A horse is a horse.....

Of course of course. 


Sorry.


I couldn't help myself. 

We had a busy weekend again.  On Saturday we headed out  to go to Nebraska City to have lunch with my Grandpa B. and Uncle D.    They took us to Parker's Smoke House.   I thought it was yummy.  Peter said it was ok........sauces at such places are never spicy enough for him.


I think he needs to start carrying a bottle of hot sauce when we go out to eat.


Anyway.... then we  headed back to Grandpa's house.  Grandpa suggested we go over to the Arbor Lodge to walk around. (The link takes you to the Nebraska game and parks web page for a little more info.)   I have not been inside Arbor Lodge since I was a wee one.   I forgot how big it is.  It was built by J.sterling Morton in the late 1800's and donated to Nebraska Game and Parks  by his son Joy Morton in  1932.   J.S. was a political/ news paper man.   It has 3 stories and a basement...and it has it's own bowling alley.


 This is also the family that owns the Morton salt company..... that's right the "When it rains it pours." brand. I did not know that until this weekend.

As we walked I wondered what this house was like when people lived in it.  The family had 4 boys and numerous other relatives and diplomats that visited them.  I could imagine the carriages and horses bustling around the house and yards.  It is a very neat place to visit and it is such a wonderful taste of Nebraska history.

  Grandpa took Carter outside to play while peter and I walked around.   They had the front doors open and we could hear Carter laughing at Grandpa all the way up on the third floor. 


We left Grandpa's house after the lodge and went on to Clarinda, IA to my cousin M.'s graduation party.   She actually graduated last week from Cozad,  but she spent the majority of her summers in IA being a  rodeo queen and staying with her grandparents there.....so she had a party over there too.    Neither Peter or I had ever been there so it was an adventure to get there. We managed to find the house relatively easy.....I did call them when we were sitting right outside.....just to be sure because I did not recognize any of the cars.   We were early so I helped do a couple things to get ready.

 M had promised someone who was coming that she would have a horse saddled.  So the three of us went out with her to watch .  Carter had his first encounter with a horse.   He giggled and laughed and had the biggest grin on his face. 

Then the ultimate of ultimates.........  he got to sit on  the horse with M. 

They also had an old rickshaw that the kids were playing around with.  They took turns riding around.  This is M's cousin C......he was pretty cool and took Carter around a couple times. 

We left the party after eating some fantastic roasted pork. Good job Uncle Moose!  We drove through a nasty storm on the way home.  Other than the rain storm it was a beautiful day and we had a great time. 

Graduation, calf, garden

We went to a graduation party last weekend. This is the Grad.  She was napping the day after her party.

  The party was on a dairy farm. This baby was born on Saturday.  Carter watched and exclaimed "whoa!"

There were other baby cows in the barn.  Carter got to pet their noses.

 

This is A...eating a scotcharoo.

Carter and I planted a garden.   His favorite part was the little shovel.

I don't think he liked his hands being dirty.

Lunch break!  Check out the fork action.  Great job buddy!

Adventures into the unknown........

What a week.   This is a long one folks.....I will post picture later.   :>)


On Tuesday we piled into the car for a road trip to look at a camper for my Dad and his girlfriend Theresa (Hugs to you guys!)   


The 40 minute trip turned into an hour because we got lost twice.  The place was pretty much in the boonies.....but very popular for camping.   It is close to the river and the guy who owned the camper let's call him Phil, said it was cheaper or him to rent the space in that lot than it was to store it in the city. 


Now neither Peter nor I know absolutely anything about what to look for in a camper.  So as Phil was spouting off facts about the spects on the camper....something about the white, gray, and black tanks.... we both nodded and smiled.   After thinking about the tank thing I think I know exactly what he was saying and I will not be going anywhere near the black tank.  


Overall it was a nice looking camper and I don't yet know what the final decision was from my Dad. 




Thursday I got  a call from our Daycare saying that Carter had fallen and was hurt.  (Instant freak out alarm.)
She told me he had fallen and was not moving his left arm. I hurried as quickly as I could to get out of work to go get him. When I picked him up I took him directly to our doctors office. 


Let's back up a little.


 Back in September we were attending my cousins wedding in Colorado.   The day of the wedding we were headed out to grab some lunch and when we were putting Carter into the car he got hurt.  He would not move his left arm at all.  Our family friend and PA who was attending the wedding came and looked at him.  She thought right away that it was "Nursemaids elbow"  Check out this link for a little more info.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001978/   She tried to feel if she could get it back into place.   She couldn't get it and we ended up taking him to an urgent care center.  They did X-rays and the doctor there was able to pop it back into place.   We missed the wedding but made it to the reception.  My Dad still feels terrible because he was the person putting Carter into the car.  (He really shouldn't, it could have happened to anyone of us.)


Fast forward to Thursday......


I suspected that he had Nursemaids elbow again, just because of the way he was acting and holding his arm.  They did some X-rays and then went ahead and tried at the clinic to get it back in place.  She had no luck.  She recommended we take him into the ER or try to see an ortho guy on Friday.  We went to the ER because he was in pain and I wasn't going to make him wait all night.


When we got to the ER they got us checked in and into a room pretty quickly.  A few minutes later a doctor came in and looked at the X-rays we had brought with us.  Carter and I were sitting on the bed and the doctor came over and took Carter's hand and moved his arm a little.  Carter cried and the doctor said, "I felt a little click.  Let's give him a few minutes and see if he starts moving it."  

Well he didn't even try to move it  so they got a second ER doctor to come in and he was able to pop it right back in.    So about 15 minutes later we were headed home.   Unfortunately this is something we will need to be careful with because  it will likely happen again.   Poor baby!!

So we had our first off roading (well pretty much it was really in the boonies)  road trip and our first visit to the ER all in a matter of a few days.