The Long Awaited Trip to Louisville

It has been a year and a half since our last trip to Louisville! Isn't that terrible? The thing is, since Mom and Dad bought their house in Franklin, they've been here so much that we've had less of a reason to go down to see them. But, at long last, we made the trip down on one of the weekends of the North American International Livestock Expo. We've gone to the expo since we were kids, Andy and I have been together several times, too and we knew the girls would love it.

The weather was beautiful and as you can see, the girls settled right in.


Abigail even convined Polk to check out www.barbie.com! All of the pink your heart desires.

Hannah's not smiling in this pic, but the girls had a great time with Annu (our friend, neighbor, childhood babysitter and practically a big sister). Big hugs all around!

Here are Andy and the girls at the Children's Barn Yard at the North American. The kids' exhibits were really nice and perfect for our kids' ages. Here, they're petting Australian Shepherd puppies. Nearby there were piglets, chicks hatching, a goat, a calf, a miniature horse and other livestock.

In these two pictures (Abigail above and Hannah below) they are playing in an area called Farmer for a Day and "shopping" grocery style on a farm. The concept is showing kids where their food comes from. Our kids are pretty well versed in this area due to our garden and many of our friends who have livestock. But, they still loved the shopping carts and had a great time playing after having been in the stroller for quite awhile.

Pops got his snuggles in and naturally asked me to take a picture.

I think Uncle Dane was the most popular "animal" we ran into all weekend, ride 'em horsey!

We had a fun weekend and while we were visiting, Andy and I tried to help a little bit with cleaning out and purging things. We looked through childhood possessions, Keith's many VHS recordings (Stanley Cup Playoffs 1999 anyone?), tried making decisions or suggestions about furniture and Andy got the shredder running again. 37 or so years in one house, with three kids has led to some, um, accumulation. However, things are in pretty good shape and they're making lots of progress on the mission to downsize eventually.

On our next definite visit...the neighborhood yard sale! But we may get there sooner, you just never know.