My Dad’s parents bought their farm in Cadott Wisconsin back in 1916, and it’s stayed in the family since. The generations of Joe’s in the Gilles family have kept it going all these years. My cousin Joe and wife Jane originally planned a century farm celebration for August 2017 but was postponed to this year while Joe’s sister overcame serious complications during her cancer treatments. We’re thrilled we have even more to celebrate with her miraculous recovery this year.

We usually get to see the local cousins that live near the farm when we visit and sometimes we manage to see a few of the other out of state family if they came up while combining vacation with holidays like we do to extend time. But this farm celebration has brought family in from all parts of the state and across the country. I have not seen several cousins since I was a kid in the 1960’s! It’s been great to catch up with those I have not already connected on Facebook yet and I’m looking forward to staying in contact now that we’ve connected there. Meeting up with everyone has just made me more certain I want to travel either full time or for extended periods once I retire. For now of course we are limited to 2 week vacations.

Originally the couple buying our home were hoping to close while we were here in Wisconsin but luckily we found out their loan company has slowed it way down giving us more time for inspections and negotiating repairs from afar. The closing will wait until sometime after we get home following Labor Day. Our realtor is one of the neighbors in our cul de sac and she is letting the repair people in, what a relief! The inspection revealed some unexpected house plumbing and pool equipment repairs and the basement air conditioner needed to be recharged to resolve a temperature differential. It always cooled the basement so quickly that we only had the units on the main floor and upstairs serviced (yes, 3 AC units).

But back to the farm celebration… We had so much fun despite the house sale interrupting festivities and family visits from time to time. The pictures below will probably be boring if you didn’t grow up coming to the farm so I’m apologizing to those of you outside the family up front! We have several other side trips planned so this post is only about the farm celebration and some old farm photos I collected before the trip to share at the party.