, Emily also joined us for part of the week. Here are some things we did on our busy week:

Tyler liked the farm cats that let him pet them - unlike our cats at home!

Tyler's Great Grandpa Geer took him for a tractor ride....
up on the hill to see the cows.....

and even let him drive!!
Four generations of the Geer Family (Traci's mother's side) played at the farm that day, but this photo is my favorite!

The main reason we went back this week was to help dress chickens at my Aunt Martha's house - this time we had 4 generations of the Stephens Family (Traci's Dad's side) helping with this job! Traci hadn't helped dress chickens since she was in middle school, so I had a lot to re-learn. It was nice and cool - but very windy! Tyler had fun splashing in the water, playing with his 2nd cousins, and off-roading with his favorite dump truck that he can't leave home without!

Siblings: Emily, David & Traci and Cousins: Kelsey & Tyler

Tyler had a blast playing in the creek near my grandparent's house while my Mom, sister, and I picked gooseberries along the creek! Below is a photos of Tyler in a feed bunk near the creek and my sister and I leading Tyler on our hike.

While in Clarinda, we did some other fun "Clarinda" type things like visit the Library to read and play with trains, Emily and I took Tyler on a stroller ride around the boulevard Tyler got lots of quality time with Aunt Emily on this trip)......


...and we shopped at Easters and Tyler rode on the horse just like I did as a kid! Tyler also got THREE lawn mower rides from Great Grandpa Geer by sweet talking him into "un more" several times over!


My Mom, Aunt Marvis, Grandma, Sister, Tyler, and I also drove over to Viking Lake near Villisca to eat at their lakeside restaurant. We also drove through the campgrounds and reminisced about our family camping trips there. We ended the day by stopping at The Vanderholm Farm (4-H friends) and Cody was kind enough to take Tyler on a golf cart ride out to the pasture to see some very friendly cows and calves! Tyler's favorite part was playing "tag - you're it" with one of their dogs who would chase him around the farm yard!


One quick video of a new favorite past time of Tyler's - he is trying to say, "one, two, three, go!" He will do this on any racetrack (read: hallway) that he finds!


We left Clarinda on Friday and then drove back to Knoxville for 4th of July weekend with the Haselhuhns and Langebartels. Tyler had fun playing in the sprinkler with cousin Sarah...

...and playing with second cousins...

...and cuddling with Grandma Haselhuhn before the fireworks!


It was all a ton of fun! Tyler got to see 5 of his grandpas and great-grandpas in one week! But, after the 10-day road trip Tyler and Mommy were very happy to be home in our own beds once again.