Home Sweet Back-Home

The end of April/start of May is always a hectic time around our house. Including the extended family, we have three birthdays and mother's day in a two week span.  Starting last year, we also inserted a tractor show into the schedule.  Throwing my sister's graduation and my brother's work schedule into the mix, makes pulling it all off all the more complicated.  The final plan brought us back home to Lexington two weeks in a row.  Not a big deal considering we are the closest ones to home, in fact, it was two nice weekends. 

The first weekend was actually C's birthday weekend.  To celebrate, we did a dinner-and-a-movie date.  It has been way too long since we went to a movie.  Usually, we look at what's playing and decide there is nothing worth seeing.  This time, C had something in mind she wanted to see.  Working around our baby sitter's availability put us in a little time crunch to enjoy dinner and make it to the movie. I figured it wouldn't hurt to miss some of the commercials and previews.  What I didn't count on was the movie actually being full.  Oh, we still got to see the movie, but the only seats available were in the very front row.  I only sat in the front row at a movie one other time, which, believe it or not, was at "Ernest Saves Christmas" with one of my grade school classmates.  The movie probably won't win any Academy Awards, but it was a little better than Ernest, and was good enough to make for a nice date. 

The trip home later in the weekend for the rest of the birthdays was also nice.  The boys and their cousins played nice together.  They are finally getting old enough you don't have to watch them all the time, and we can enjoy the visits a little more.  We brought home a couple little "baby" trees from grandpa's flower beds.  We'll see if they can grow faster than the Earth Day give-away oak trees I got a couple years ago that are maybe a couple inches taller than when I brought them home. 

All the birthday festivities took up quite a bit of the weekend, but I did find time to get the Ten put back together.  I debated on it, but did end up buying Cat bolts to use on the Ten since they were only a little more than the bolts at Menards.  More surprising was that I could still get valve cover gaskets, and that they were only $2.50 each.  I got it all put back together, and after a few turns of the crank, it fired up.  We didn't go far, but the boys and I took the Ten for a quick test drive just to make sure it would run for the "big" Lexington tractor show. 

I had forgotten how much work it was to get ready for a tractor show.  Thankfully, I was able to still borrow a trailer, and the owner did all the check-out on it ahead of time.  Still, I had to go get it, and get the tractors loaded the day before, since we planned on leaving first-thing in the morning.  I decided to take Junior along with the Ten since we had plenty of room on the trailer, and I had just finished redoing it. 

The tractor show was nice.  The weather was better this year than last year.  C decided to come, which meant L got to come too.  L helped me get the tractors in place while N played at the inflatables.  When we all came back to check on the tractors, it's funny the hear the boys repeat what I tell them.  They are very quick to point out to others (including me) that certain parts are hot and shouldn't be touched (even if it's been hours since the tractor was running).  They also told someone else not to sit on Junior so they don't scratch the fenders (I wonder where they heard that?) 

Both boys headed home after lunch, which let me enjoy some time at home by myself.  It was nice to relax a bit and spend some time with just Mom and Dad.  We went back up for the end of the show and the awards ceremony.  The little Ten took home 1st place in the unrestored class again this year.  It's nice to win, but really for me the best part is just the opportunity to take it out to a show that has stuff for the boys to do, and allows us to spend time with family.  Oh, and it wouldn't be a trip home without bringing home something from mom and dad's basement.  This time it my old wagon for my pedal tractor.  The boys have been wanting to pull stuff with their tractor, and the little trailer fit the bill just right.

With the tractor show out of the way, it was time to get caught up on some overdue yard work. I had been keeping up with the mowing, but I got some extra help this last time.

 The boys and C had started some garden plants and flowers already.  I finally got the garden tilled, so we got them put into the ground.  So far so good.  I think all the plants that started in the pots took when we got them in the garden.  Hopefully over the summer and fall we will have peas, carrots, corn, pumpkins and watermelon.