Big Month of Summer Happenings!

The last month has flown by as we have had a lot going on. We are now a month closer to meeting baby boy Lesnet, Kai is essentially potty trained while he is awake, and football season is upon us.

One of the highlights of every summer is the annual Lesnet / Briner family reunion at Uncle Gary's farm up in Northwest Ohio. Our turnout was a little on the thin side this year, hopefully attendance will be a little stronger in 2011.

Here is Kai with Grandpa and Grandma Lesnet at the family reunion. I think that my folks look pretty good for chasing around a energetic young man around for a few hours.
The weekend after the family reunion, we made a trip up to Devil's Lake in Southern Michigan. I grew up at the lake but hadn't been there since my folks moved down to the farm about 5 years ago. I have been pretty homesick for the area for a while and was thrilled that we had some family renting a house on the lake for a week...I was even more thrilled that they invited us to come up and spend some time with them. There were 15 of us in a 5 bedroom place, very cozy...hope we can do it again next year!

Here is Kai with his cousin AJ playing with their cars.
Here is Kai preparing for his first boat ride. He was pretty brave and even went tubing with daddy. Cousin Jen took some photos of us on the tube, as you can see he didn't really want to go but he warmed up to it and a little bit once we started going a little faster. Of course, once we got done he couldn't stop talking about how much fun he had!
Here is Kai crying and begging not to go. Too late buddy, you said "yes" and so you're committed.
Once we picked up some speed he had a pretty good time!
On August 14th, I hosted the 2nd Annual Old Married Dudes Golf Outing at Pebble Brook Golf Course right here in Noblesville. We had 16 men come out and play 36 holes of golf. I think it went pretty well as everyone had a good time. As the organizer, I tend to focus on the fact that the formats and games didn't work out as I had drawn them up. Either way, a full day of golf, friends, and insanely hot / humid weather is awesome.

Kai helped me prepare for the outing by helping me mark my golf balls. He thought that coloring golf balls was a trip and spent nearly an hour marking most of my dozen balls.
August in Central Indiana is State Fair time! The Indiana State Fair is really awesome as it feels like a ginormous county fair. It is an event that we could have spent several days enjoying but we were limited to about 3 hours so we tried to see the big stuff (like the World's Largest Boar who weighed in at 1,277 pounds this year).

Here is Kai riding Henry the pony. They had elephant rides at the fair as well but he wasn't having any of that!

We haven't taken pictures of Stephanie's growing baby bump. I caught this one kind of inadvertently but here it is.
Another big hit at the fair is the Dairy Barn. Its just an ice cream joint ran by the Indiana Dairy Producers but its one of those places that you have to go to every time you hit the fair. Another good thing about the Dairy Barn is that it is right next to the trendy food item of the year. This year it was the Krispy Kreme Burger, Chocolate Covered Bacon, and Deep Fried Butter. We didn't try any of the signature entrees this year.

2010 has been a great year for my "Bucket List". I'm sure most folks are familiar with the concept of the bucket list which was made popular in the movie by the same name starring Jack Nickelson and Morgan Freeman. Basically they have a list of things that they want to make sure they do before they die and spend the movie crossing items off their list.

Earlier in the year I went to the Super Bowl and now I have broke 80 for 18 holes on a for real golf course. I knew that I was playing well and started to think that it could be a special round about half way through the back 9. As far as items related to golf, I still need to get a hole in one and live long enough to shoot my age.

Here is my scorecard from breaking 80. I shot even par on the back 9. Lots of greens in regulation and lots of tap in pars. "Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. - Isaiah 65:20