Max's birthday!

 Max had a quiet birthday, with one good buddy over for dinner and cake.  Here he displays a Nanoblock penguin building set....he loves penguins in case you don't know!

 I predict there will be many more Lego sets of this type in his near future.

 Arrrrrrgh!!  Something tells me maybe cousin V wanted Max to have this pirate getup??

 Mark can make anything out of cake....even when it's not cake!  Ice cream Lego men.

Max and his good buddy H.  It was a nice, Max-paced birthday.  Tomorrow we'll go see The Hobbit as another part of the birthday celebration.  We also took a cake to the tae kwon do holiday party, and everyone sang to him there.

New Grinnellian!

As the three of you who look at this blog probably already know, we were thrilled when we found out that Sarah, oldest daughter of our good friends from Madison days, Pete and Paula, chose to come to Grinnell College this fall!  Of course, we think Grinnell is an awesome school, and she is going to have a great time there.  But this means Pete and Paula and Norah will have to come visit!  Woot!  They live much too far away in Maine.  AND we will hopefully be able to steal Sarah away from campus every once in while, even though she will be monumentally busy with classes, friends, and activities! 

It's only the beginning of the semester, so we stole her away last night and took her to the annual heirloom tomato tasting at Grinnell Heritage Farm just on the edge of town.  It's the source of our CSA veggie share, but they sell organic produce to places like the New Pioneer Co-op and Whole Foods as well.  Anyway, it was too hot, but it was still fun to go out, walk among the kale, listen to a little bluegrass music, and enjoy a potluck dinner with folks from all over central Iowa.  We were hoping to give Sarah a little (and literal) taste of Grinnell!  And we're just really happy to have her here in G-town. 

Visitors!

Kristi and Craig came for an overnight Independence Day weekend! It was so nice to see them, and the kids had so much fun together. They are all getting so big. Oy.



Furthermore, Craig brought his power tools! Woot! He and Mark broke up the bottom step in front, which was a piece of crumbling concrete. Mark has laid some new concrete for a set of wooden steps. Hmmm...I should take some better pictures of this.

Friends...

The subject of friends has been on my mind a lot this summer, so it was particularly great to meet Pete and Paula and the girls in Madison last weekend. Let's just say I am missing my old friends, particularly with Jenn's move to Carlisle. So we spent a gorgeous summer evening on the Terrace (of which I only got a few, terrible pictures--just go see Paula's beautiful pics here and here):
Then we met up again the next day for Art Fair on the Square, African food, the Capitol, the Zoo, and of course, Babcock ice cream! Geez, we did a lot!

Kids cooling off and checking out the capitol dome.

A fine looking quartet. S and N were particularly awesome about hanging out with M and M, keeping an eye on them, and letting the parents catch up and reminisce. Thanks, ladies...Oh, and M and M got a picture with this high school girl who had made her prom dress out of duct/duck tape. She and her date are among the top finishers in the nation in a Duck Tape sponsored contest!

Chicago

Three weekends ago now (sheesh!), we went to Chicago for Mark's 20th college reunion. 20th!! We stayed with the fabulous Navarro clan. Yes, Mark's fraternity brother was Dave Navarro. Just kidding!!! Not THAT Dave Navarro. A much better one! So here are the collective kids in the cool stone bench circle on campus. It echoes your voice back at you if you stand in the right spot. We also went to the Museum of Science and Industry, which so rocks!! The highlight of our trip was the German U-boat tour, but there is so much to see. It would take a few days to really fully experience everything. Sadly, I forgot my camera. But that didn't keep us from having lots of fun.

By the way, M3 wants to live in Chicago when she grows up. She also wants to go to Grinnell, U of Wisconsin, or U of Chicago. Guess we're brain-washing her right!! But, um, I think only the first choice is affordable. And that's only cuz we get a MAJOR break. She and M4 were having a big discussion in the car yesterday, because she thinks she is a city girl and M4 thinks he is a country boy, and M4 couldn't understand why M3 wouldn't want to live on a farm with animals?! It was settled that she would be OK living on an "animal farm" but not a "crop farm." Wait 'til she meets George Orwell.

Snow day number III...

Another snow day! The kids are happily building a fort in the living room, so I'll take this opportunity to post a few more Christmas pics:

Christmas morning. The kids only got up about 5 a.m.

Retro Christmas.

Chef Mark.

M4 and his buddy S sledding in Indy.

All tuckered out!

Apple picking!

Every year Mark's colleague Luther and his wife Jenny (who are both seriously awesome people by the way) generously invite people out to pick apples on their land. Well, yesterday was a gorgeous 80 degree fall day to pick apples and tromp about....

M4 looking for minnows.

Big M and little M choosing the best apples!

My attempt at nature photography.

M3 on the bridge over the pond. Notice the stylish footwear.

M and M having fun falling out of the hammock.

There is a sweet little cabin they built on the land (no plumbing, woot!), and a thought occurred to me while we were there. So I asked Jenny if we could possibly rent it for a night? And she said no, we couldn't rent it, but they would love for us to come stay in it! Of course, the kids are over the moon at the idea! Jenny said we should stay a week (ha ha), and M3 immediately seized on that idea and said I would have to drive them to school, though. Yeah, I think we'll start with a weekend night.

Birthday!!

We had fun bowling for M3's birthday. She invited several buddies from her grade. It was a beautiful day, so the kids walked home from the bowling alley (we live two blocks away!) for pizza and cake. There were only a few instances of ear-splitting screaming. Action shot

The side-granny shot

Only slightly cuckoo

Make a wish!

The crew and the damage

I can't help wondering if we'll have similar pictures of these kids in the years to come. It will be cool to see how they grow and change.

Birthday pics!

Some pics of M4's birthday celebration(s):

From our family party on Wednesday with an ice cream cake:From his party yesterday with all his buddies: The AMAZING dinosaur cake Daddy made for him:

His new Webkins pet:

Unrelated photo from his concert of Latin American music on Friday night:

Born Again Floozie Alert!

Just to spread the word, Mark's high school pal, Joe Welch (formerly of Johnny Socko; sang at our wedding, remember?) and his tuba and tap dancing band, the Born Again Floozies, will be on BBC radio 5 this Thursday! Sometime between 9 - 11am EST (http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/mayo.shtml).

Weird science

Our friend Steve (and M1's old roommate) doing some cool research on biofuels:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/12/bug.diesel/index.html#cnnSTCText

He's in the video, too.

Seven kids

We had a really great time with our friends this past weekend! Between our three families, we have seven kids! How weird is that?? The kids got along great; the big girls were so helpful and patient with the smaller kids, allowing the adults to actually have some reasonable conversations! It always just makes me a bit sad about how our lives require us to live so far away from each other (dang these academics!). K and C are awesome hosts...thanks so much, guys!