One of the many perks of working for Riesterer and Schnell is their family fun day each year. This year it happened to fall on the first week of October, which as anyone in the dairy industry knows, is World Dairy Expo week. So we were in for a busy few days.
That Friday I took off work and we headed to the World Dairy Expo with the whole family. It was a fun-filled day with an early start, leaving our house by 6:30 in the morning. We walked all day, took loot back to the car twice, and got to see the presentation of the Klussendorf award. Pretty special for us as we are the last Klussendorfs to be dairy farmers. After being asked all morning when we could just sit and watch the dairy show, we finally sat down about 2 o’clock. Half way through the class of winter calves, all three kids were done watching the dairy show. This was very disappointing for me as I could have sat there all day. Oh well, back to the barns to see the fancy, too-expensive-for-this-farmer, dairy cattle. After we checked everything out, we had to head for home. Exhausted, we got home, carried in the bags of loot, dropped them on the kitchen table and headed for bed.
Saturday morning started early again as we were headed to Green Bay for my company’s Family Fun Day. We got to Lambeau Field at 9:30 a.m.; we headed inside for the Boo Spectacular. We watched a few magic shows, painted some pumpkins, made a ghost project and got faces painted. At noon we headed to the Tundra Tailgate Zone for our company picnic. We then got the awesome opportunity to go into the Don Hudson Center and practice like real football players. The boys loved every moment of it. I even tried kicking a field goal, and let me tell you I have a whole new appreciation for the kicker on a football team; my toe still hurts. That is another story but I can tell you that my kick went higher than Ryan’s and I kept my shoe on. We then headed for a late lunch and off to our Lambeau Field tour. It was awesome to walk up to a sky box then out on to the field.
It was late as we headed back home from our second full-day of fun. We stopped in Wausau for custard at Culver’s on our way home. Ryan and I had custard; our football team of sons had to have a meal… again. Max and Owen went for the kid’s meals as they could get food and custard. Kale wanted the special: a chicken salad sandwich. I asked “Are you sure you will eat that?” He insisted that was what he wanted and we all sat down waiting for the food. We all ate our food, except for Kale. He had one bite of the sandwich, and while he never complained he only ate his fries and left the sandwich. When I asked if he was going to eat it he said yeah he just wasn’t that hungry, but then asked for custard. I knew he didn’t like it but he wouldn’t admit it. So we headed home with our chicken salad sandwich in the cooler. It was another late night and again things got dropped on the table, the cooler got unpacked, and off to bed we went.
Sunday, the day of rest… NOT. We were up early again because our good friend was taking our family pictures. Now by Sunday all the boys just wanted to rest. They all had the giggles, they tested our limits and pushed every button I had… until I threatened them. Smile, I said, or I was going to get out the chicken salad sandwich.
These are the best family pictures we have ever taken. Could be the photographer, could be that our kids are finally old enough to be good but my guess is that it was the looming threat of the chicken salad sandwich.
Life lesson number… (let’s be real I quit counting a long time ago). Even if no one will eat it, make chicken salad, it comes in handy once and a while.
Leave a Reply