green poop

I am not sure what ben ate the other day but... we had to take a picture.

I know - it is Exactly what you wanted to see. Bright, Green, Poop.

Our flood and calzones

Unless you have been living in a cave (or you just don't watch news, which is perfectly respectable as most of it is Crap...) you may have heard about Ames flooding.

It may be a tad bit late to inform you that we're perfectly fine up here (in case you hadn't heard from us and assumed our certain drowning...). In fact, on the day of the flood - or when we woke up and realized what had happened over night via Facebook... We stuck Benjamin in the trailer and cruised out to see what all the fuss was about. I did have a 2hour ride planned so it was also a mission to see if there was Any way out of town:

This was the road and the softball diamonds to the east:

This is usually the way we head west:

This is how one would get south:

and though I didn't get a chance to get a shot of the flooded north routes.... this aerial photo may persuade you to trust me...

We weren't going anywhere! And certainly not to campus/work for the day!! RAIN DAAAY!!!! (it is like a snow day except with rain!)

Though we were stuck, we were of the most fortunate in that our home is up quite a way above the flood plane, something we did check before buying!!! We also have no basement which sometimes creates a space crunch, but in this instance... we'll take having a crowded living room over a flooded basement any day.

On the upside... there were still garage sales this weekend!!

Ben found a lawnmower Right away and... wouldn't let that thing go. So for $.25 I splurged...

He still hasn't let that thing go.

We also found an X-Men flip book thinger - he has made us read that about 25 times. He might be able to identify Wolverine before a real Zebra.

In cooking news:

Entirely fresh garden, except the cheese... Calzones. Dough made from scratch...

Yum... Yum. Yum.

I can't recommend enough picking your own veggies/herbs and trying your own custom calzones!!!

round on the ends, hi in the middle

At some point last week (I guess the week before at this point!) we took off in the cr-v (what we call the "curvey" or also "the insect slaughtering mobile") to Ohio.

We picked up a few hitch hikers along the journey:

Jared and I (in all of our bacon loving thoughtfulness) contemplated what members of PETA think of such journeys. I mean, that group just lost by like... 210,000 animals. I appreciate them helping out the chickens and such but... maybe they are racist against the insect variety. Or maybe they really are all Frogs!

Back on track... We went to Ohio for some family visiting!

I think my personal favorite was maybe the tractor ride out at grandma and grandpa's

Grandpa's seat cushion...

g-ma and g-pa:

and their dog Lady. She was VERY fond of Ben. It is hard to believe that a dog who chases out rodents, birds, any other living thing threatening the garden would be So in love/gentle with a little Benjamin. She's a good girl.

Ben's favorite was probably the mass quantities of fresh blueberries:

or possibly pulling this towel in and out of the pool 231243423512356 times.

I mean it. He would take it out. Put it on the ground. Pick it up and throw it in. Repeat. 20 minutes at a time. It was fantastic! He didn't even care if anyone was around, watching, helping... something about it fascinated him and I really wish I could have been in his head at that moment...

He did however end up with soaked pants/shirt from all of this hard work. Of course he then chose to sit in a mud puddle. The result was a delicious bottom:

Benjamin wasn't alone as a young'n. Two of his cousins were there too! It was really helpful having some other young, energetic souls (and their parents) to help harness Ben's energy and entertainment needs.

We also ate more melons than... I have probably had all summer. And they were AMAZING melons. I don't think we took pictures of them though... but we should have because they were Great.

That is all for now folks!

RAGBRAI pt. 2... the real photos...

This was the extra special crowd who I rode with....

Please note the two on the far left. The one in orange (Rusty-pants) is being licked on the face by the one in pink (Amy). I think it is a compulsive eating issue that Amy suffers from...

Please also note this example of Amy biting me:

Why?? You might ask? Well Amy was on the quest for some Waffles and... the other 10,000 people also wanted waffles so the lines were generally STUPID long. Then as we stopped for the boys to go do whatever it is boys do at 6:30am (hmmm??) Amy got hungry for her waffles... Apparently I am a waffle mirage.

For me... well I'll take Pastafari, please:

I would also like an order of the shorts being worn by this lady:

Not for eating though... just to wear. You have to be Fast I think to wear those shorts and ride a Cervelo...

I would do it. Because I'm fast. So fast in fact that I have my own news van:

And a news interview to go with it... but I can't find it online (though I have not looked Too hard...). Some facebook stalkers (err friends...) told me it was a great interview. I think it probably was - I DID refer to RAGBRAI as the "lazy river of cycling." For those of you who do not pick up sarcasm very well through typed language... I do Not really have my own news van. Although I probably should.

Some other things that happened along RAGBRAI include Stefan preforming a magic trick of fitting himself into a box:

A trapeeze swing (that I sadly missed...)

Pocahontas...?

etc. etc. etc.

:D

Sign up now for Benjamin-sitting so Jared can come along next year!!!!