Happy Birthday, Paige

Paige turned 7 on Friday, August 28th. I can't believe it's been 7 years already, where does the time go?

When she got up in that morning, Josh made her "birthday" pancakes before school. They are just like regular pancakes, just made for you on your birthday. We also let her open her presents from us, Grandma and Grandpa, and the Anliker's because she invited 3 of her friends to go to King's Pointe water park in Storm Lake after school.

After picking up the kids, we headed to Storm Lake, stopping first at Burger King for supper because we let Paige choose where to eat.

The kids had a great time at the water park. I don't have many pictures since kids + water + camera = bad idea.

We got back to our house about 9:30 and let them eat cupcakes and ice cream before Paige opened more presents. Josh took Conner home (no boy-girl sleepovers allowed) and Abbrielle and Azzia spent the night. We moved Paige's mattress into the living room and they had a slumber party out there, with one girl on the couch, one on the love seat and one on the mattress.

Paige got the Hannah Montana movie as one of her gifts, so they wanted to watch that. At midnight I shut off the TV and told the 2 that were still awake it was time for bed. We didn't even hear any giggling or talking after lights out. Bet that doesn't happen for long.

Saturday morning we took the girls home and just kinda vegged out at home until late afternoon when it was time to head to Algona to watch Josh race. Paige got to flag the hot laps since it was her birthday the day before. She talked to Grant the flagman last week and asked if she could flag. She had a great time!

Yep...that's her dad's car in front of her

We headed to Emmetsburg today for the go-kart races. She only has one race left.

What a busy weekend! Wasn't it just a short time ago I was complaining because I felt like we had nothing interesting going on to blog about?

First Day of First Grade

Paige is officially growing up. She is now a First Grader!


Yesterday was the first day of school and she had a great day. She will again be riding the "white bus", the in-town bussing system. It works out great for us since they pick her up about 7:20, Josh and I both have time to get to work on time.


Here are a few pictures taken before school yesterday:

It's almost time for school

Since the summer is almost over, we decided to take a mini-vacation earlier this week.

We left on Sunday and headed to Des Moines. We shopped a little on the way down there and a little more once we hit DSM. We checked into our hotel and headed to HuHot for supper. Josh and I love to eat there, but Paige had never been before. We have since decided that will be a "date place" because she did not like it at all. We stopped by McDonald's on the way back to the hotel so she could get a cheeseburger.

On Monday, we headed to Adventureland. The weather was a little warm, but tolerable. We got there about noon and rode rides for a couple hours. Josh is so glad to have a little buddy to ride the scary rides with. I don't really like rides that much, so the tilt-o-whirl is about all the excitement I can handle. They rode the roller coaster twice and hit all the rides she was tall enough to ride (which was all but 2). We headed to the water park at Adventurland, Kokomo Cove, about 3 and stayed for a couple hours. After changing back into our dry clothes, we went back to the rides. We stayed until 9 so Paige could see the park all lit up. She really liked it. After leaving, we ended up at Hooter's for a late supper. Who doesn't love chicken wings?

Wednesday morning we got up early to head to Omaha. We got to the zoo about 11:30 and spent most of the day there. Paige wasn't very excited about the zoo. I thought she would enjoy it more than she did, but it was hot so a lot of the animals were hard to see since they were hiding in the shade. We checked into our hotel after leaving the zoo and spent a few hours at the pool.





The Petting Zoo at Dairy World at the zoo

"Help! I'm being eaten by a hippo!" She thought this was hilarious
The Aquarium, she was trying to get the big fish to give her kisses

Which one is my monkey?

Paige loved the orangutans because they have the same color hair she does

The fountain right inside the zoo

I learned that only the boys are peacocks, the girls are peahens and the babies are peafowl. Who knew?

Daddy's girl

We went for the Sea lion show, but Wednesday's are the only day they don't do one because they clean the tank. Oh well, we still got to get a good look at them on the rocks.

Feeding the budgies

Thursday morning we went to the Omaha Children's Museum. We had a great time there. There was a traveling exhibit about the body. That was interesting. They also had an art room, a theater room, a room where the kids could shoot balls from all sorts of devices, a store. Whew! It was a lot of fun and I would recommend it to anybody heading to Omaha. Thanks to my cousin, Kelly, for her great ideas.


Racing the wheelchair in the Body room.

The light box in the art room. Paige and Josh made this sign for me. Awww!
The giant nose that actually sneezed and dripped "snot". I hope it was only water.

All about digestion. Paige's favorite part of the body exhibit.

Poo happens!!

String Art

They didn't have any race car driver outfits, so she opted to be an astronaut instead

Josh and Paige's faces



We finally headed home on Thursday afternoon and, of course, had to stop and see Albert