Friday Fun and Fort Wilderness

I was excited for it to be Friday for a couple different reasons.  My friend Tiffany arrived in Disney the night before and was coming over to see us Friday morning and my sister Alyse arrived in the afternoon to stay with us until Monday!    

Ms. Berdene making a mess.  Look at that bed head!

Joel checking out the tire

He got very dirty playing with the tires!

Joel loving the water

Luckily on Friday the rain stopped and it was in the 70’s, not as warm as what I would like, but much better than at home.  We rode bikes in the morning and went to the park until Tiffany arrived.  It was fun seeing Tiffany!  Tiffany left around lunch time and then it was only a few more hours until Aunt Alyse arrived and the kids were super excited about that!  While we were waiting we decided to head to the pool.  Not something I would normally do in 70 degree weather, but the pools were heated, the kids were excited about swimming and so were Brad and I.

Vincent and Joel

Happy Joel

Goofy Joel

Vincent...so cute!

Aunt Alyse found us at the pool and we spent the rest of the evening bumming around camp, going to the park, eating, having a dance party and figuring out a plan for Saturday!

Vincent and the slide

Cecilia wanted to go on the slide

Joel going down the slide

Daddy and Cecilia

Exciting Encounters

After our hot air balloon ride we went back to the motor home and were trying to clean stuff up and visit before we went to our next adventure…Fair Oaks Dairy Farm.  We had camped in the parking lot of a hotel and I was thinking we better get moving before we got in trouble for being there.  As I was playing with Joel in the back bedroom I saw a red SUV outside with 2 men in it wearing suits.  One was on the phone and waving his arms around.  The SUV pulled forward, went backwards, pulled forward again like they were really checking things out.  I told Diane and she said something to Brad and Craig.  Brad went outside for a few minutes, talked to the men, came inside and said they were interested in the motor home and got Craig and they both went back outside.  They were out there for 5 or more minutes and both came back inside.  It turns out the passenger of the SUV was Joe Jackson.  Brad and Craig didn’t recognize him, but figured whoever it was had money because he was wearing a bunch of gold rings.  Brad had noticed a Michael Jackson book on the dash of the truck but didn’t want to say anything like “Hey are you Micheal’s dad”.  At the end of the conversation Joe Jackson finally had to explain to Brad and Craig exactly who he was.  I am sure it was kind of fun for him to not be recognized and have to explain himself and Craig was thrilled to be able to tell everyone that Joe Jackson stopped and inquired about his motor home.  Diane and I thought they should have invited him in for a tour!

The next day after the Farm Progress Show Diane and I were back at the motor home with the kids before the guys got there.  Diane had the idea that we should think of someone famous in the agricultural world and tell the Craig, Brad and Bob that we met someone famous too.  Diane knew Max Armstrong was at the show that day so we told the guys that we met Max.  The story we told was that we were outside the motor home trying to get kids inside and he stopped and asked about the motor home.  They believed us no questions asked!  Before Diane, Craig and Bob headed home Diane told Bob and Brad that we were joking.  Diane had planned to tell Craig it was a joke before he headed to the coffee shop in the morning.  On the ride home Craig was talking to my other brother in law, John, on the phone and started telling him about Joe and Max.  Diane had to jump in quickly and tell Craig the truth.  He was a little disappointed!

Superman!

The new Superman movie "Autumn Frost" has been filming in our area.  It isn't everyday that a Hollywood movie is filmed in our area, so it is fun to hear about where they are filming and what they are doing.  To be honest I probably never would have considered even watching this movie, but now I will definitely rent it, just out of curiosity.

They have built a house and a silo on property a couple of miles from our main farm and then made it all look old.  There has been a lot of filming there and they stop traffic whenever they are filming and even when they aren't filming they have security guards there 24/7.   I haven't been able to see any of the actual filming, but Brad saw a car crashed into the corner of the house and you see equipment all over the place.  The place where they built the house is the property where one of our employees grew up and some of the filming has been in the barn that was on the property when he was younger.

They have also shut down the bridge not far from our house twice for filming.  Supposedly it was for a scene where a bus goes off a bridge.  They have also used a local school, a cemetery where a lot of Brad's relatives are buried, and rumor has it that the entire downtown on a neighboring town will be shut down this week for filming.  Thursday they had a helicopter out to do some filming of corn fields near our main farm.  So if you see the movie you will see some of our corn!

If my father-in-law wasn't on vacation I am sure he would have all kinds of information from the coffee shop about the movie.  In case you didn't know the local coffee shop is always a great place to go for information about what is going on in a town, just keep in mind that it isn't always accurate.