We had a birthday brunch on Saturday with the Hershberger/Bergey family. (We missed Great Grandma Bergey...she is in the hospital not doing very well.)
We had cinnamon rolls, quiche muffins, banana muffins, fruit, and zucchini bread.
A matching picture with Great Grandma Hershberger (this was the best smile he would give!).
A gator from Uncle Sam...and a car too...both big hits!
I'm almost certain that so far this card from Great Grandpa and Grandma Bergey is the most used gift as of yet!! It plays a song..the "Chuggington Theme Song"..which none of us were familiar with until now. Now we are all TOO familiar with it!
Ben reading the new Bible Christian got from Great Grandpa and Grandma Hershberger...
it has some very neat illustrations...its called the Jesus storybook Bible.
Hugs and thank you's for the gifts
Putting the new work bench together from Grandpa and Grandma H.
Demonstrating how to properly hammer a nail in...he acted as though he has done this for years!
Thank you all for coming and helping celebrate....what a fun time!!!
Christian is so blessed to have so much family that loves him :)
The Hershberger Reunion (the extended Hershberger family) was held in Junction City, KS this year...
which is only an hour and 15 minutes away from here. It was at a 4H camp site, which was actually quite impressive. The rooms were very accommodating, with a big meeting area central to all the rooms...yet somehow when I laid down with Christian in the late evening it was soundproof to those that were still up.
We walked a little bit of a trail to eat our meals...the food was less than desirable...but other than that, no complaints. We had various family entertainment times....an auction, a talent show, singing, family feud, and other games. The pictures below were taken by one of the family members..but when I downloaded them they got REALLY tiny...maybe you can still see them a little.
1. Christian singing in the talents show (I'll try and upload a video of it...it was of I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N)
2. The Howard Hershberger family (the ones present anyway)
3. Ken dressing up as Julia Child...as part of the talent show (he was quite entertaining that evening in a variety of talents)
4. Christian and his cake lips...cake for one of the 2nd generation family member's 25th wedding anniversary
5. The 3rd generation picture...that would include Ben
This is a picture of the 4th generation that was present...Christian was so sure about Levi (the baby next to him) as he was a little noisy during this picture.
Phil and Diana during the talent show; Diana reading the Bible story of Jesus calming the storm while Phil drew a picture of the story.
Levi, and his amazing push up talent! This was too crazy, I think he was trying to learn to crawl, but instead he would get up on his tippy toes and do a push up for quite awhile!
Everyone meeting for a group meeting of some kind.
Christian playing with Uncle Sam
There was also a HUGE pool outside that we swam in..and it was actually quite cool because it was fed by the local springs. The three of us were the only ones in there for awhile, so I asked if Christian could jump off the diving board (obviously we were in the water to catch him). I don't have pictures of because both Ben and I were involved in that! He did this NUMEROUS times. Needless to say he was mighty proud of this and talked about it for quite sometime how "I AM BIG!!! I jumped off the diving board!!"
We enjoyed the reunion, and now I can put a face with names I have heard but never seen before!
On Monday, we went to Two Harbors to just check out the scenery. It was a dreary day, and lightly rained off and on while we were walking around. We walked along a path by the harbors, that led to the lighthouse. It was not anything spectacular...but it was just a nice change of scenery from what we're used to, and cooler weather too!
We kept walking around this area for quite some time. There was a rocky flattened area that was like a "shore" that was entertaining for Christian to throw rocks in the water.
Carissa was heading up to the Boundary Waters for a week, and this was along her way...so both her and Mitch met up with us at this spot for a bit.
Then Mitch treated us all to dinner at Black Woods....
I will try to describe how good this food was...
full of flavor in every way imaginable! It was SO de-licious!!!
And to top it off...on Christian's kid menu it had a piece of chocolate cake for 2.50 (a HUGE piece that was no pre-packaged piece of brownie).
Seriously...this cake was amazing...and I don't even like chocolate that much. It was topped with little bits of Heath bar, and had just the right amount of gooey caramel stuff in it..oh my, I know I sound like a bit of a food junkie or something right now...but really..if you're ever in the area...
look up Black Woods, it is G-O-O-D! So thanks Mitch!
After our bellies were stuffed full we said our good-byes and headed south.
Christian fell asleep 10 minutes after we left. We stopped at the Mall of America for a couple hours, just because we were right next to it. Christian's main highlights were the Lego place and ALL the escalators.
Back in the car...we headed down the road for a bit and then got a place to stay...and went swimming indoors before bed.
A little bedtime story before calling it a night.
The next day we drove home...and we were back in the land of the triple digits and no rain. (Our garden didn't exactly appreciate our absence...but that's ok, because I'm not so sure it would've survived much better had we been here!)
