Zoo Trip 2008

We took a trip to the St. Louis Zoo last weekend. The weather was gorgeous, which made for quite a crowd on a Saturday, but we had lots of fun!

First stop -- the hippos! The kids liked the colorful fish. I didn't get any pictures of the hippos, but they were there, I promise!The elephants are some of my favorite animals at the zoo. I got some neat pictures this year.I think Ava found a long-lost cousin in the primate house.Lunch break! PB&J is our favorite lunch (or breakfast) to-go.One of the giraffes was close to the front of the pen, browsing from a tree.Dane thought the giraffes were cool!A baby giraffe!Our second-to-last stop was the penguin and puffin coast. Very cool! I didn't take any pictures inside the building, but you could watch the penguins swim underwater through the glass tanks.Our last stop on the way out the gate was the Awesome Amphibians exhibit, where there were frogs and such on display. Dane thought they were fascinating.Burning off the last of our energy before buckling into the car for the drive home.

Preschool Picnic

Ava's first day of preschool is tomorrow! She's really excited. She especially can't wait to meet all her "new friends". She will be attending Mrs. Wunderlich's preschool class at Immanuel Lutheran School in Washington.

Last weekend we attended the annual back-to-school picnic. Ava met her teacher and got to explore her classroom and the playground.

Ava only looks nervous. Don't let that fool you!She jumped right in and found lots of new doll clothes, games, and puzzles to play with.Can I go to preschool, too, Mom? It looks like fun!

Going for the Gold

Now that the 2008 Olympics are nearly over, maybe I will finally go to bed at a decent hour! I have been seriously sleep-deprived the last two weeks because I've been riveted by all the athletic drama in Beijing. Between Michael Phelps, Nastia Luikin, and Usain Bolt, it's been a memorable Olympiad.

In case you haven't had enough of the Olympic Games, here a pop quiz. Can you guess which event Ava was watching in each group of photos? You'll find the answers below.

1. 2.Dane participated in this event, too. 3. This one should be easy. :)Give up?

Ok, here's the answers:

1. 10 M platform diving. Minus the acrobatics. Thankfully.
2. Marathon. Those are her "running shorts." In the second photo, she's stopping for a drink at a water station. Ava took the gold, Dane the silver.
3. Women's beach volleyball. Note the headband in the first photo. She's going for Misty May-Treanor's look. The headband morphed into a bikini top in the second photo.

Gymnastics didn't air until well after Ava's bedtime, otherwise I'm sure there would have been lots of somersaulting, too. This girl's imagination never ceases to amaze me!

Taste of Summer

We've been enjoying fresh-from-the-garden sweet corn this summer! Ava ate it off the cob last summer, so this year, she knew just what to do. Dane tried, but didn't quite get the hang of it. I ended up cutting the kernels off his ear.

It's Rainin' Clothes!

Here's what it looks like when two little people unload all the clothes from their dresser:Looks like Dane is having fun!Ava, being a girl into clothes, had to try on a few things. She's wearing her own sandals and dress, plus Dane's jeans and t-shirt. I can't get over how close in size they are, for being 22 months apart. I think Dane's feet might even be bigger than Ava's!Here's a funny video clip of the mess in progress. It's rainin' clothes!

Professional Portraits

The kids and I had professional protraits done this morning! It was fun, and we got some great pictures, but now we're all utterly exhausted. Ava was a fantastic model, but Dane was quite a challenge. At first he cried because he didn't want me to put him down, then, once he warmed up to the studio, he wouldn't sit still! I don't think we got a single picture of his signature dimply smile. Oh, well.

Here's a link to the studio's website if you'd like to check out the pictures:

http://www.encorephotovideo.com/

Click on "online galleries" in the left-hand column.

Scroll down, and under the "FAMILIES" heading, click "Oelrichs Family." No password is needed. Click on a photo to enlarge it.

The last 8 or so pictures are of Ava in my wedding gown. I got this idea from my friend Geni, who did something similar with her little girl last year. Hopefully I will remember to do this every year so we can have a photographic progression of her as she grows up. I also want to do this with Dane, but couldn't think of anything good to dress him in. I'm sure he wouldn't have cooperated this year anyway. Better luck next year!

Enjoy!

P.S. For anyone who is interested in ordering a photo, e-mail me at wendyo@fidmail.com and let me know.

Hay Fire

Last week at the farm (on Election Day, to be precise), we experienced something that every farmer hopes never happens to them. We had a hay fire. All of the alfalfa hay we had harvested so far this year, which amounted to about 1500 large square bales, burned. Fortunately, it's been a great year for hay yield, even if the rain makes it difficult to harvest at times, and we have quite a bit yet to bale. The hay and the shed were covered by insurance, and that money should cover the hay we will have to purchase to feed the cows until next year. The fire was contained to the hay shed. No people or animals were injured or even endangered. Aside from the hay, all we lost were a couple of grain wagons and some seed wheat.

We don't think that it was a "true" hay fire where the hay itself was baled too wet, heated up, and caught fire. Those types of fires usually take weeks to start, and this hay had not been there that long. We think that the skid loader you'll see in the pictures below may have sparked while they were stacking hay into the shed the day before, then the spark smoldered and started the fire. That's our theory, anyway. We're not fire experts by any stretch of the imagination!

Views from the south end of the shed. It was unbelievably hot! Air temperatures in the upper 90s didn't help matters, either. These pictures were taken at about noon. Neil discovered the fire at a little after 5 a.m.

Some of the damaged equipment:See that skid loader? Believe it or not, it is still fully functional -- the tire and that melted light were the only parts that were really damaged. Uncle Neil was the hero of the day. Not only was he the one who spotted the fire (while chasing cows into the milking parlor -- specifically one lone cow on top of the hill that did not come in with the rest of the herd), he also drove two tractors and the skid loader (which was partially on fire!) out of the burning shed.

Views from the north end. You can see the pile of ruined wheat in the lower right hand corner of this picture:

The smoke was visible from at least 4 miles away, if not further.

Late in the afternoon, the guys decided to go ahead and pump some water from a nearby pond onto the fire to get it under control. It was a good thing, because we had some severe weather with strong winds that evening. I believe everyone finally went home around 10 p.m., but at least we could all sleep without worrying that the something else was going to catch fire.The next day. This stinky, smoldering, wet mess was once beautiful green alfalfa hay. A week later, I can still smell it from my house, about a half mile away. The odor is something like really nasty cigar smoke mixed with alfalfa silage juice. It gives me a headache. Lucky for you, they haven't invented virtual smell-o-net!

And just to lighten the mood of this blog post, here's some cute Jersey calf pictures!