LABOR DAY WEEKEND

Well, it was a great weekend... 99.50% of it was the bomb diggity! Some of it was planned and some of it was done on the fly.


SATURDAY:

Karen and Bella had never been to Grant's Farm. For those of you not familiar with Grant's Farm, it is a 281 acre wildlife preserve owned by the Busch Family of Anheuser Busch. It received it's name because President Ulysses S. Grant fell in love with Julia Dent, the sister of one of his fellow corpse man. Grant met Julia while visiting his friend on the Dent's family farm. Julia's family owned the property that Grant's farm currently resides on. After marrying the two returned to the Farm and built a cabin on the property. That cabin can still be seen there. (seen below)

August Busch Sr. purchased the property from Grant in 1907. As a tribute to the men who risked their lives during the Civil War, Busch had a iron fence built around the front entrance of the farm made out of Civil War Riffle Barrels. Busch built a large mansion on the property and used this farm as the family's summer home. The location of the farm is probably 30 minutes by car from the brewery downtown. The family's main residence was located next to the brewery. It would be a day's travel by horse and carriage to travel to the farm. August Busch loved that his guests enjoyed this farm so much that he opened it up to the public to see and enjoy. To this day the Busch family still uses the home for entertaining and recreation.

You enter the farm via a tram that gives you a tour of the property. Because this is a wildlife refuge you see rare cows, deer, buffalo from all over the world. After the tour the tram drops you off at a spot where you can walk around and take in a bird show, feed baby goats, and many other exotic animals. In the center of the farm is what's called the Bauernhof, built in 1913, and was the first building constructed on the Busch family estate. Bauernhof is German for "farmstead."


Located in the Bauernhof are tables to enjoy a sampling of ABs many products both Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic. They also serve food if you choose. Also located inside the Bauernhof is Busch's prized collection of horse carriages along with stables that house many different breeds of horses, including, the world famous Clydesdales.

Bella enjoyed seeing all of the sites that Grant's Farm had to offer. Mommy and Daddy enjoyed the many sites the Bauernhof had to offer.

It was really cool afterwards because I got to take Karen and the baby to the first house I grew up in and the elementary school that I attended Kindergarten. This was only a couple miles from Grant's Farm.

SUNDAY:

Sunday we decided to get up early and go visit Grandma Dee Dee and Paw Paw Fred at their place up at Coffeen Lake in Illinois. Paw Paw has a 20 ft. Pontoon Boat so he took us out on the lake to see Eagles and Deer that sometimes can be seen around the lake. They spotted this spring an Eagle's Nest so he was hoping to show us the baby eagles. We didn't spot any near the nest but on the other end of the lake we think we saw a baby eagle perched on a tiny branch. None-the-less it was nice to be out on the water.

When we got back from our boat ride we walked down the road from their camp to this family that has a 3 acre fenced in pen where they raise white tail deer. Bella got to feed the deer crackers. I'm not sure if she was so thrilled to give up her cracker. I think she wanted to eat them.

Grandma and Paw Paw wanted us to stay for dinner but Boogie was getting tired so we opted to just go home. We had a great time!

MONDAY:

Monday we took Bella to the pool. We have several community pools in our area which we have never used in the three years we've lived in our house. Karen was worried about the baby and getting sun burned. We were very careful to keep her hat on and cover her in sunblock. She loved it! She had so much fun and we actually enjoyed ourselves too.

However, when we came home we put Bella down for a nap. Upon her waking up Karen noticed she was very warm. She took her temperature and as she suspected she had a 102 degree fever. So we gave her Baby Tylenol and watched her. Unfortunately, her temp spiked to almost 104 degrees. Needless to say we started to get concerned by yesterday morning when it was this high. Karen took into the doctor and poor boogie has strep. She's been a trooper but Mommy and Daddy have been so worried about her. She still has a temp today so we're hoping it runs it's course and she gets over it.

So as I said, the majority of our weekend was Fantastic!