A Special Day

Happy 4th
Birthday, Ryan!!

My baby turned 4 years old today. I can't believe it has been 4 years. WOW! Time flies.

Ryan had a great birthday. We are celebrating his birthday in Colorado. Today we woke up in a resort in the mountains and went swimming. Once we got back to Aunt Lynn and Uncle Michael's house, Ryan got to pick his birthday meal. He chose hot dogs, watermelon and broccoli so that is what we had. Aunt Lynn and Grandma made the most awesome cake. Then we opened many many presents. It was like Christmas not a birthday. I will add more details when I post a blog about our trip which won't be until next week.

Ryan thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes and birthday phone calls.

I asked Ryan a few questions to document his thoughts on his 4th birthday...

Favorite Color: Purple

Favorite Food: Macaroni and Cheese

Favorite place to play: Betty's house (our neighbor)

Favorite song: International Harvester

Favorite movie or cartoon: Polar Express

Favorite toy: His new plow he got for his birthday

Favorite flavor of cake: Lemon

Check out the inside of that cake!! AWESOME!

Introducing...

OUR NEWEST NEPHEW!!

Chase Edward was born August 16th.
8lbs 3oz
19 inches long

Chase is the son of my step-brother Doug and his wife Jen. My cutest neice, Izzy, is a big sister!

Guess who Izzy is calling?? Aunt Leslie! She called to tell me the good news while grandpa and grandma were taking her to the hospital. She kept saying, "Mama's baby, Mama's baby!"

I was surprised when we showed up at Chucky E Cheese last weekend and Chase was there. I didn't know Doug and Jen were going to be able to make it. I had the pleasure of meeting Chase! What a sweet baby. We love him so much already.

Another fun-filled weekend

Wonder what we did??

CHUCK E CHEESE - Whoppeee!! Saturday was my nephew, Myles, 5th birthday so Ry and I headed to Cedar Rapids to help him celebrate. And what better place to celebrate then Chuck E Cheese. Ryan had 3 hours of fun playing games, eating pizza and cake, and trying to get as many tickets as possible. We haven't made it make to Washington since May so it was nice to see my family too.

Myles, the birthday boy

Ry playing games

Ryan loves air hockey so he talked Uncle Alex into playing

We are going to be in CO for Ry's birthday next week so Grandpa Randy and Grandma Mardi gave him an early birthday present. He really wanted a tractor with a loader on it!

Ben did not get the pleasure playing at Chuck E Cheese because he was near Chicago buying his new boat! It is a 2005 Tracker. It has a 115 horse Mercury motor with a kicker motor and many bells and whistles. This boat is much bigger and nicer then our old fishing boat. We were always in each other way in the old boat. Of course we went fishing today! First we went to Little Wall Lake to test out the speed of the boat then went to Brushy Creek (no wake lake) to fish. We probably caught 15 bluegills today. We kept 8 and had a fish fry for supper!

I accomplished something that I am pretty proud of while we were out on the water. I put the boat on the trailer all by myself. I know, sounds easy, but it really is kind of difficult. We have been pulling the boats (both the ski boat and fishing boat) out of the water for many years but Ben has always backed the truck down the ramp (I am not the greatest at backing the trailer up) while I stayed in the boat and held onto the dock. Then he would get out of the truck and get into the boat to put it on the trailer. Well, today he said, "you have got to learn how to put the boat on the trailer." I DID IT on the first try! No problem. Yay for me.

Grandpa Brad got a new toy this weekend too! A 2009 Polaris Ranger. It is pretty nice. We were able to check it out today before we went fishing. I am sure it will come in handy around the farm. I can't believe they didn't have a 4-wheeler before now. I don't know what we would do without ours.

A good day of fishing!

**I am going to start putting my photo captions at the top of the photo. I am having trouble with formatting when I place them underneath. It is driving me nuts!**

Ben, Ryan and I went fishing for a few hours on Sunday. Things started out kind of slow but the boys ended up catching several fish each. Ryan out fished both of us. He caught 5 or 6 fish - mostly crappie and one perch. Ben caught 3 or 4 fish and I caught 1. I only fished for about an hour. When Ryan started catching fish, I decided it was easier to just help him out then try to deal with two fishing poles at one time. It got pretty hot while we were out on the water. That is why Ryan does have a life jacket on in the pictures. The poor kid was sweating under his lifejacket so badly that his t-shirt was soaking wet. We let him take it off while we weren't moving. I know, bad mama but I felt so sorry for him.


We did a couple of other things last weekend...
We went to the last Little Tykes swim at the pool. Little Tykes is twice a month during the summer and it is an open swim for kids under the age of 6. Ryan loves it. This was probably our last pool outing for the summer :( We still one day left to visit the wading pool tough.

Ryan and Treyton

We went to Treyton and Cainan birthday party on Sunday night. Treyton turned 3 last week and Cainan turns 2 this week. They had a wonderful water party at the wading pool. It was fun for all three of us.

The Birthday Boys, Treyton and Cainan

Jack, AJ and Ryan

Ryan and Jack having fun

Can't resist adding a picture of Maddycakes

Look at this...Ryan wrote his name on his body silhouette. No verbal or physical help. Of course, we have been working on writing his name but it usually isn't legible so it made me very happy to see such improvement.

It's been awhile

ok, ok - I am here to give my readers a Johnson family fix. I have gotten several friendly comments about not having blogged for awhile. All I can say is...we have been so busy. I decided I better MAKE time though.
So where did I leave off? Ah, we were about to leave on weekend camping trip with my family. We had a great weekend at Lake Rathbun. I really wish my family would do this more often. When I was younger, we went boating and camping often but haven't gone camping with my family for at least 10 years. Anyway, when we arrived on Friday it was super hot. It was an uncomfortable night for sleeping. Saturday was beautiful and we slept much better. We went boating a couple times, played with Ryan and Myles, cooked some good food including cedar plank salmon with dill sauce, ate some smores and just enjoyed time as a family.

Ryan and Myles being goofy

Ryan and Myles being pulled in the inflatable

Riding bikes

Swimming - Me, Ryan, Wendy, Myles and Emilee

We took Ryan to his first rodeo. I think he had a good time. I wanted him to wear his western clothes to the rodeo but it was way to hot outside. We actually went to the Travis' house for supper first then headed to the rodeo in Maxwell. Ryan didn't like the calf roping. He thought the cowboys were hurting the calves but the bull riding was pretty exciting. It was a good night.

watching the rodeo

Brave man!

Oh, daddy bought Ryan cotton candy but mom wouldn't let him eat very much of it. Mean mom!

Another new place that we have visited in the last two weeks is a place called Natural Playscape in Jester Park. The best way is explain it is by adding the description the Polk County Conversation uses:
A "natural playscape" is a play area constructed using natural materials such as boulders, earth mounds, and water features, while avoiding plastics, metals, concrete, lumber, and signs explaining how to play.

IMAGINE Children that roll down hills, scramble up rocks, dam up water, and hide in grass experience natural play. This type of play frees the child's imagination to limitless learning opportunities.
EXPERIENCE Play is a natural behavior for humans. Where better to experience a natural behavior, than in nature.
EXPLORE The following are a few of the activities you may explore during your visit.

Will you find your way through the winding maze of the TALL GRASS TANGLE?
Marvel at the mysterious STONE HENGE. Can you unlock its secrets?
Visit the FOREST OF THE DEAD. Are decaying trees still important?
Hike you way to BISON BLUFF and slide down the grassy hill. Choose your own path back to the top, up the LOG STAIRS or through the BOULDER SCRAMBLE.
Visit the ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG. Can you uncover all 8 secrets?
Bushwhack through the PINE GROVE and make it to the LOST BRIDGE. What's on the other side?
Wade through the WETLAND and cool off. Be sure to check out he BUBBLING ROCK and WATERFALL

It was a nice little area. Ryan never got bored and we there were for a long time. We will definitely go back even though it was a bit of a drive.

Look at all those boys creating their own fun

A bunch of our friends sitting on a hollow tree

Ryan and I went to southern Missouri for 4 days to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins.The drive down there was awful. I hit so much road construction and two state fairs (Iowa and Missouri). The 9 hour drive took over 11 hours. YUCK!It was worth it though.We went swimming, bowling, out to eat a couple times and we had a little early birthday celebration for Ryan. Ryan's favorite part of the visit was the water slide at the swimming pool. He was able to wear a lifejacket and go down this HUGE slide all by himself. He probably went down the slide twenty times. Payton, Peri and Clay took turns helping him up the three flights of stairs and I stayed at the bottom just to make sure he was okay but he never needed my help. We love hanging out down there. Ryan adores Peri, Payton and Clay. It was a great time can't wait until next summer. I can't believe how well Ryan travels, I guess that is why we travel so much. He didn't complain at all during the 11 hours trip down there or the 9 hour trip back. Wonderful little boy and a great traveling companion. He definitely keeps me alert while driving because he pretty much talks non-stop!

Ryan and Clay

Clay, Payton, Peri and Ryan

Birthday cake

STATE FAIR! What else can I say. Everyone knows about the the Iowa State Fair. We went on Wednesday so that we could go to the Tractor Pull at the Grand Stands. There were lots of people and it was pretty warm. I don't even want to know how many calories we consumed. Ben and Ryan discussed all the way down to DM what foods there were going to eat. Let's see between the three of us we had corn dogs, a lamb burger, a turkey leg, fried twinkie, fried snickers, strawberry smoothie, lemonade and root beer. Oh can't forget the ice cream. UGH! The boys liked the tractor pull. Wow, it was loud. Good thing we had ear plugs. We were at the fair for about 8 hours. It was a long day.

Oh Maddy

what a mess!! The result of a one old eating an ice cream cone on her own.

Finally, the Ames Public Library has put on a couple neat programs this week. On Tuesday we went to the Hot Dog Dinner Theater. They served us a free hot dog meal then we watched a Magician. Today we went to storytime at the firestation. Ryan really liked being at the fire station. We took a tour of the station, the fire fighters talked about fire safety, read a book and the kids got to climb all over the fire trucks.

I had to pull him out from behind the wheel

Cainan, Treyton, Jaden and Ryan

Besides the things that I have posted about, Ryan had a dentist appt which was great. They took a x-ray, did a flouride treatment, cleaned his teeth and a general check up. No cavities and has perfect teeth at this point.