God's Portion Day

This was it! The big weekend. God's Portion Day in Denmark. It's been on my calendar for a year because not only was this a trip to the farm, but I had a parade to ride in!

Mom sweetened the deal by throwing in a train ride. Yeah, Mom!

Thursday morning Dad took Mom and I to the Amtrack station in Osceola.

The train ride was fun, and didn't seem to take too long.

The best part? Grandma Kathy was there to pick us up in Mount Pleasant when we arrived!

A nice lunch, some catching up then off to the farm we went. Papa needed some help moving dirt around the house so I offered my assistance.

Friday was a fun day. We washed tractors and got ready for the parade. I jumped right in and did my fair share. This is the tractor that Papa and I are going to drive.

Uncle Eric chose the Farmall.

Grandma Kathy asked us to wash up her G to drive.

Uncle Eric and I even got the 4020 ready for Dad!

Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.

After washing the tractors I, for some reason, was really wet. A change of clothes was in order because the work wasn't done. Grandma and I cleaned up leaves ...

... and Papa cleaned the gutters.

After that everyone (except me) went to sleep pretty fast.

What a disappointment! Saturday was cold, windy and rainy. Heck, there was even thunder and lightning! Papa decided that we shouldn't take the tractors out so we were just spectators at the parade. Because of the weather there was a TON of candy available for guys like me.

What a haul!

After the traditional noodle lunch at church we headed over to the auction. I sat on Papa's lap for a long time taking it all in. Heck, he even bought me a new toy!

After awhile it seemed like Grandma Kathy's lap was the place to be. (Why is it that Grandparents have the best laps?)

At the auction Papa bought some gravel for the farm so we needed to move one of the tractors to make room. He drove. I supervised.

I'd never been this close to a dump truck in action and it was pretty cool!

I also did chores while I was out. I can turn the key, turn on the lights and check the fuel on this tractor. (Much to the chagrin of the adults.)

Weird. After such a busy day I fell asleep driving to dinner, about 6:30 p.m. You know what? I slept getting out of the car seat, in Papa's lap at the restaurant, getting back into the car seat, on the drive home, getting into jammies and all through the night. I slept 12 hours in a row! (Farming makes you tired.)

Today we had to come back to Des Moines, but I got one last ride in and got to say thanks to Papa and Grandma Kathy for a great weekend.

Have a super week!

Pierce 

The week was a blur ...

This past week flew by. Lots went on and, for some reason, Mom and Dad seemed to have the shakes with the camera. There were some good shots and lots of blurry ones so bear with me. Last Sunday I went to a new park that had a cool playset. Dad didn't get the photos uploaded so I'll ask him to include them in this week's blog. This park had several cool slides!

And a sound game where you could here the person at the other end of the tube as clear as day!

The best part of this park? The round ladder that I could use for bin climbing practice. Up, up, up the outside of the bin ...

... and down, down, down the inside of the bin.

After school this week Mom and I worked on making the perfect paper airplane. Thanks to YouTube, we found a great design.

Yeah!

Thursday was the ultimate. Mom found out about National Fire Prevention Week activities in Des Moines and one of them was a promotion with our favorite pizza place. Real honest to goodness firemen were delivering pizzas and testing smoke detectors. They came to our house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, I got to go out into the truck! They even turned their lights on for me! (Of course, at this time Grandma Maggy was driving by not knowing what was going on and freaking out!) Thanks for setting this up, Mom ... you're the best!

Saturday (yesterday) Dad and I went to Chariton to see Papa Jack and Grandma Margaret. It was her birthday this weekend so we took a plant and had a good visit.

They both liked my farm set-up and were impressed with the number of acres I covered.

Last night, after Chariton, Mom and I met Grant and his Mom at the circus! It was a lot of fun and we stayed the whole time. Elephants, tigers, acrobats ... it was really great!

Today? Well, today was a chilli dinner at Boulevard. It was great to see so many old friends and catch up. Everyone was doing great. It was good to be back.

(Dad had hoped for a couple pictures of me playing with my friends but we looked like giant, colorful blobs we were moving so fast. No photos for you, Dad!)

Have a great week, gang!

Pierce

Saturday fun day!

I had a pretty good week this week and it was capped off with a really fun Saturday. The Altons came for a visit!

After going out for lunch we came back to house. Bob and I played catch for awhile and had a lot of fun. (He's a good thrower.)

Afterwards I played with the hose and "washed" Dad's car.

Mom and Carol enjoyed visiting and looking at photos.

And, by the end of the visit I got Bob to play helicopter with me! (If you sit under a turning ceiling fan you can pretend the fan blades are the rotor blades of the helicopter.)

It was a great visit and afterwards Mom and Dad took me to a park. I practiced my fire pole sliding and feel well prepared for the next emergency.

Have a great week!

Pierce

Harvest time!

This past week Mom and Dad surprised me with a trip to Papa and Grandma Kathy's farm! It is harvest season so I got to spend lots of time helping. The highlight of the weekend was spending time in the combine and helping with wagons ... but before we can do that we have to feed the cows. I helped put the empty buckets back in Papa's pickup truck and was able to get off the tailgate by myself.

Papa has a new combine this year and it is really neat! It has a Pierce seat and plenty of room in the cab. I felt right at home.

One benefit of field work are field lunches. Papa was generous and let me have some of his jelly for my PB&J sandwich.

Dad did just enough to get a lunch in the field too ... he was feeling pretty proud of himself!

Great-Uncle Tim was around this weekend, too! He's so cool. I really like spending time with him. He drove the big tractor and let me climb in and have a seat.

Whew. Long hours in the field this time of year ...

... thankfully I was able to take a break and help Grandma Kathy harvest some apples from her tree!

I also showed her some things I learned about one of Papa's older tractors. (She seemed appreciative even though she kept saying that she was "retired".)

More combining. Papa and I covered a lot of ground this weekend and I really felt like I helped bring in the harvest.

One cool thing that I have in Granda Kathy's house is a bug kit. If we find a bug we can put it in this container and I can look at it under the magnifying glass. I'm Pierce. I'm a scientist.

And, as often happens, I fell asleep really fast once Mom and Dad forced me to leave the farm and head back to Des Moines.

Have a great week everyone!

Pierce