Ames Vacation Day!

The girls and I escaped to Ames today for a quick vacation day. Two of the things on our summer "To-Do" list were visiting Reiman Gardens and eating at Hickory Park! We checked them both off today... and also did a driving tour of campus! It sure brings back lots of memories for this ol Cyclone Fan!

Madison County Fair

We were invited to a friend's 1 yr old birthday party in Winterset last Saturday... and had a wonderful time at thier park! How beautiful - complete with a Hedge Maze! Everybody should check it out. After the party, the hosts let us all know that the Madison County Fair was going on... so we declared it a FAMILY DATE and decided to go check out the fair! It was awesome.. plenty of animals, a few mellow rides... and of course ice cream and cotton candy! It made a for a great weekend to remember!

Reunion 2007

Our family just returned from a wonderful, relaxing, yet exhausting week at family church camp - which we call reunion. We went to our church's campground called Guthrie Grove - which is North of Guthrie Center, IA.

As usual, we celebrated Brian's birthday while there. July 16 normally falls during reunion. We had a little birthday party for him, complete with gifts, decorations and even his favorite chocolate mint brownies. Our cabin neighbors were thankful that we shared with them! One of Brian's gifts was a 26.2 magnetic bumper sticker to proudly display on his car. He's planning on running two more marathons this year which will bring him up to 10! Most impressive, I think. Brian ran with a great group of guys each morning before the day's activities began. We think this is where he obtained all of his "insider" information.

The girls loved swimming every afternoon and had great kid's classes each morning. Brian and I took a wonderful class on Witnessing Ministry from Jim Trinkle (who is from Knoxville, IA). We are anxious to put some of these ideas to work in ourown ministry.

Mariah, Carlyn & I also learned how to knit this week - which is nothing short of astonishing! I made a stocking hat... that will be sent to orphans in Afghanistan. The girls and I plan to continue knitting... not sure who will be the lucky recipients - but we really had fun learning!

Just a few weeks of summer left before school starts, now. We have so many fun things to cram in! Camping, the State Fair, visiting friends that we haven't seen in a while... and so much more! We hope that your summer is going well. Drop us a line ANYTIME! We love to hear from you!

Blessings,

The Mann's

Jeschkes Visit Iowa!!

We were so happy to host Scott & Holly Jeschke and their two adorable boys, Blake & Caleb recently! They have moved to Manhattan, KS... so we don't get to see them nearly often enough. We had fun playing games into the wee hours of the night, Brian took the boys to meet the swans at the cemetary... and Holly, bless her heart, helped me run a million errands!

We had a great lunch party at Cici's Pizza after church on Sunday. Everyone from Northwest was excited to get caught up with the Jeschke's!

Come back ANYTIME Scott & Holly!

4th of July

We celebrated the 4th of July in a small-town way... which is my personal favorite! The girls watched the parade curbside and snatched up an obscene amount of candy which we promptly shared with their Aunts & Uncles.

Ben made his first trip out of town with us... he spent a couple nights in Lance & Karla's laundry room in his kennel - which was a far cry better than being outdoors in the 100+ degree heat. He also went to the farm and met the ducks, and Shadow - the neighbor's dog. Ben won't be traveling any more with us - it was WAY too much work for me, I'm afraid. He'll be much better off staying home and letting the neighborgirl, Samantha, care for him. That's the arrangement that we have negiotiated for next week while we're all away to reunion at Guthrie Grove.

We enjoyed watching the Dancing Grannies at the Underwood Variety Show on the night of the 4th. Both mom and Aunt Janice were in the show - it was most entertaining!