Happy 4th!

Just a few images of our 4th of July weekend full of camping, parades & fireworks

Spencer listening to kids having fun with fireworks Sparklers, always a good time

Big kids playing with fireworks, little kids at a safe distance :-)

Camping mugshots

Poor Joe cleaning his Harley while Katelyn supervises

Katelyn's new car we found at the parade!

Grandma walked up for the parade, not bad for 95 years old! I'm not sure what she thought of it all though. :-)

Anna's stash

Grant helping Dad throw candy for Iowatelecom

We finaly got the camper out and headed to Robert Creek West with our new camping buddies, Tom & Sharon Walker, Stan & Carla Vos and Al & Doreen Sneller. Curt used to be Tom's leadman at PPI and Kate is great friends with Joe, we wasn't planning on camping but they had a spot open and we had a great time with them.

After a rainy morning the parade in Pella was fun and turned into a family reunion for my side that went into grilling that night too. Our motto while camping is "go with the flow" and that worked out great for us this weekend.

Just a couple of things...

VBS Bayou, the Otley way

Started with 50 guppies, I'm pretty sure we ended with more. :-)

Indy race at IowaSpeedway

The 2010 Chevy Camaro Katelyn would love for us to buy for her.The car we think she should get instead! :-)

Last weekend found us at the IowaSpeedway Friday & Saturday night and all day Sunday. Chevy had a display there where Kate really thought she deserved the Camaro but we leaned towards the Aveo. Needless to say she wasn't impressed.

The races were really good and we had a lot of fun on Friday & Saturday with Katelyn and her friend Joe and spending Father's Day with Kate & Nate. With the kids getting older doing something as a family is taking more effort but always worth that effort.

Otley had their VBS all week and even though our numbers were down we had a great time. On top of this post are a couple of pictures of the front of our church as a Bayou. We had real fish and I'm proud to say we didn't kill any all week and found homes for all of them on Friday night (except for a couple that ended up in our parking lot. ) :-)

Happy Birthday Nate!

I can't believe it's been 19 years!
It's really weird when I think back to when I was 19, Curt & I were getting married I'm not sure if I ready for Nate yet. :-)
As you know it hasn't been the easiest with Nate growing up but we love him so much and are really proud of who he's becoming. I can't wait to see what god has planned for him.
Here are just a few pics of Nate through the years...

This weekend so far....

A few images from our weekend so far...

Katelyn & CJ at Pella's graduation

Life at the VK cat farm (watching for june bugs :-)

I guess I was done reading the Town Crier.

Spencer Owen

We also welcomed 50 veterans from Pella's Legion at church Sunday AM, had a potluck with our WBM mission hosts from Honduras and all our Honduras trip friends, had a weenie roast with the YF group, went to my niece's bridal shower, went to 4 graduations (3 on Saturday, gained 10 llbs I swear!) and we haven't even hit Monday yet!!

What we're up to...

Sorry it's been awhile but my camera broke and I've been waiting for my new one. I decided to just post a quick "boring just writing" one. :-)
Tulip Time was fun this year. Thursday I just went shopping in the park and ate my way from one end to the other. It was kind of weird without having kids needing to be places but great not really having a schedule.
We tried to get Baby Cook to come by walking a lot but as I'm typing this he is stubbornly still in place. :-) Becky even came and worked in our church stand with Mom and me Friday but that didn't work either.
Saturday our youth group ran our stand so being a leader meant being the first one there and last to leave. I was tired but really did have a lot of fun with the kids(get them out of church and you never know what's going to come out of their mouths) :-) Sandy came and helped in place of Curt who was busy planting and spraying, I had two old youth kids who came and helped which was a lot of fun catching up with them and knowing that they still wanted to hang with us. :-)
Curt's been busy trying to get the rest of our beans in and spraying, if the weather would just decided if it wants to rain or stay dry for 5 minutes that would help. He's not complaining though, he absolutely loves being out on the farm and not being in the factory anymore.
Katelyn is ready for school to be done, a bunch of her friends are seniors and graduate this week (including CJ her boyfriend) so the next two weeks will be long for her. I'm not sure if she realizes she's my slave this summer so maybe schools not so bad. CJ leaves for Georgia June 1 to join the Army so life might be a bit rough around here for a little while.
Graduation parties, Nate's b-day and hopefully some camping are in our near future so pictures will be included in my next post.

Great Weekend!

What a great weekend!

Saturday Katelyn, Curt and went to the new restaurant Kaldera (Where the old Dr Salamis was). If it stays as good as it was Saturday they're going to do very well. Yummy! I had a sirloin with shrimp & linguine, I highly recommend!

Sunday we played hooky from church and spent the day planting flowers and working on our never ending landscaping. After spending all that money on flowers I think I should just plant bushes but after they're all potted it looks great and I don't regret the money and work.

Off to Mom and Dad's for supper that night. We celebrated Dad's birthday with a BBQ and yummy cake Shelley made.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Saturday Fun

Our new toy, can't believe it's not green!

The GPS system I'm supposed to be able to figure out for Curt. Told I'm not getting paid enough for that!

View from my "buddy" seat :-)

Katelyn had her final performance for show choir today and I have to say after 3 years of watching these fun performances I'm going to kind of miss it. She decided to focus next year on some other activities so I'm sure we'll still have a lot of things to do. She was glad to see Shelley, Carmen, Madeline, Anna, Sandy, Emma & Grandma all at the performance today. :-)

After Katelyn's show Curt called me to see if I could ride a long with him for awhile. Since I hadn't seen him in the daylight since Sunday and he reassured me I had my own comfy "buddy" seat off to Osky I went.

I can understand why he wants company as we went around the field at a racing speed of 7 MPH, hours of that would totally drive me nuts. :-) My hubby is loving it though. He is getting a bit tired of climbing into bed after midnight , thank goodness for Sunday naps!

My blogger helper, Midge.

For some reason the minute I sit down on the laptop Midge is sitting on top of me and helping me type. It works now but if she ever grows it might get a bit tricky. :-)