Grandma's here!

Grandma Hackbardt has finally arrived! After having a 3 hour delay we picked her up from Moline at 1:30am. Late night but SO glad to have her here! I think we'll all be taking naps tomorrow.

Can we make it??

Sunday brought us to the middle of the state in Boone for the Seven Oaks mountain bike race. Lovely day, great weather! Keith will have a write up on his blog about the race. Highlights are Keith finished 4th in his category and finished with a complete bike...until he got to the parking lot and realized his front tire was flat, ugh. Boone has an issue with us, each year something breaks on his bike, normally during the race, so it was nice to wait until Keith was done. Great racing, nice to some of the riders we hadn't seen in a while. Good to be back to the racing scene!

The boys loved playing on the ski chair lifts. This place is a ski resort in the winter, but has bike trails and canoe trips in the summer. The managed to climb/pull up onto one chair that was a good 10 feet off the ground. Kaden is in the green pants in the picture and Salem is in the red shirt below him. Forget the bike race for them. Salem also loved sitting on the lower chair and playing his DS games and Kaden loved playing with his cars in the dirt parking lot.

VBS started tonight for the boys and we knew it was going to be close to getting them there on time. It came down to the wire! Awards finished at 4pm and VBS started at 6pm. We got stuck behind some slow cars a few times, not cool. We were able to pull into the church parking lot at 6:06 and opening was still going on. So they were able to sneak in and had a blast!!!

Kaden's highlight was they get tokens and can use it to buy items from the shops (they are in Egypt). Kaden bought a green gem ring and he bought some cologne. Not a whole bottle, but he got to put some on. He put some on his forehead, cheeks and chest. Oh man you could smell him, although much better than his normal stinky smell :) We are now using cologne as a behavior item at home, we'll see how it goes. He's very excited to try this, I hope the excitement will stay!

Salem's highlight was making the Pharaoh's jewelry, the neckband, headband and wrist guards. He did not use any of his tokens in the shops as they ran out of time. He hopes tomorrow they will get to use them.

They both loved seeing Joseph (Pastor) in jail. They said the jail was decorated very "cooly" and he told some good stories.

Now they are in bed, still excited from the days events. It was a long day, I hope they crash soon, I know mom and dad are ready to!

Farmers Market goodies

Marion had their new big local farmers market this past Saturday. They hold a big one once a month, otherwise it's tiny little one in another location. The big one is at the city park with more vendors and more activities. The one last month (their first one) was quite rainy and we skipped it. This one was a gorgeous day, so we got up early and walked downtown. We are not veggie eaters but do pick up some produce for Frappy. We had just bought local corn the day before as well as some veggies for Frappy, so nothing was truly needed this week at the farmers market but having not been there before we had to see.

We got our free bag (nice sturdy canvas!) that was advertised on Facebook and walked around a bit. Lots of baked goods at this one, seems like everyone and their brother makes cupcakes or cinnamon rolls or other goodies to sell, most of them home based business and honestly not much better, nor batter tasting than my own :) Many had samples to try. We did get suckered into buying a couple peanut butter cup cookies. Hadn't had breakfast yet and he sample was good, plus they were only 75c, so it gave us a little rush to keep looking.

The firemen had a display set up with a propane set up that you could try out a fire extinguisher. Pretty cool idea! I'd never used one, neither had Keith and Salem was old enough to try it as well. You had to be 12, so Kaden had to sit it out and watch. Salem seemed very nervous, he was the first to go then me, then Keith. It was a pretty easy procedure and was nice to try it out before it might be needed (hopefully never)! After we did that we got a fire station reusable bag, cool!

Did another walk around the market to buy things this time. I bought a garlic bulb. Did you know they grew in the ground with HUGE stalks?? This one was about 3 feet tall. Learned something new!

We also bought a bag of apples, although can't remember the kind, it's a very early season apple and very tart. Before we left we stopped at a apple vendor, they sell apple slushies, apple turnovers, apple slices, apple this and apple that! We had discovered them at the Cedar Rapids market and Kaden LOVES the apple slushies! I admit they are very yummy! Salem had missed that market with us, so we bought a slushie for them both with the rules that they each had to share with mom and dad! They were nice and yummy to eat on our walk home. Keith also chose some cinnamon rolls to eat back at home. They were good!

Oh there was also a balloon guy there. This wasn't your ordinary dog and sword balloon maker. This guy did penguins and fish and horses on a carousel. Serious stuff!! Salem chose an alien and Kaden chose an alligator which was small but cute. Salem said the guy loved making the alien because it was the only balloon thing he made with a butt, lol. Catered right to my kids!

I have some more pics, but they are on Salem and Keith's cell phone and I have yet to take them off of there, or figure out how to do that.

Happy 4th of July!

More of Kaden's mind...

Tonight he tells me we can't go anywhere the first 2 weeks after school gets out because he wants to be here to harvest the strawberries. We went to Florida last year right after school got out and we missed the harvest. The animals were happy I am sure! Even though we only get a small amount he still loves watching them grow and searching for ones that are ready to eat. He also wants to plant cucumbers this year so we can feed them to Frappy.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste?

I would really really love to get into Kaden's mind! First off I know it never stops thinking. His brain is ALWAYS going with some idea or invention or thought or a way to solve things or or or. And the things he comes up with juist blow Keith and my mind away.

The other day we had filled up the trunk with a ton of rocks and on the way home he told me to pull into dads parking spot so it would be easier to unload the rocks right where we wanted them. Not a world shattering idea, but one I had not thought of yet as we were just leaving the rock house. Can't say I'd have thought of it until we got home either. But yet there was his brain working full time! He can seem a million miles away when you are talking to him, and yes sometimes I think he is, but yet you can ask him about what you just said and he's got the answer...not always exactly right, but close enough for how distant he seemed. He goes into his own little world all the time. I don't know if that's his happy place or what. But again his mind is going and going and going! I'm just utterly amazed at what he says or comes up with. Oh when he makes his own Lego designs, he doesn't throw pieces together, he thinks about what he's building and makes sure each Lego is there for a purpose. His way of doing things isn't always the easiest or necessiarly the "correct" way, but you can see his point in why he said what he did, or did what he did, and if not, he'll explain it.

Salem's brain doesn't work that way, while he is very very smart it's obvious his brain does not work the same. Not bashing Salem at all, he has his own quirks and such. Heck Kaden's brain doesn't work the way any of ours does, he is definately one of a kind! Salem likes it when Kaden comes up with the ideas and then he can benefit from them! (That's pretty smart I think) Such as bike courses. Kaden will make them and Salem will ride them.

Right now Kaden has been working on making a bike course in our yard. The 1st one of the season. He's been outside for over 2 hours now plotting out the course in his head, staking it out, putting up caution tape and making it real! That is his thing. He puts his heart and soul into making it. Somedays he's not even all about riding the course more than a few times. It's the building of it that he enjoys the most!

I have no clue what he's going to grow up and be, but I do know whatever he does it will be some place where he can use his mind to the fullest...or I hope it is!!

If you ever have a few days to sit and watch him play, or give him a problem and see what solution he can come up with...it'll just blow your mind!

Pinewood Derby...the final frontier

Such sweet sorrow, tis our last Pinewood Derby in scouts :( Kaden and Keith had a good time building the car. Kaden didn't seem to want to have much hands on helping out as in previous years. He had plenty imput though as to how it should be done! As always it was a cool design and had a lego guy! Gotta have the lego guy!!

Not sure where Kaden finished, he didn't get a trophy this year. The computer program and the track electronics were screwed up, so while we had the program to tel us who was racing in what lane, it was just a big mess! We should have raced it by dens without computer and it would have been much easier. Anyway, it's all said and done. He had a good time, was happy with how his car raced, except said afterwards we should have raced it forward. We raced it backwards because it had big wobble and backwards had a bit less. Kaden had the final say on which was it raced!

Here are the pics of his car. It originally had a lego guy driving it, but after the race it fell off...or was knocked off, not sure.