A Smattering of Duehrings

This last weekend I took the oldest 3 kids to the Neir Family Reunion in NW Iowa. We went with my parents and a couple of my sibling’s families.

We took off on Thursday and went as far as Omaha so we could go to the zoo on Friday. We stayed in a really cool old hotel right downtown. They had cookies and milk when we got there for all guests which the kids absolutely loved.

Friday morning we went to the zoo for the day.

We rode the skyfari that went over the zoo. Then we looked at approximately one million animals. I have proof because my kids took pictures of almost every single one.

Evan mooched a ride as much as he could on his grampa’s shoulders.

Then after walking around all day we got in the car and headed to our final destination… Marcus, Iowa.

We checked into a cute little hotel outside of town. It was perfect for us since we had basically the whole hotel to ourselves. The kids were pretty free to roam inside and outside. You could tell it was a small town hotel. The front desk lady even went to bed for the night.

Friday night after checking into our hotel and eating at the Pizza Ranch we went out to see where my dad grew up. This was the farm house where he lived in until he was around 16-17 years old.

My dad took us down to a creek behind the house that he used to play in. He also used to climb the windmill in the background. The kids had fun climbing down to the creek and getting dirty.

Evan and Malia sucking on the flowers.

This is the farm where my dads family moved next. The house has since been burned down, but this was their barn.

Then we went to visit the cemetery. Grampa Neir and Gramma Neir’s family were from the area so there is a lot of family in this same cemetery. This is my grampa and gramma’s headstone.

This is my Great Gramma’s head-stone (gramma’s mom). She and my Great Grampa came over in a boat from Sweden. This is where we got our Swedish blood from.

This reunion was for my Grampa Neir’s side, though. He was one of 7 siblings. They have all passed away, but they still have a reunion every other year for all of the cousins and their families. My grampa is the one in the back in the middle. (the tallest) I believe this picture was taken for great Gramma and Grampa’s 50th anniversary.

There were about 85 people at the reunion. This is the group of people that came that were from my grampa.

Sunday evening I took Eli and Molly out to the Jerry Boan’s, where we swam a Kansas lake (big pond), grilled brats, and went fishing. Both Eli and Molly loved it, but Eli was definitely a bit more enthusiastic. He was no doubt in his environment.

Eli in modified nut cracker form.

Molly contemplates the ridiculousness of jumping off the dock.

Eli's got something on the end of his line!

Eli needs daddy's help. This ain't no wee little sunfish!

Jerry Boan unhooking Eli's catfish. That thing almost took Eli under!

June took Maggie, Micah and Evan up to Iowa for a Neir family reunion this weekend. They were stopping by the Omaha Zoo today, so you will probably see some cool pics of beasts when she returns. That, of course, leaves me here with the “little ones.”

Life is all giggles and smiles with these two! NOT!

Damon’s Bright Idea of the Day: Take the munchkins to the pool in the bike trailer with his single speed. Molly had an apoplectic fit (she remembers when I flipped the trailer a few weeks ago–with her in it), the trailer didn’t fit on the sidewalk over the bridge so we had to ride on the road both ways, it was a billion degrees, and after being fried at the pool for a few hours the last thing my legs wanted to do was ride a bike pulling two fat little kids up hill almost the entire way. Yeah, I know, absolutely brilliant.

The past week was our youth group’s annual missions trip to New Orleans. We have been going down to help rebuild the lower ninth ward for four years now. And four years later there is still a lot of work to do–too much work.

Nice bars on the windows and doors, eh?

This year we stayed at The Carpenter’s House 2, a sort of base-of-operations for volunteer work in the lower ninth ward area. This was a great experience, as we’ve always stayed in a town about 45 minutes away. This year we stayed in the thick of it, right in the area we were ministering in.

Still A War Zone

It was the hottest year so far that we’ve had in NOLA. And to make it more fun, the building we stayed in was just as hot. In fact, at night, it was way hotter inside than it was outside. The work we did was the standard: clearing vacant lots, sorting donations, painting, dry walling, cleaning, etc. We also were blessed to feed the homeless one evening, and just hang out with them for a while. It was really cool.

The Hog

The work was hard. The heat was brutal. But the kids persevered. The Lord really spoke to them, and all were challenged in both their faith as well as their world-view. It was a great trip.

Can you tell they're youth pastors?