Cow Farm

This weekend we went to Fair Oaks Dairy Farm in Indiana. For those of you that are fans of Dirty Jobs, this place was featured on the show a few weeks ago. It is a really great place to take kids!

As usual, Alexis' favorite part was the slide...

Hiding behind a cow...

Alexis learned how to milk a (fake) cow...

Fair Oaks Farm has something like 30,000 cows, and most of them have to be milked three times a day. The bus tour drove right through one of the barns that housed about 1200 of the cows. They all had their heads sticking out eating hay.

The cows all get milked on a revolving milking wheel... they can milk 72 cows at a time. When they get to the end, the cows all know to just back right off the machine and go back to their barn.

Taking a ride on the Moo Choo Train...

Baby cows!

Climbing through a giant piece of swiss cheese...

Good times in the germ factory... I mean, ball pit.

Alexis realllllly loved the funhouse mirror...

Alexis and Cort playing on the big bubble... there are only 5 of these in the US... FUN!

This is in the birthing barn... there is a baby cow born every 20 minutes or so. We saw this one enter the world. (Note: Not for the squeamish!)

Cort and Alexis resting on Bessie.

Camping

Cort and I went camping this weekend, and who knew that everyone else in the house would love my sleeping bag so much?!????!

In other news, Alexis LOVES to wash her hands. She uses enough soap to detail the Titanic, and washes her hands and arms with the precision of a surgeon. Our soap bill has increased drastically in the last few months. Hand washing generally takes about ten minutes. Cort is going to pick up a second job flipping burgers in the evenings to pay for our water bill.

Iron Woman in Training

Alexis is strong enough to lift a tiger all by herself! However, she is not strong enough to carry her sunglasses out to the car in the morning ("Mommy, it's too heavy")... which results in me carrying a diaper bag, laptop bag, suit coat, lunch, purse, and of course a tiny pair of sunglasses... all while protecting the open door from a cat with an eye for freedom.

Looking for a good grip...

I did it!