The Muench Bunch

 Tonight was the first night of the big Dayton Labor Day rodeo. Mark stayed home with the boys since Jake is still sick. He is starting to feel better and his tonsils look a little better. Jayden and I went to the rodeo together. Allie went by herself and found us and sat with us. She is starting college again at ICCC. I hope for the best for her. i hope that she can be driven and disciplined enough to complete school. She is going at it the hard way, commuting, working, and taking very hard classes. I would like to see her have a good future. The rodeo was fun to watch and the weather was great. New this year for the 75th anniversary, the shot off fireworks and what a display it was!! Kind of scary  several of them tipped and hot out and all around instead of up. They set them off right beside the lower cook shack  After the rodeo around 10:30 Mike and Amanda Towrey were married in the arena on horseback. It was very short and sweet and something I didn't want to miss. 

 early August we finally got our cool down and the weather was fabulous in the lower 80’s and even 70’s some days. Now that we are heading near fall it should be getting cool, but we have been in the 90’s all week. It has been pretty hot, and above the normal.  Jake has been sick since Monday. He is not getting better and last night seemed to be getting worse. He had a fever in the evening and woke up at 3 Am crying that his throat hurt so bad and had 101/102 fever. His tonsils were touching and he could not swallow at all.  This morning we broke it to the boys that they would not be going to the Farm Progress show.  Jake was pretty accepting of the fact because he knew how sick he was. He was so bummed and had been looking forward to it for a month every time we passed by. Luke just didn’t understand why he couldn’t go and cried and cried. Mark and I talked it over and came up with a plan.  In the mean time I took Jake to the doctor and he was tested and positive for Mono. What a bu

Today was Luke’s first day of Pre-K. He was so excited and pretty good all decked out in John Deere. He wore a John Deere shirt, John Deere cowboy boots (brothers old pair) and his John Deere backpack we had embroidered with his name. With Jake still home sick, he could not take the bus, so I had to take him and drop him off. His normal schedule will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. His teacher, Mrs. Kauffman is very sweet and I think Luke will have a good year.  Today was the first day of the big farm progress show by Boone. Mark was going to take the three kids, however with Jake home sick, he took Jayden for the day. They had a great time wandering the show and gathering as many free farm hats and paraphernalia as they could. Jake was pretty sad, but still had hopes of getting better so he could go later in the week.

Jake woke up with a sore throat and could not swallow his breakfast. That is usually a good indication of strep throat and he gets it twice a year. I took him to the doctor hoping to be ahead and get him on some medicine before he has to get miserable. His throat looked bad, but the strep test came back negative. The doctor said it is a virus and he should feel better in a few days. I was a little disappointed and hoped for something that would help Jake feel better sooner. He spent the rest of the day in the big blue chair. Luke went with Po one afternoon and knowing Jake was sick he thought they should get him a toy to make him feel better. Luke picked out this nice toy, and one for himself from Grandpa.

We spent the evening in the arena riding horses, practicing barrels, then finished with a family ride. Jake wasn’t up to riding the horse, so he took the. I put Luke in the buddy seat behind me on Tex. We rode down the water way  hay field west of our house. It was a lovely night for a ride and as we rode the sun was setting.

School is going kind of rough for Jayden, today they made the kids run a mile in PE. Then in volleyball practice some of the girls were dishonest in their telling how many serves made it over the night so the coach is going to make them run on Monday for the entire practice.  And to top it off, Jayden's good friend Cheyenne that she rides horses with and has gone to bible study with all summer, went her first week of school and know is going to be homeschooled. Go Figure!. Jayden talks about home schooling all the time and begs. It is peer pressure, but at least it is good peer pressure. She knows that home school  is an option and is really pushing for it. It is something that has been weighing on me for some time. It is something I am praying about and seeking information. I really have to think it through and plan and it will take me the school year to do that. Right now I am just getting information and looking at options. I don’t want to tell the kids we are until I know for s

We got some rain, everyone is enjoying the wet mud, especially Tex. He loves to wear it. And then there is Luke he got a little wet in the rain then he rolled around in the shop dirt, splashed in some mud puddles.He is prepared, he started wearing his overalls over his clothes. He learned that from watching our hired hand Mike at the big shop. Luke has wore his overalls over his jeans for 3 days in a row and it has been in the 90’s, but he thinks its great how it keeps his clothes clean.

 On the second day of school as a Jr. High student, I am seeing how long this year is going to be for Jayden. She talked about all the trouble she is having already. She has very little time once the bus gets to the school to get to class.  The teachers have such high expectations, they only have 3 minutes between classes, Jayden says she runs to her locker gets her stuff and hurries to class. She said the hallways are crowded, kids push and are mean. The 8 th graders are scarey and mean and treat them like little kids. The school lunches are not edible so I send a lunch every day. During lunch with her sack lunch, she sits down to start eating and nobody comes to sit with her.  My heart breaks. She runs in PE lots of laps in the last class of the day and has to hurry to catch the bus. Right to volleyball practice with 3 minutes to change, no chance to get a snack because they aren’t allowed on the bus. They do even more running and her legs were so sore tonight. I could tell she wa

Monday night we took the kids to their schools, saw their classrooms, and met the teachers. I know that Jayden is a little nervous for Jr. high, and I am too. She starts in the high school building in Burnside, a 25 minute drive from home. It is so far away and I am so unfamiliar with the school and teachers. I just don’t know anyone. At the Jr. high building I had hoped to meet teachers and get excited about it with Jayden. That didn’t happen. I feel like I am sending her off to this unknown school with unfamiliar faces and strange kids. I am talking about 8 th graders with dyed red hair, nose and tongue piercings, and I know because we passed them in the hall at orientation. Usually we feel excited for the kids going back to school and Jayden being in Jr. high I just felt uneasy and not sure this is the right thing. I am praying a lot for her and all the kids school this year. Home-schooling has been on my mind in the last year. It is something I have never wanted to do, but I am kee

 Today was the last and final Match of the Broncs. Today we took Tex for Jayden to use running barrels and flags. She has been riding him more and enjoying him more. We still had Jessie for the serpentine. I knew having them both there together would be a challenge, and Jessie being in heat made for a very hard time. The serpentine girls did good, Jayden was upset with how Jessie was acting. She did a nice job on barrels with Tex at a nice lope. It will look good when she gets some speed behind him. She rode Tex in flags too and did well. He is such a tall horse and pretty horse too and Jayden looks so good on him. Everyone was asking about her “new” horse. I really have grown to love that horse too, and I think I am going to lose him to Jayden very fast. There was a couple hour break between the youth events and a team penning. My parents, Alice, Mark and the boys stayed for most of the team penning. Jayden was on a youth team and a couple other teams for penning and sorting. Sh

Jake and mommy had an all day shopping outing just the two of us.  Jake and I very seldom get a day just the two of us. He wore his favorite shirt the one with an eagle and the Isaiah 40:31 verse written across it. He wears that shirt weekly. We went to Des Moines to look for school clothes and shoes.  For our lunch, Jake got to pick where we ate and he said "the food court where they have the giant pizza slices", so that’s what we had. We also had a little ice cream snack later in the day. Jake would randomly give me hugs during the day. It was fun to have time just with him, he is a sweetheart.  Jake got his hair cut, new clothes, new shoes, new cowboy boots, and he is set for school.  Aunt Alice spent the day with Jayden and Luke. They had their lunch on the deck. Jayden helped Luke take orders and serve meals out of his playhouse. They always have quite the fun times.

My good friend from childhood, Jessica moved back to North Carolina last summer. She is back for the week and today we got together with our kids. We met at Hickory Park and had lunch, then we headed to the park to play. It was a great day and so much fun to see her and her cute kids Gavin and Leah and Caron's daughter Ella. Gavin is very into sports and can throw a ball like a little pro. Leah is so cute, looks like a little mini version of her mama. My day is always a rush so I didn’t get to visit as long as I would have liked. We made a dash into the mall to find a pair of volleyball shoes for Jayden and found a cute pair in less than 5 minutes.  In the evening we went to an event that my Aunt Marcia and Uncle David invited us to. We had a fine dining at the Glenn Oaks golf club and learned about the “Walk Thru The Bible ministries. This is an organization that supports and teaches the bible all over the world. We had a nice time and were glad we went.

Jayden and I signed up for another year of volunteering at the “Little Hands on The Farm” at the Iowa State fair . The Graves family also helped on the same day. Mark and the boys went down and explored the fairgrounds while we worked. We had a busy morning with tons of kids to go through. I put aprons on kids and Jayden was a runner carrying items to their places. After lunch we roamed the fairgrounds, had our annual visit with my college friend Jamie with her Belgian horses, saw Libby, Torrie, and Abby show cattle, saw Clifford, and ate lots of junk. Jake was super hard to keep track of! We would turn around and he was gone. If something caught his eye, he went to see it. He scared us a time or two.  We were hot and tired by the tie we headed home.

 Went to church, ate at Hy-Vee food court and bought groceries. Back in the car Daddy and Jake surprised me with a big lovely bunch of flowers. They were even purple my favotire colors and Jake picked them out. I felt so loved. I am blessed.

 I went with Aunt Alice, my Dad and Lynn to Brushy Creek trail riding. It was the perfect day sunny and warm and a lot of others were out riding too. We took about a 3 hour ride and ate a sack lunch before heading home. I have always enjoyed riding horses with Aunt Alice since I was a little kid. She is likely the reason I ride today. That evening we had smores in our yard. The first all summer, one of those things on the must do list for summer. We are running out of time as school is approaching. I thought we had an extra week yet, but school is almost here. Luke likes to eat all the parts of smore,  just each individually and not heated. Jake likes the fire a little too well and can’t resist starting his marshmallows on fire.  Jayden knows how to make them just right. Mmmm . .

Luke is my little smoochie boy. He is always loving on me, cuddling up giving kisses. He tries all the time to sneak a kiss on the lips. He thinks it is so funny. The entire time in Okoboji whenever we ate at a restaurant, he was leaning on me rubbing his cheeks on my arm and giving kisses the whole time we ate. I love every bit of it, but all the hanging on you when eating is a bit much. He is so affectionate and tells me I love you all the time. He is a bit stinjy with his daddy. We asked him why one time and he said because mom is a girl. He also has gotten into fixing his hair like a cool guy or he will say he wants to look "sharp". One Sunday morning he went in his closet and picked out his suit jacket and said he was going to "look sharp today" and asked for his tie. Can you get any cuter? He got lots of compliments that day and he looked like a ;little horse judge when he had his hat on.

 What a beautiful day. I slept the whole night without being awoken by the sounds of traffic and better yet we had our windows open all night letting in fresh air. Today was wonderful nice cool morning and warm afternoon, not at all hot. Luke went in the tractor with Po Po to load round bales while Jayden, Jake, and I went to the arena. We got some lesson time on Traveler before bringing him home. Jayden rode Tex quite a bit and got along really well with him. Jackson gave her a lot of pointers. She went around the barrels at a trot and a few times loping and she smiled and it felt good to her. I rode Traveler and am just getting sued to him. At the end I loped him through and felt pretty good about it. It really helps to have Jackson and Jennilee by your side coaching you along. Mawgee and peepaw met us at the arena with sack lunches and took Jayden on with them to the IA state fair. They took Jayden to the western store  to buy some tops and ate cotton candy at the fair. They stayed

 Goodbye Okoboji, we had a great time. Here we are sporting our Okoboji T-shirts. After unloading, unpacking,  starting some laundry, and eating some supper, Jayden and I took a ride on the horses. It was a nice cool evening, I just couldn’t waste it. It was the perfect evening!!

 Morning of crafts, then we headed to Arnold’s Park. Instead of buying an all day pass and spending too much money, we bought a few passes for the raceway and a couple bumper car rides. It was just enough for us all to enjoy. We got to the speedway first thing and had the track to ourselves. We made tons of laps, I think they weren’t keeping track since we were the only ones going. The second race there was a crowd and people drive crazy, bump into you and cut you off. I had Luke with me and Mark had Jake and Jayden got her own car. It was fun. We also let Jayden and Jacob ram into each other in bumper cars, burn off some sibling anger.  In the afternoon we enjoyed more volleyball and swimming in the outdoor pool. For dinner we went our to a restaurant that had a live band playing 50’s music. Luke got the groove again and couldn’t help but dance. He even went on the dance floor with his sister and mom. To end our night we finished with a game of mini golf. What a fun pla

We start each morning with the resort craft of the day. Today they also had free fishing for the kids. Luke was the only one to catch a fish, he was pretty excited.               We spent a large part of the day at the beach and in the water again. I brought subway sandwiches to the beach for lunch. Boat rides are included in our stay at Fillenworth, so today Mark went on a sail boat.  After cleaning up, the kids and I went to a pottery shop that was across the street from our room. I let each of the kids paint and decorate their very own ice cream bowl. They worked on their creation and really enjoyed it.  They were heated overnight for us and were ready to take home the next day. We were proud of our pottery. We took an afternoon cheese and cracker boat cruise.  We went to a nice restaurant for pasta night. We catch some Olympics each night before crawling in bed.