Family Harvest

I recently spent a few days at my mom and dad's farm. This time of year the farm is always a busy place to be. They were right in the middle of wheat harvest, which makes always makes life exciting. Wheat harvest has always been one of my favorite times of the year.
My mom and dad got a new camera and I experimented with some pictures.
I love this picture with the combine in the field and the barn in the background.

My brother and his beautiful, growing family.
They're expecting their 2nd child in January!

Natalie and Papa

Natalie loved playing in the dirt, but what 2 1/2 year old doesn't?

One of the main things I did while at home was to help my mom prepare meals for the harvest field. The harvest crew includes my Uncle Tom, my dad, mom, brother, Aunt Tonya, and Danny.

This cute little guy needs a name, got any ideas?

The I-70 Series

Every June the Cardinals come to Kansas City to take on the Royals in the I-70 series. We usually attend all 3 games, since this is our chance to drive only 40ish minutes instead of 4 hours to see the Cardinals. This makes the total number of Cardinals games I've been to this summer to 6 and they've all been away games, (that will change on Thursday!). We also had some company for the weekend of games; Jim, Robyn, Sally, Dan, and Trent all came to visit.

I didn't take too many pictures, but I did get a good one of Albert.

We also got to see the Royals "new" Stadium. This picture shows how they've changed the outfield. The trademark fountains are still there, but they added seats to the outfield and now you can walk around the entire stadium. Trent and Grandma

They also added a carousel to the outfield. The carousel was one of Trent's favorite things. They also added a playground, batting cage, and several other kid friendly items. Tim and I wondered why you'd need all this stuff in a baseball park, but it made the stadium a great family environment.

I Must Confess...

All this "Death of an Icon" stuff has gotten to me and I purchased a Michael Jackson album. I figured I can't call myself a true child of the 80's unless I have some Michael on my ipod. So I am now the proud owner of Michael Jackson's Number One hits album. Maybe I'll spend the rest of the day learning the "Thriller" Dance... or not.

Finishing Touches

This past weekend when Jim and Robyn came to the Royals vs. Cardinals games, we were finally able to put the finishing touches on our deck.

We ended up being 3 boards short, so these were our stairs for three weeks. (Not the safest things)
After two different deliveries from Home Depot (they delivered the wrong thing), these are now our stairs.
Tim, Jim, and Dan also finished the railing.



A couple of weeks ago, I visited a couple of local greenhouses near Edgerton and bought some flowers for our deck. I think I picked the right time of year to go because both of the greenhouses were having sales, and I'm always up for a good bargain! Both of the green houses were pretty impressive and I'll definitely visit them again in the future.

These are the pots I found in Abilene for 50% off. I was tempted to go with red and blue, but stuck with more of a neutral color, thinking the flowers would add the color.
This is what the flowers started out looking like.
This is the final finished product. I'm not really sure about the blue flowers, for some reason they don't look like I pictured them looking. I'm also not sure how they'll do on the deck in the afternoon sun, but we'll call this a trial year and see how it goes.

She's Back!

After spending three weeks at her "vacation home" in Illinois, Daisy is back in Kansas. I'm not too sure whether she is happy to be back or not. I can't believe how quiet and clean our house was without her. It looks like I'll be back to my every other day vacuuming schedule. :(

Daisy made it back just in time to watch the Cardinals sweep the Royals! Doesn't she look thrilled with her souvenir from the game?

Daisy isn't too crazy about the 95 degree weather! She's hoping to spend most of her afternoons inside in the air-conditioning or in her new pool!

"What dog hair? Wasn't me!"

This Takes the Cake

A couple of weeks ago, I made a trip to Salina and with the help of my mom I accomplished #10 on my "To Do" list: Buy a sewing machine and learn to sew. Well, my mom actually purchased the sewing machine for me and provided the sewing lessons, I'm not sure what I'd do without her!

Here is my first project/ sewing lesson. While at my mom's house I completed this table runner. I'm hoping to have it completed by the 4th of July to put on my table, but we'll see if it gets finished or not. It still needs to be quilted and bound, two things I can't do on my own. Looks like I'll be making another trip to Salina to get it finished up. Here is my new-to-me sewing machine. According to my mom, it's a pretty simple machine, something to get me started and to learn on.

This is my workspace, I've set up shop in our guest bedroom in the basement. This keeps the mess out of sight and I can leave my sewing machine up all the time.
This is my second workspace. Tim's not too thrilled I've taken over his desk, but it's usually only temporary.

#53: Make a quilt- Done
This is the second project I've completed with my sewing machine. The title of this pattern is "This Takes the Cake", hence the blog title. It still needs to be quilted and bound as well, but the hard part of piecing is done.

South Beach, Miami & the Marlins vs the Cardinals

On Tuesday morning, Tim and I left the world of Disney and headed south to Miami. Our hotel was in South Beach and just a few steps from the beach. It was wonderful! While the city of Miami wasn't quite our favorite city, the South Beach area was really nice and interesting to see.

This is our hotel's beach, which was literally right outside the back door. The beach was free, but just about everything else was not. The first day we were there Tim and I grabbed two chairs and an umbrella, only to have a hotel worker let us know that would be $10 for each chair and $15 for the umbrella. Being the cheap skates we are, we politely laughed, said "No thanks" and made our place in the sand.

South Beach was a little too liberal for our tastes. We did see several topless sunbathers and a few men in speedos, it was a little different than what we're used to in Kansas.
This is the view of the beach after sunset. The beach area was so pretty.
On our last night in Miami we explored the south beach area and made our way to Lincoln street. Lincoln street is home to some really nice shops and eating places.

This was Tim's meal in South Beach, his favorite from Germany, Currywurst. While walking along Lincoln street and looking for a place to eat, we stumbled across the Hofbraus House. Hofbraus House is a famous beer house we visited while in Munich, Germany last summer. We didn't end up eating there last summer, so we decided why not eat there now. I was a little confused as to why South Beach Miami would have a German Beer House, but Tim loved it so we had to stop. As repayment for eating at the German restaurant, I got to pick the dessert and we headed to the Ghirardelli ice cream shop. Our rocky road sundae was well worth the dinner at the German restaurant, it was to die for!!#42- Spend the day at the Beach- Done
We didn't actually spend the entire day at the beach, just long enough for a swin in the ocean and a sun burn. It was still a perfect day for me!

Tim wishes I'd get to the real reason we were in Miami, the Cardinals!
One of the main reasons we decided (or Tim decided) to vacation in Florida was to watch the Cardinals play the Florida Marlins.

This is what we arrived to the first night, an empty stadium! We were amazed to find the stands completely empty, granted it was raining and it was 30 minutes until game time, but had the game been at Busch stadium, the seats would have at least been half full.
This was the crowd for Tuesday night's game. We're not sure how a city like Miami can't get more than 9,000 people to attend a baseball game, not to mention there were more Cardinal fans at the game than Marlins fans.
The Marlins' stadium is the same place where the Miami Dolphins and the University of Miami have their football games. It was also host to numerous Super Bowls and the Orange Bowl. It was neat to imagine it packed for a sold out football game. I feel a little sorry for the Marlins players, not only can they not draw a crowd, their popular chant is "Let's Go Fish!" We were able to see Chris Carpenter pitch the first night. The Cardinals lost the first game on Tuesday night, but where able to win the games on Wednesday and Thursday.

These were our seats for Thursday's afternoon game. These seats were a great (& hot) view of the game and only $10.
Our Florida trip included a perfect day for me, spending the day at the beach and a couple of perfect days for Tim, watching Carpenter pitch and the Cardinals win.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Last Thursday, I picked Tim up from work early and we headed to the airport for our trip to the "Happiest Place on Earth", also known as Disney World. Our flight was originally supposed to leave at 6:05, but due to a "broken plane", we ended up leaving at 8:05. Not a great way to start a vacation, but better to arrive late than not at all. We spent 4 days in Orlando, 3 Days at the Disney Parks and 1 day exploring Orlando. Here are a few pictures from the Disney portion of our Florida trip.Here is the famous Disney Castle light up for the nightly fireworks. Each park has one main center object, the castle is the center object for the Magic Kingdom. I wanted a picture of the castle in the daytime, but somehow forgot to take a picture, must have been my excitement to see Mickey!

This hat is the center object at Disney's Hollywood Studios.
The Epcot Ball, the center object of the Epcot Park.
The ball actually contains a really neat ride about the history of communication. Epcot was also home to one of our favorite rides, Soarin'. Epcot has a section of their park called "World Showcase" that has parts of several other countries. We ate lunch in Germany and took a picture of this fountain to remember our trip to Germany last summer. Tim was really hoping the German restaurant would have currywurst, but he had to settle for a brat and a pretzel instead.

Jody in front of the Lego Dinosaur in Downtown Disney. They had several sculptures made entirely from legos. Amazing!

Across the street from our hotel was Downtown Disney. It is a neat little Disney themed shopping area, where you can buy just about anything Disney, and I mean anything!On Sunday we took a break from the Disney parks to visit some surrounding Orlando sights. This was a close as we got to the Kennedy Space Center. We also stopped along the beach, but it was storming so we didn't stay long.

This is the "Tree of Life", which is the center object at Disney's Animal Kingdom. You can't really tell from the picture, but there are several animals carved into the tree. There was a cow at the petting zoo at Animal Kingdom. Tim and I both thought we didn't really need to come all the way to Florida to pet a cow.
Right next to the petting zoo was a medical station for the animals at Animal Kingdom. At the medical station they operate on animals and let people watch. While we were there they were doing a routine check-up on a gorilla. It was amazing to see all the doctors working on the gorilla and I was very surprised they let everyone watch.

One of the rides at Animal Kingdom is an animal safari. These giraffes were just a few of the animals on the safari.
Each park (except Animal Kingdom) has a fantastic nighttime show. This boat is from the nighttime show at Disney's Hollywood Studios called Fantasmic. They only do a Fantasmic show 3 days a week and it fills up fast, we got there 1.5 hours before the show started just to get a seat. Of all of the nighttime shows Fantasmic was our favorite, but they all were amazing and well worth the wait time.

#43- Visit Walt Disney World- Done!

Stay tuned, McClelland family Florida trip part 2 coming soon...