A corny kind of weekend

Friday night we headed to Turtletown (Churubusco) for a high school graduation / bon voyage party for a friends' daughter. The daughter was heading down to campus on Saturday to begin her collage career at IUPUI. On the way out we had to go past alot of corn fields, which are in their peak growing season, so they are at least 6 - 8 feet high. William asks what they were and it occured to me that I never really explained where corn came from or showed him a corn stalk being the city boy that I am. So I was describing how that is were corn comes from. Upon getting to the party out in the country, it is right next to a corn field. So I take the boys over to the field and show them the corn stalks. Unfortunately there wasn't any corn on the stalk yet so the lesson might have been a bit lost on them. Anyway, the party was pretty fun. Filled with high school kids everywhere. The boys (especially Andrew) had no problem walking up to everyone and saying hello. It was all in part with the persuit of the dog that they wanted to pet. I was able to get the boys on a trampoline in the backyard too. They hadn't been on one of these in quite some time and seemed to have alot of fun. I commented to Jen that we might have to get one. This is where I find out that she is ethically, morally, and religiously against trampolines. OK not really all of those, but it's more of a safety issue with her. I comment how can it not be safe with all the padding and mesh walls? And we don't have to worry about a dog eating it unlike some others..(*Keith*-cough). We might have to revisit this one in a few years, we will see. So after hanging out for a while we head home to get the kids to bed.

Saturday Jen had to get up and go to work so the boys and I just hung out for the morning. After Jen got home we headed to church. After church Jen and Christoper dropped the rest of us off and Menards to get some supplies while she went to get dinner and a few groceries. We are trying not to stock up on perishable supplies too much because we are heading to Rochester later this week. So the boys and I wander Menards and buy "stuff". My plan was to try and get the battery backup installed for the sump pump again so I could worry less being out of the house on vacation. So yes finally after a year of talking about it I am finally getting it done. We get home and have dinner. After putting the boys to bed Jen and I break out Indiana Jones Lego on the Wii. We are real close to finishing the game, but I am sure that there is alot that we have missed and will require us to go through the game again and again. We ended up playing it until 2:00am.

Sunday morning came real early with the boys. After getting everyone up and together we headed over the the in-laws. Every year they get bags of corn on the cob. The menfolk usually are in the garage de-husking the corn and the womenfolk are usually inside where they boil the corn and cut it off the cob. Then they bag the corn separately and freeze it for the year. Actually most of the corn is for Thanksgiving at their house, but there is quite a bit left for the rest of the year. I believe we did 16 dozen ears of corn (about 200). It actually went pretty quick out in the garage with the boys helping us by taking the de-husked corn inside for Jen and her mom to boil and bag. They actually helped de-husk and take the silk off of some of the corn. Overall it took us about 3 or 4 hours to do all of the corn. Oh and did I mention that it is the in laws 40 wedding anniversary? Nothing says like happy 40 years like doing corn. oh well, they don't usually celebrate birthdays or anniversaries that often and usually not actually on the day of the event. After finishing the corn we were talking about taking the in laws out to dinner for their anniversary, but I really wanted to get the backup installed. So we ended up just getting a bucket of the Colonel for a quick lunch at the house. After that I could have really used a nap, but I headed for the house with my father in law and brother in law. My brother in law has just started a new career as a plumbers apprentice, so that might come in real handy. The directions for the install are pretty basic and not real descriptive so it scared the crap out of me. Overall the install went pretty good. Yes there was a minor flood when the check valve fell off the pipe and drenched my brother in law, but as he says "at least it wasn't poopy water". (he had some experience with that unfortunately). And I had to make another trip to menards for a part, but only ONE trip which is a record for us. Still the sump pump worries me anyway, and now we have cut pipes, installed more hardware, and are relying on alot of "I guess it goes there" kind of installation. I am sure eventually I will stop worrying about it. So 3 hours of installing that I head back and pick up the family. We get home and get the kids a bath and into bed REAL late. Jen talked about trying to finish the Indiana Jones game since we only had one more chapter to do, but I was way to tired. But I am not too tired to all of a sudden go into a panic that we have alot to do in two days before leaving for Rochester. I know it's not like we are going overseas, but still we haven't actually taken a vacation in two years, and not with 3 kids, so we have alot to try and get done.