Monkey See

This picture just cracks me up every time I look at it. Alison was playing hide and seek the other day and hid under the bar stools at our counter. She was giggling while she was hiding, so that really attracted Eli's attention. He decided to take up the same hiding spot.



And then there's this one. Pure musical genius.





It's the annual Bean Days in Horace this weekend. There was a trap shoot last night, a parade this morning, and a street dance tonight. The big question is whether or not we'll have a street to dance on - it's been under construction all summer long, and as of last night there were still barricades blocking the route.

The trap shoot was a ton of fun. Each team of 5 shot two rounds (a total of 50 shots each). Boy did I stink. But I made up for it in the Annie Oakley shoot afterwards. For some reason, I could connect a lot better with longer shots in a stronger wind. I came in second, so I was pretty pleased.

Weekend Getaway

I had a work party out in Lakes Country on Wednesday night, and on the way out I drove past a large sunflower field in full bloom. I made a mental note of the location and made myself get up early on Friday morning to get some sunrise pictures. This is probably my favorite of the morning.



All of the pictures I took that morning seemed to have a very orange hue to them. Here's why:

The sunrise was very vivid, and lent a neat tint to the flowers. After I was done playing in the field, I went back home and helped get the kids ready for daycare before I had to go to work. I don't know when I became a morning person, but apparently I've become one.

We blasted off to Bismarck this weekend to visit Grandma B. After we arrived on Friday evening, we just relaxed for a little while and let the kids play in the basement. Eli was quite entertained by the piano, and we listened to some great duets performed by the two kids.



On Saturday morning, I got up and went for about a three and a half mile run on a path along Hay Creek. After I got back and got showered, I ran to pick up Starbucks for Jennifer and myself. With a little caffeine in our systems, we were ready for the day. First up, Dakota Zoo. We've got a membership for the zoo in Fargo, and that gets us into the Bismarck zoo for free. We took the kids and Grandma B, and met Jennifer's sister Patty as well. The kids had a great time, and especially liked the playground.









The zoo recently opened a new big cat exhibit that has 3 tigers on display. There is a tunnel underneath the exhibit area that opens into a viewing area where you can get extremely close to the tigers.





Part of the exhibit is still under construction, when that is finished they'll have leopards on display as well.

After the zoo, we went through a drive through window then took the kids back to Grandma's. Eli was more tired than hungry, so he went down for a nap right away. After he woke up, he ate an entire softshell taco and a whole banana on his own. We lounged around for a little while, then left for the Raging Rivers water park in Mandan. After a slight miscalculation with directions and a lovely detour through a Mandan trailer park, we arrived at the water park shortly after 4:00pm - just when the discount rates started. We took the kids to the water playground first, then loaded everybody into tubes and floated on the lazy river for a couple laps.

After that, Alison and I went down one of the large tube slides. It was Alison's first time, and we weren't quite sure how she would do, but we figured we'd at least give it a try. I grabbed a single tube and we started the climb to the top of the slide - it's easily 3 stories tall. Alison didn't act scared at all on the way up, so I figured that was a good sign. Patty went down in front of us to act as a catcher, just in case, then it was our turn. I had Alison stand in front of me while I positioned the tube and sat down. She then sat in my lap, and away we went. The beginning of the tube is completely enclosed and is pitch black. She was absolutely silent. Suddenly, we erupted into the sunlight and continued our spiral down. Still completely silent. As we made the final turn, there was a large wall of water at the end of the slide. We splashed through - silence. Finally, we came to a rest in the pool at the bottom and I asked if she had fun. She paused for a minute, then excitedly screamed "Yes! Let's do it again!" As soon as she was out of the pool she was jumping up and down ready to go again. We went two more times, then tried another slide. I think we've got a thrill seeker on our hands.

Before we left the park, I made the climb to the top of the tower to go on one of the speed slides. Just because. There was no line for the slide, and I shot down like a bullet. After I got off the slide, I was a little worried that I would need specialized machinery to extract my swimsuit from my behind, but everything came out okay.

We finished up at the water park at about six, then went back to the house to get changed. To round out the day, we took the kids to Space Aliens. Somehow, throughout all the activity, we managed to make it through with no meltdowns.

We went to an outdoor church service this morning. It was a combination service for about 6 different congregations of all different denominations in Bismarck. It was a neat event, and the kids enjoyed playing in the grass for the entire service. Afterwards, they served bratwurst, hot dogs, macaroni salad and chips. This really should be a weekly thing. After lunch, we packed the truck and hit the road.

Both kids napped until we got to Valley City, so we decided that would be a good place to stop. Valley City, the City of Bridges, also seems to be the City of Closed Gas Stations. I don't know how many gas stations we passed, but it seemed like every block had an old, closed gas station, with a newer, temporarily closed gas station right across the street. We finally found an open Cenex (next to an old, closed Cenex and across the street from another closed Cenex) and got the kids taken care of. To take a little break from interstate highway driving, we drove to the north side of town to look at the highline railroad bridge.



Before bed time, Alison wanted to put together a jigsaw puzzle online. I had to take the picture of my little computer geek.

Box car

We spent the better portion of yesterday watching Joel and Carrie's little boy Christopher. He's about 3 months older than Eli and the two of them had a blast playing with each other. Definitely boys. I have a prediction that we're going to see a football matchup between the two in the future. Both of them wanted to play with a toy vacuum cleaner. At one point, Eli walked up behind Christopher and did a two-handed grab at the shoulders and made a pretty good tackle. Both of them toppled and laughed, and went right back to playing. A little while later, Eli tried the same thing and was met by a stiff arm from Christopher which toppled Eli. Again, both kept laughing and playing.



This morning made me question again why we bother spending money on toys. Alison and Eli spent quite a while this morning playing with an empty diaper box. After a while, Jennifer put Eli in the box and he just sat there with a big grin. It didn't take long and Alison started to push the box making train noises. They made a few passes through the kitchen, laughing all the way.



Ryan and Jodi came over tonight with Henry and Eva. We spent a while playing outside, and had baby back ribs, baked potatoes, apple/walnut/gorgonzola salad, and baked beans for dinner. I haven't done ribs too many times on the grill before, so it was fun to experiment. I did one rack of dry rub ribs and one rack of "wet" ribs - they both turned out pretty good, but I think next time I either need to shorten the time on the grill or knock the heat down a little bit.

Chokecherries

I took Alison on a little adventure today to try to find some chokecherries. Ryan and Henry joined us as we went out to a wildlife management area about 20 miles away to see what could be found. Unfortunately, it appears that with the cool spring we had it's not a good year for chokecherries. The usual bushes that I raid were nearly bare.



There's a few other locations I've got to check out, but it might be tough to make syrup and wine this year.

Children of the Corn

It's definitely summer! I think it was in the 80s almost every day this week. Wednesday night I ran in the Dick Beardsley "Run for Your Life" - a 5 mile run to benefit the Dick Beardsley Foundation. I had a miserable head cold, so I wasn't exactly in peak form, but I finished in just shy of 53 minutes. I wasn't the last one on the course, so that's a good thing. After the race they had a raffle for a door prize and I won a brand new pair of New Balance running shoes of my choosing. Pretty sweet deal!

Alison and Eli got to play in the pool this week. It's going to be a challenge keeping them out.


After we put Eli to sleep tonight, I looked out our kitchen window and saw a cropduster spraying a field a little over a mile away from the house. The lighting was just right and I was thinking about going for some pictures, when Jennifer said "Only if you take Alison with you." It didn't take too much convincing and Alison was loaded in the truck and we were off. Once we got about a quarter mile away from where the airplane was spraying, I stopped so Alison could see it fly past and I could get some pictures. No matter how many times I see them, all I can think is "Cool. Those guys are freaking nuts."



After the cropduster moved on, we drove down the road a little bit more. Alison has been very observant about what kind of plants are growing in fields, and got pretty excited being so close to the corn. I pulled off to the side of the road and we got out so she could see just how tall the corn really was.



We loaded back into the truck and drove another half mile and saw this little stinker on the side of the road:



Needless to say, I rolled the windows up just in case.

And one passing artsy type shot. It's still hard to believe that this is basically our back yard.