{barn and bikes}

my husband is a dreamer.  he always thinks long term, makes goals,  and has a plan on how to make said goals come to fruition.  i love that about him, because i'm more of a "right in front of your face thinker" (john has used this phrase many times to describe me). while neither way of thinking is wrong, it definitely helps that we think differently because between the two of us we have it all covered. ;)

one of john's dreams has been to build a barn.  he planned the location when we built our house and has talked about it many, many times.  however, he is also really wise with money and he decided right from the start that we would not go into debt to build a barn and that our house would be paid off before we built a barn.  we were pretty set on these two conditions, but when you add four kids into the mix, a large suburban, mowers, wheelbarrows, bikes and outside toys for everyone, etc. in a three stall garage, it's not pleasant.  i was constantly tripping over something on the way the car and we managed to get some holes in our garage walls, scratches on the cars, etc.  i even fell with one of the twins in my arms (thankfully he was okay!).  that's all it took to convince us to build a barn now, when only one of our conditions could be met, verses in a year when both of our conditions would be met. 

the crew started building in late march and did not take too long for it to be completely finished. it's SOOO nice to have our garage back and the kids love playing in the barn.

it's going up! they started very early in the morning when it was still dark outside!

the (almost finished barn.  i must not have taken a picture when it was completely finished, it's missing some wood on the top of each pole.

before moving anything in we had a skate night.  it was so much fun!



john driving the first four wheeler into the barn

sometimes life doesn't go exactly as planned, but that's okay!

 

 

we love to go for bike rides as a family.  towards the end of summer last year greyson was able to handle riding all the way around the block so we did that a few times.  so the other night john suggested we ride around the block (which is five miles) and then go up to dairy queen for some ice cream. it was getting late and i knew by the time we got back from the bike ride the twins would be ready for bed, which equals cranky, so i suggested we ride to dq instead of around the block.  we weren't sure how greyson would do but we figured it couldn't be too much farther to ride up town than around the block.  we were so glad we decided to because we had so much fun.  greyson did a great job and stayed right in between us on the busy roads.  we had a nice break while we enjoyed our blizzards and then rode back home.  i definitely see us doing that  more in the future. 

 

just a little side note-if you have not tried the salted caramel blizzard  you are missing out! simply amazing!