Jackson is 2!!!!...almost

Officially, Jackson turns two on Saturday, but unofficially, we had a dual birthday celebration with all the Vogels for Jackson and Max who turned 3 last Saturday. Can't believe he's getting so big!
















After dinner and before cake and ice cream we went for the yearly trip to PumpkinLand. The kids loved running around in the pumpkin patches, running through the corn maze, and playing with the animals. We got some cute pictures of all the Vogel cousins, minus cousin Lilly in STL. (We miss you Lilly!)

Ella, Jackson, and Max

















A little of the beauty of NW Iowa for you...Corn fields and pumpkin patches and the cutest kid in town at sunset.

Let's go back a bit...

Before we were in Florida, we stayed in STL for a few days. I really wanted to take Jackson to the zoo while we were there so Lindsay and I packed up the kiddos for a morning out. Lindsay sent me a CD of all our vacation pictures since I didn't have any because of the broken camera issue, so I thought I'd go back a bit and share these with you.
The penguin and puffin area was a big hit with Jackson, Eva, and Shepherd. Jackson was trying to lift Shepherd up so he could see.










Our saving grace for the day was the zoo train. The kids all really liked riding it and Linds and I really liked that they liked it! Jackson loves choo-choo's so much that when we rode the train for the last time and were leaving the zoo, he screamed and cried the whole 10-15 minute walk back to the car. And was promptly asleep before I pulled out of the parking lot.

Everyone needs a picture with an elephant's butt in it, right?

Another fun area was the big fish tanks. It was nice and cool in the cave and the kids could get right up there and see the big fish. And it also made for some really neat pictures.

No news is good news.

Posting has been sparse lately...the camera is broken so we can't take any pictures and nothing too exciting to report. But, crazily enough, it feels like Fall here already. I really like it, but it makes me scared that it will get cold sooner too. We've had 60 degree weather here for almost two weeks now and to tell you how unprepared for cooler weather we are, my poor child has been the laughing stock of the park because all of his pants are too short and I don't have any sneakers that fit him so he has to wear sandals with socks. Poor kid. It's probably a good thing the camera is broken!

Vacation- Part 2

Part of the fun of vacation was a couple of backwater fishing trips. Jeremy and Todd went one day, and then Lindsay and Jeremy went another. They had great weather and caught lots of fish. Needless to say, we didn't starve the whole week! I'm not a huge fish fan, but I even liked it the night that John P. cooked it up. Here's a few of Todd and Jer's catches of the day.

Lindsay and Jeremy's catches.