Vacation Bible School

We spent all week going to West Union in the evenings for the Vacation Bible School program at the West Union Christian Church where we attend. Jaiden came along for the ride and my other neice and nephew, Alayna and Nathan attended too. Reagan really enjoyed being with the other kids. She was always shy during the music program but really let it all out every time we got in the car to go home. Today at church, they had the closing program. I was just suprised Reagan got up on the stage. During the first song, she lifted her dress up over her head and the song leader had to go up and pull it down for her!! It was cute watching them. Maybe by next year, they'll be over the stage fright.

Meet me in St. Louie, Louie......

Butterfly Garden and Grant's Farm

Zoo

Last weekend we took a little mini vacation to St. Louis. On Saturday we went to Grant's Farm and the Butterfly house of the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Our favorite part of Grant's farm was bottle feeding the baby goats. We had never been there before and weren't sure what to expect and suprised to find out that you have to ride the train car to get from the entrance to the area where all the action is! We watched an elephant show there and looked at all the farm animals (the Clydesdales are the big attraction there) and ate lunch there. In the afternoon, we went to see the butterflies. After relaxing at the Drury Inn that evening, we went to the St. Louis Zoo on Sunday. Reagan's favorite was the "Giraff-es." What a beautiful weekend we had!

Good Ol' West Union Dining.

Chilton's Carry-Out Pizza

My parents are a bunch of go-getters when it comes to running a business. Luckily the town of West Union and those who pass by will never go hungry because of them. They built this Carry out pizza building which is next to their house and serve pizza and breadsticks Mon.-Sat. evenings 4-8pm. This August will be their 5 year anniversery.

Chilton's Cafe

Last winter, they decided to take on a new restaurant which was then called the Illinois 1 Cafe also in West Union. The building became Chilton's Cafe and a total makeover of the building was completed. They completely repainted everything inside, hung up decorations, new curtains, light fixtures and tablecloths, and revamped the menu. On the outside, they stained the stone, added shudders, log siding to the old addition, and tore off a little entrance that used to be on the front (a new roof is still to come). It's amazing how this place can always be so full of customers in a town of this size. My favorite menu item is the fried fish dinner. The Beef Manhattan is also very good. The just recently added a milkshake machine and just prior to that, they got a charbroiler.

Mooooooooove Over!

Kevin’s dreams of becoming a cow farmer have finally come true. He’s “cow sitting” this week for our neighbors. Every day he drives up to the farm and honks the horn so the cows know it’s feeding time. We’ll usually beat them up to barn and sit while we watch them come running and mooing. Kevin puts food in both troughs and they just go to town. There are about 8 large herfords/angus herfords and 6 baby ones. Reagan absolutely loves going to see the cows. Someday maybe we’ll have some of our own!

Happy 4th of July!

Well I'm sure everyone else can say the same thing but 4th of July was rough this year! It rained all day long and the parade in West Union was cancelled in the afternoon. We spent Saturday morning at my mom's doing a garage sale and had maybe 10 people who came. There was a lot of food at my mom's and we just sat around visiting and eating. We drove back to Newton later in the afternoon and had a cookout with some of Kevin's friends. Then we headed back to West Union again for fireworks at the park. It was sprinkling when we got there so the fireworks were delayed for about 45 minutes and we had to sit with umbrellas in the meantime and listened to the live entertainment while eating popcorn. There was a big tree kind of in our way so we decided to move up closer. We're basically sitting right underneath the fireworks when they started and we're almost looking straight up to see a lot of them. It was a great view!! Some of the ashes were falling from some low fireworks and one landed on Reagan's neck. My mom took her over to the ambulance where my uncle was on duty and sure enough when he wiped away the ashes, there were 3 burn areas on the back of her neck and a burn hole in her jacket, and she never even cried! They dressed everything up and the fireworks were over. Reagan still talked about how much she liked them and didn't seem too bothered by her "owie." Overall it was still a nice 4th, I'm just glad the fireworks hadn't been cancelled but rest ssured, we will not sit that close again!

Swimming lessions

Reagan is going to be starting her 2nd week of swimming lessions this next week. Her and her cousin Jaiden have been going to Mallory Bollander's house every day for lessions. Reagan can put her face in water and blow bubbles, float on her back, jump in the water and go under, and swim on her belly (with assistance of course).

More Chickens!

Another exciting addition to the chicken farm this weekend. We all had Friday off so we drove to Brownstown, IL to look at some chickens and rabbits from a couple who shows them in fairs. The rabbits were adorable but Kevin could not be convinced that we needed any of them. We went with intentions of coming back with 2 particular chickens but of course I can't resist and we came back with 4 more. We got all hens: Australop, Silkie mix, Buff Oprington Cochin, and a Gold-Laced Wyandotte. Here's what our beautiful chickens will some day look like....

Australop and Buff Orpington

Gold Laced Wyandotte and Silkie