Happy Birthday Bruce!

In honor of Mr. Bruce's 28th birthday, we drove about 30 minutes to a small town named Arcola in the midst of Amish land. We wanted to spend the day wandering around this small Amish community to see the simplicities of life the kind Amish people so eagerly relish. We spent a couple of hours in Rockome Gardens, where we splurged for a short buggy ride and train ride, got our initials burned into a piece of wood (magically cut by a horse powered saw), and sat in the world's largest rocking chair.


We had big plans to spend the day with the Amish driving on the roads in their horse and buggies, but unfortunately a couple of hours into our day, Bruce started to feel ill. In fact, he didn't eat anything for lunch, which for anyone who knows Bruce knows that he must be really sick if he doesn't eat, so we ended up leaving earlier than expected. Luckily

Bruce got his "little boy" fill of trains. For most of Bruce's childhood, he dreamed of being a train engineer so he could drive trains all over the country. He didn't drive them over the country, but he certainly pretended to today.

Last Friday, I held a birthday party for Bruce since I knew he would have a Winfield Village Board Meeting the night of his birthday. I spent most of the day on Friday filling up blasted water balloons for our volleyball game, making cakes, and attempting to decorate them. I found out pigs are easier to draw than cows, hence the emphasis on pigs. As you can see from the cakes below, I have actually no cake decorating abilities (I told you Tiffany) until I take lessons from Tiffany. However, we did manage to have a fantastic time challenging our friends to a grueling game of water balloon volleyball , stuffing ourselves with cake, and hindering the youngsters from breaking too many of our precious balloons. I filled up exactly 97 balloons (3 broke during the filling process) and my fingers were aching when I finished. I hope Mr. Bruce had a marvelous birthday! I sure do love you Mr. Bruce.