Visiting the old farm

Things were a little, let's say, hectic around Ben's birthday. The previous Saturday, Ben's friend Larry had a pool party. The party was at 1:00, so I assumed there would be no lunch, and it would last a few hours. The kids had a terrific time splashing around in the pool, and I didn't know that Ben was such a good swimmer. He can swim around, take a breath, and swim some more. He's much more confident when he can touch the bottom, but he did really well. Anna swims well with her floaties. They rented a big moon walk bouncy thing and it amazes me how much time the kids can spend in there. There was a pinata and they served food around 5:00. I hadn't realized it was that late. Suzette arrived (she had been buying Ben's birthday presents) and I left to pick up our new babysitter. She is the 14-year old daughter of a friend of a good friend and doesn't live nearby. So I picked her up and brought her back. She was very friendly and could converse like an adult, which always surprises me with teenagers. I was glad to hear that she has 3 younger brothers. We've had good luck with babysitters who are the oldest.

We had dinner with Kim and Dennis at a restaurant in Aurora called Andrew's Open Pit, which had been Jimmy's Charhouse and still had the same management, I think. I guess Jimmy's was pricey, and this new incarnation was very inexpensive. There were things on the menu like 1 lb. of pork chops for 6.99. I had a sirloin steak for 9.99 and it was very good. We didn't have reservations, and I couldn't believe that a decent restaurant in the Naperville/Aurora area (it's just west of Route 59) was half empty on a Saturday night. At least 1/2 of the patrons were families with kids.

My sister was in town and we hadn't seen her yet, although we had just seen her the previous week in Boston. My mom was having us over for a BBQ, and Debi wanted to bring her boyfriend David to the farm where we grew up. Mom dropped Debi and David off at the farm, and we met them there. We have visited the farm about twice in the last 15 years. It's a horse farm with about 50-60 stalls; they have about 30 horses on the farm now. The owners raise reining horses and rent out 1/2 the stalls. It's neat to show the kids, pet the horses, and smell the smells. It's amazing how powerful memories can be triggered by scent. Memories came flooding in with the smells of the horses, wood shavings, manure, lime, hay, and leather. Some horses made funny faces while we tickled their noses. We also pet some cute Australian Cattle Dogs.


The best part is that we stopped by the house, and Gwendy, the owner, let us take a look around. We hadn't been in the house for 23 years. They built an addition on the back for a nice laundry/mud room, and did a terrific job remodeling the house and decorating everything in a very horsey theme. It was amazing to see what a small house it was. The kitchen and bedrooms were tiny. They knocked out the upper part of the walls between the kitchen and dining room and living room, which made it much more open. They replaced many of the doors with beautiful doors with images of horses carved in them. They really completely redid the house. It was probably built in 1970 but looked really new. It turns out that they are putting it up for sale and semi-retiring.

Then we drove around the hills of Bull Valley. As a kid, I rode my bike up and down these huge hills to go to friends' houses. Fortunately, those friends had swimming pools, which was a good incentive for the hard work. Then we went back and had dinner at Mom's, plus a birthday cake and presents for Ben (and Anna too - Mom and Debi are good about giving something to the sibling when it's someone's birthday).

- schneid