Jack high by the 4th of July

We headed west for the holiday weekend so Jack could check his popcorn at the berry farm. It was doing great and I was trying to figure out how we were going to package it all to share with our friends...it has since blown down and we don't know what we'll get from the crop.

I guess that wasn't our only reason to go through Holdrege though. That evening after Jack's bath, we showed Rod and Phyllis Jack's "lake shirt." It happened to be a shirt that says "Greatest BIG Brother." Phyllis had already mistakenly figured out that I was pregnant, and Rod wondered why we were being so "squirley about a darn shirt." Jack just wanted to get back to his toys.

As I mentioned above, that was Jack's lake shirt, the one we planned on him wearing to the cabin to announce the news to the rest of the family as the Butz 6, Steph, Cori, and Bonar's plus the California Gurls were at the cabin.
Jack wore his shirt, but I made the mistake of preparing really awesome food (with TONS of help from Jess and Phyllis). Everyone was so impressed by the T-Rex watermelon and chocolate sushi (delicious but camera shy) to notice what Jack was wearing.

We kept quietly telling Jack to have Grammy look at his shirt, finally she did, but she kept her lips zipped except to us. Jack then went off to show Papa, but it took a while for him to notice too. Finally I commented that no one was paying attention to Jack and Stephanie thought my feelings were hurt... she soon got over her sympathetic nature and helped spread the word.

After all that was settled, we were able to get back to the food. Bill had the AMAZING idea of doing a crab boil for the evening he was in charge of supper. He and Jess cooked potatoes, corn, shrimp, king crab legs, mussels, and scallops in a huge pot over a fire outside. It was one of the most fun meals we've ever had at the cabin.
It was also really great because most of the cooking was done outside, so there was very little cooking mess to clean up, just shrimp tails and crab shells.

Cori, Caitie, Steph, and I went fishing on day two before Barwicks had to go. We had a bit of luck, I even caught a few on Caitie's homemade fishing pole. She and Bill had attached a long piece of line to a pop can and then wrapped the line around the can. You hold the end of the can and swing the bait out underhand allowing the line to come off the can.


The rest of the weekend, we did a ton more eating, because that is the best thing to do at the cabin, especially when you are in my delicate condition and cannot waterskii! We had an excellent rib dinner with Ina's Mable Baked Beans both cooked by Jess. It was delicious and messy!!

Bill and Jess (once again) tried to start a big fire. This year the chances of that were increased exponentially because we had a paper lantern thingy that has been waiting in our garage for two years to be used and the wheat was ready for harvest.

Perhaps it was a bit windy and I didn't get a picture of the lantern once it was floating free, but luckily we have not heard of any crops lost. We all decided it was best that Dad was walking the dogs during that moment.


Mom and Jack watched as they tried to start other smaller fires, in a more controlled atmosphere. After the dangerous events of last year, this year was highly successful. I am pretty sure that Uncle Book was disappointed that there were no major fires, he and Jackie provided fireworks for a great pre-show on the third and enhanced ours for the Fourth.

Jack and Caitie had so much fun together (as far as I know Caitie had fun and didn't feel like the perpetual babysitter). Jack is still talking about being an actual Jack-in-the-box.
The most fun the kids had was with the giant package of cups from Sam's Club. Caitie is into speed stacking cups and that is how this whole idea came about; somehow it turned into 250 cups stacked to the ceiling.
It was a wonderful weekend that ended with several cars stuck and in ditches. Luckily, Jess was able to push Book and Jackie out of their sticky situation and they had no more trouble getting out. Bill had to wait a bit for some of his friends to get pulled out of the ditch before he could make his attempt with the camper. He had no trouble getting out and they were soon behind us in Holdrege. It was so much fun getting to spend so much time with so much family, a weekend I'll remember fondly forever.