Jelly Belly Factory Tour

My granddaughter, Chloe loves to spend time with me. I am thrilled that she does.  I kept her overnight last night and in the morning I googled things to do with kids and came up with a website that had photos of about 10 things to do that small children like.  I showed here the photo and asked her if she would like to do any of those things in the pictures. She immediately pointed to the Jelly Belly train and said "I want to ride that train." OK, then we will go!

The Jelly Belly factory is in Kenosha which is about 25 minutes away.  We had some breakfast, got dressed and we were ready to go. The only problem was that the factory opens at 9 and it was before 8. It's hard to explain that to a 4-year old. So I distracted her by getting her to help me clean out my car before we left.  She was into it so the distraction worked. We got to the factory 5 minutes before it opened.  There were already two families ahead of us. That made me feel less silly about showing up for jelly beans at 9 am.

The tour was a simple ride on a cute little train that made stops along the outer walls of the factory warehouse where they played videos of the jelly bean making operation and told stories of the history of the jelly beans. We were not going to see any actual making of the jelly beans here, just towering shelves loaded with boxes of jelly beans. Chloe didn't care. She is too young to pay that close attention and she was getting a train ride. That was all that mattered.

After the tour, we were escorted through the jelly belly candy store. It was a child's heaven. The displays were beautiful and bright and Chloe didn't know where to start.  She picked out a lunch box, a stuffed jelly belly character, a bag of Disney Princess sparkling jelly beans, some orange slices, and a bag of jelly beans for her sister.  She also got a jelly belly paper hat and a sample bag of jelly beans just for taking the tour. It was a fun day for a four-year old.

Garden Harvest

Yesterday Bailee picked our first red cherry tomato from the garden. It never occurred to me to look for tomatoes that are ready, it seems a bit early for that.  When she picked it she mentioned that there were many more that were close to red and almost ready.
I thought I should pay a bit more attention to my garden! I checked all the plants and discovered that there were two peppers that were so large on a single plant that the weight of the peppers was pulling the plant over.  So I picked the larger one, leaving the other one to grow some more.

I also picked some kale and dill that was ready for harvest.  I washed the kale off, making it look a little limp in the photo but I'm sure it will perk back up when it's dry.

I am so excited to start picking vegetables!

Bailee's 33rd Birthday

Today is Bailee's 33rd birthday and to celebrate I made her favorite lasagna dinner complete with a Simma's cheesecake.  Of course I added a salad and garlic bread so the meal was complete. We invited her friend , Shawna to join us along with her three children and had a small celebration. It was nice for Chloe and Avery to have other kids to play with and the weather was perfect.

I asked Chloe what she wanted to buy her mother for her birthday and Chloe said balloons. What an adorable response! So I picked up a balloon bouquet for her to give her mother.  Unfortunately Avery broke all the balloons before I could take a photo, but at least the girls had fun with them. Dinner was good, 5 kids in the house was crazy but I think everyone had fun.

Memorial Day Flag Planting

It's my husband, Jeff's tradition to go to the Veteran's cemetery and plant the flags on the graves in time for Memorial Day. So today was the day for his volunteer group (the GE employees veteran network) to do the task. In past years Jeff has taken our granddaughter, Chloe with him. As a toddler, she rode along in her wagon and handed her grandpa the flags. This year was very different.

Chloe is a fast study.  She watched her grandpa put his heel up against the headstone, then make the hole for the flag at the end of his toes using the length of his foot as a measure to make all the flags in the row look uniform.  Chloe wanted to do this task for him.  So she stuck her toes up against the headstone to measure and put the flag at the length of her foot. Grandpa had a difficult time explaining to her that his foot was a little bit longer than hers thus lacking the uniformity as intended.  Oh well.

Chloe's little sister, Avery had to help too. She sat in the wagon and handed Chloe the flags. So it was a very cooperative operation and we got all the flags planted in our rows in no time.

Baby Ducks

When I saw the babies they were right outside my patio door. Unfortunately, they saw me as well and instantly started scooting away excorted by their mother and 4 males. By the time I got my camera out they were heading back to the creek. At least I got this shot.

Jury Duty

I have to say, I really wanted to figure out a way to get out of it. In  fact, I probably could have gotten my doctor to write me an excuse, However, I decided to do my duty and get it over with.  I worried about what would happen if I actually got on a case, but I was never called out of the pool of jurors. So in the end, I'm glad I went and glad that I am done.