Friday, January 18, 2008
Christmas on the Farm
We got to spend a lot of time with the Bauer side of the family: everyone came down the same day we did (though we were the only ones who got caught in the blizzard) and stayed for a while. Max got to spend lots of time with his cousins:
¶ Friday, January 18, 2008 
 | We did some formal pictures the first day, at the end of which we all got hats and the kids got party crackers. |
 | Though we came in a blizzard, the weather turned quite nice very quickly. One day, the sky was just perfect blue, horizon to horizon. |
 | Woody and I went for a long walk around the farm with Ryan. There are a lot of thorn trees on the property. |
 | Ryan and Max spent a lot of time playing. This was a radio-controlled plane thingy. |
 | We also got to visit with Great-Aunt Mary Jane -- here's Max having a chat with her -- who gave us some lovely quilts and lots of candy to take home. |
 | Mary Jane always has puppets around: here's Marge and Jack having some fun. |
 | Of course, everyone wanted to hold Nathan, who's just a couple months old. Everyone looks cute with a baby: Uncles... |
 | ....Grandads... |
 | .... older cousins... |
 | ....Grams and Aunts... |
 | In between passing the baby around, there was other fun to be had: Gingerbread Houses! Nobody wanted to eat theirs right away, but we finally got to do some tasty demolition near the end of the visit. |
 | John was architect and chief engineer. |
 | In other sticky-sweet news, Grandad put up a bonfire one night, and the cousins all got to have s'mores. Max was having them for what I'm pretty sure is the first time. The reviews were predictably positive. |
 | The weather was so good that the boys got to spend lots of time outside, and that meant trampoline! Here's Kyle, showing off his moves. |
 | Here's Max mid-bounce, with an assist from John and Ryan. |
 | Max even talked Woody and I up there finally. |
 | After the cousins, aunts and uncles left, we still had some time. this is Max visiting the zoo in Independence. It was a cold, cold day, but that wasn't going to stop Max from seeing everything there was to see and doing everything there was to do. Here he's climbing up a rather slippery castle bridge. |
 | Here he is coming out of a big metal teepee. |
 | This is the "Little House on the Prairie": not the actual house, but it is in the actual spot. |
