Justin Rummel . com

I'm starting to question on keeping this website:

Here are pictures that I was able to capture of Gavin's birthday week (as eloquently described on Colleen's site). Can't believe the little guy is now five years old. There is so much that I can't for us to experience such as camping, bike rides, roller coasters, water parks... just having fun "beating each other up".

Holy Cow (pun intended) I really failed at writing this post as I had this "written" in my head almost three weeks ago.

Our trip in Goshen was VERY brief (less than 24 hours), so this story is a little daunting and dramatic given the quick timeframe that we spent in Goshen. Monday afternoon I was with Holden, Gavin, and my mom enjoying ourselves that a farm can offer: Tracker rides, swinging on ropes in the barn, feeding mini-donkeys... things that Gavin will NEVER get to do unless he is at my parents house. Just as we were going ready to return to the house, I noticed several cows (dare I say, a Herd) off in the corner... a corner that has NEVER had cows before. Here is the picture I took of the cows just before ALL COW DRAMA BROKE LOOSE!

It was at this point that to natural reactions occured: mine (holy F! There are cows overthere... lets run and hide). My Mom (Oh dear, I'll go drive off and fetch an Amish guy... they fix everything).

Well, as my mom drove off to fetch an Amish guy, I "kept watch" to make sure they didn't do anything... as if I could stop since I was at least 350 yards away... but damnit I'm "keeping watch"! Fifteen mintues later (everything in Indiana is 15 minutes away), my mom returns with Lonie to help with the cows and quickly drives to the cows to start herding them back to wherever they came from... and then did the worst thing... she looked at my direction and gave the "come over here" wave. CRAP! Now I have to be all manly and go help these stinking cows when all I want to do is escape into the house where it was safe and take pictures with my telephoto lens.

I quickly jogged over to the place and watch Lonie trying to out flank the cows off to the right, so I pretended this was a little Command & Conqure and started to slowly push the main front line. It was at this time that my Mom must have felt that between the Amish MAN and City BOY, we should be able to take care of things and took off back to the house... just ditching me as if saying "see you later, SUCKER!" laughing and skipping her way back inside the safe zone.

So, to make things more elabriated and dramtic that I already have stated; we had the cows backed into the corner where there was a small path back to a larger field (i.e. not in our backyard). The issue is the cows knew once they started to go back down the path it was a sign of failure and the humans would have won. Some cows were smart and simply started down the path... others were not going down without a fight. They started to perform some fancy foot work, trying to go back and forth but Lonie and I held our line strong and kept pushing forward. Finaly all the cows retreated, but that is when they must have decided they will still get the last laugh.

I have never seen so much piss and poop being extreted from an animal that I didn't know if they were ill and I should feel sorry for them or take them down at that very minute because "honey, were having steak tonight!". Cows are the most disgusting animals I've every had to follow, and I've done the band parade thing down South Bend, I know what animals leave behind. I wanted to burn my shoes, strip everything off and request Colleen to just hose me down including my mind... there was so much dirtyness I just couldn't stand it!

To make a long story even longer, the cows were a pain in the ass and wondered back into my parents backyard, at which point my mom returned and said we should just put them in he fenced yard till the owners return. Once the cows were locked in, we sat and had dinner. The owners came around 5PM and I don't think they were finished with those dumb animals till 6:30pm at which we too were heading out the door, ready to return home to the safe house without animals (well, animals that are larger that Cooper).

Our return home trip included a stop at my parents house in Indiana. I have a long winded, over-dramatic story during the 24 hours we were at my parents house... but also I have LOTS of great pictures of the boys playing around the farm. Here are a couple of pictures, be sure to click on the link below.

Holden (who just taught himself to ride a two-wheel bike a couple hours prior to our arrival)


Kaiden, the master dare devil


Incognito Cooper


Tracker Driving Gavin


Psst! Hey, Kaiden. Why these city boys crying?
Holden, I just don't know.

Last weekend we drove to Chicago to visit family, and celebrate Meghan Barker's first birthday. We had a great time with our Chicago family.

We started our trip on Thursday and made it about half way, just pass the Pennsylvania border where we had scheduled one night of rest as to not press our luck with traveling with both boys in the car. We completed our trip on Friday, just in time for Colleen to get her Pepe's fix and have a great evening with Pearl.

Saturday we went to celebrate Meghan's birthday. It took Gavin and Cooper about 30 minutes to get adjusted to the new house and all the, *cough*... crazy people that were in the house (that statement is meant with love... :D). As soon as the initial shock was erased, Gavin immediately began bonding with Mitch and Becca, and started to destroy the house by running like an insane little beast with no purpose or direction other than to enjoy life and have fun.

We ended the evening by going out with Jim and Debbie to Ditka's. The restaurant is wonderful, the food is excellent, the wine list is exquisite... don't take your kids there. We find out as were sat down and started ordering that this is a restaurant that encourages it's guests to make an evening of the meal. We ordered drinks and an appetizer, but we never got to order the main meal until the appetizer was finished. We didn't know this till we were about 30 minutes into the meal where Colleen and I were getting a little upset that we had not ordered any of the kids meals as they were not interested in our food.

Overall, it was an excellent weekend. I wish it could happen more frequently... but as it takes two days to drive in and two days to drive back.... we're already talking a six day vacation which only really leaves two days with family. Of course we would prefer to fly, but as prices are too high and Cooper will be a fourth ticket come this July... I don't see us flying in the near future.