Tough Mudder

This past Saturday Jeff along with 9 others completed the Tough Mudder, which is a obstacle course that requires you to run 12 miles and complete 21 obstacles.

 ready to start

 full of mud and ready to run a few more miles

Jeff and Kara enjoying every minute

ready to carry there log for about a 1/2 mile

Cheering on the team to cross the inclined monkey bars

Time to get wet again

Polk Diesel's going strong after 10 miles of running and 2 more to go!

nothing like finishing the obstacles with a few electric shocks!

Completed!

 my job thru out the Tough Mudder - carry the backpack full of snacks and every ones coats, take pictures and of course drink some beer!

It was a super fun day and the group is talking about doing it again in 2015 - I am not sure if I will join them as a "tough mudder" or stay the photographer!?

Life at the Polk House

 For about 2 weeks we had 2 little girls that didn't want to sleep at all! 

Reason #1 they were getting over  a cold and maybe some teeth?! 

Reason #2 I thought I should split them up since they had been kinda waking each other up in the am. So on Sunday night I put them back in the same bed and they have sleeping like rockstars! { more than 4hrs of sleep feels wonderful!} I guess twins do have a strong bond!

 Big  Brother sharing his apple sauce

 We have some girls on the move: Brinley is now army crawling all over and Berlin found the steps

Ready for her afternoon nap {eating lunch is hard work!}

Mom needed to get the dishwasher unloaded without some little helpers so I opened up the Tupperware drawer!

Annual Birthday Night out with Presley

We enjoyed dinner at Applebees and shopping at Meijer

Enjoying the fall weather at the Dolls'

 Barrett and Jeff tried some kayaking!

 Barrett loved kayaking so I feel like we may be back next summer Dolls!

Girl time

Barret had snack day at preschool so we make rice krispe treats and decorated the baggies with "Cars" stickers!

 He had a few extras so we "snuck" over to the Zehring before they got home from school and left some on their front steps.

The girls watching daddy help mommy with some fall decor.

St Jude & Garth Brooks

On Friday we made our BIG donation of $80,881.49 to St Jude during our local country music radio station St. Jude-a-thon.

The radio station was so overwhelmed {as are we!} with the amount of donations that came in during our auction.  We cannot say THANK YOU enough to all those who donated items, bought something or made a donation to make our 1st St Jude Auction a HUGE success!

Here are sound clips from Jeff presenting the checks during the St Jude a-thon

One of the items that was donate were some Garth Brook tickets to his Chicago show.

 Our friends, Rich & Christy Brown bought them for us and requested we go to the concert!

Polk Auction Crew

 Kriss and I were so excited to share a little down time together!

We had a great time and I am pretty sure I sang every song!

pretty sure these two could pass as brothers

If you are in the area of one of Garths' concerts I would highly recommend going! The show is nonstop action and all he does is plays his good old songs!

Zoo Day

On Labor Day Barrett wanted to take Papa to the zoo, so we loaded up the car and off to Fort Wayne we went! Jeff had to work a auction (last thing he felt like doing after our long Labor Day Auction) so he wasn't able to join us.

 

of course we watched some crazy monkeys (Barrett's favorite!)

 

 checking out the Dingo's and listening to papas stories about the ones in the wild in Australia

playing dress up

 train ride

Auction Time & Good Byes

Sorry for the delay in blogging. We had our 31st Annual Labor Day weekend auction which has kept me busy working which leaves very little time for blogging. We also have a two little girls who aren't real excited to sleep lately!

Barrett helping with a little pre auction baking

Brinley ready to go for a little cruise

 

 Boys enjoying a little tractor driving

 This year during our Labor Day auction we took some time to raise money for St Jude Children's Hospital. On Friday we had a truck full of donations that was auction and we raised just over $19,000. On Saturday we had 5 tractors donated with 100% of proceeds going to St. Jude. We had one Farmall A that sold for $29,600! It sold 16 times cause buyers kept donating the tractor back to be resold. It was a moment that I think every one in the crowd won't forget and I know there wasn't a dry eye in the crowd either!

(Andon and Brian drove the 1st tractor thru)

 picnic with cousins

Papa teaching Barrett how to shave

 the girls enjoying some Papa and Grandma time

We also had to say good bye to Dakota last week. 

 She had been acting pretty different so we took her into the vet to get some blood work done. They couldn't detect any infection or any organ abnormaties so they suspected it was most likely a brain tumor or blood clot.  Each day continually got worse and you could see the pain she was in so we made the tough call and put her to sleep. 

She had been apart of our life for 6 years and our house is not the same without her.

 I miss her more and more each day!

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she was my first baby and really good dog. She will be forever missed!

yesterday I found Barrett out by Dakota's grave talking to her cause he missed her he told me