Half Century of Golfcarts

We survived the first week of Kindergarten.  Survived probably isn't the right word.  C may see things differently since by the time I get home, N has been out of school for a few hours already, but so far it seems to have been smooth sailing.  I don't want to jinx it, but N seems to really enjoy it so far, and doesn't seem to be too exhausted when he gets home.  Next week he starts full days, so that may change, but for now things are going really well. 

One of the carrots I dangled for N was if he was good all week, he could go with me to a tractor show.  I don't know how much of that was actually excitement for the tractor show, or just going somewhere with me.  He is going through a phase right now where he really likes to do things with me, and truth be told, I like being able to take him with me to stuff like this now too.  N held up his end of the bargain, so we planned our departure for Rantoul on Saturday morning. I had previously invited C to come with L, and to my surprise, C decided to take me up on it.  Despite the last minute change in plans to make it a whole-family outing, we were on the road before 7:30.

I remembered from the last show there being a lot of golfcarts, gators, and other UTV’s, but I think there were even more this year.  There was even a UTV traffic jam getting into the gate.  Our "UTV’s" were the wagon and jogging stroller.  I thought bringing one for each boy would extend my time at the show, and it probably did some, but they fought over who got to ride in the wagon.  I think I got to see most of the show, although I didn’t get to look at any one tractor for very long.  Still, I did enjoy it as a family outing, and a nice way to spend a beautiful Saturday morning.

It is funny to me that the wagon is so popular all of a sudden because it never had gotten played with that much before.  Shortly after the new neighbors moved in, we discovered that their kids love to play with their wagon.  All the kids did a nice job taking turns with their wagon, so I decided to get ours out.  The wagon, which I customized for N’s 1st Christmas, seemed to be THE hot toy for the weekend.  The boys pulled it around the yard, pulled it with the pedal tractor, and even pretended to “fix” it with their tools.  N even went a little beyond pretending, and used one of my screwdrivers to take one of the side boards off.  What can I do, he comes by it naturally.

The other big development this weekend was the builder finally had the yard put in at the spec house next door this weekend.  It is a huge improvement in the looks of the house, and the skid steer kept L entertained for several hours.  As the landscaper was cleaning up the lot line so he could lay the sod, I asked if I could have some of the chunks of existing sod he was cutting out.  He did me one better by offering me some of the extra sod rolls he had.  I wheeled Johnny and the wagon over to his trailer, and he stacked what he had left on the pallet onto my wagon.  Not only did he give me more than I was expecting, it turns out it is not just any sod.  It is Lexington sod from the Wagner Sod Farm.  So now we’ve got a little piece of home in our yard.  The sod did cost me a “tour” of the Ten for the landscaper and his crew, which of course they had to twist my arm to do.  As it turned out, it was OK I didn’t take the Ten over to the tractor show, I got to have a tractor show right there in my garage.