Exuberance

This weekend we were visited by the King and Queen of Pandemonium. Aunty Sally and Uncle Matt flew out on Friday night and left this afternoon, leaving behind a wave of silliness, lots of pictures, and two little boys who will remember the fun they had for a long, long time.



First, some music.


Then, a short hike in the woods on a beautiful fall day.


Watching for falling leaves (lots), critters of any kind (nada), or superheros (one or two).


Andrea took the scenic route and got some nice foliage pics.



The boys picked up some foliage of their own. Take a look at the size of the leaf in Anthony's hand!


Next, yard work. The leaves aren't really off the trees yet, but it was too nice of a day to pass up the opportunity to pile a few up and jump in them. Or have Uncle Matt toss you in.


Or to just sit in the middle with a big smile on your face.


Next, soccer. Lots of soccer. Matt has Kenrick convinced that he's the best soccer player ever. Thanks Matt.


Then football. Anthony is the all-time kicker, running back, center, and safety who doesn't know the meaning of 'touch' football. Sometimes he runs the right direction with the ball.


Finally, pumpkins to carve! Sally and Matt advise, the boys dig in.


Kenrick wouldn't do this last year.


Come on Auntie Sally, who taught you how to work a pair of scissors?


Concentration. First you poke holes through the pattern...


And here's what you get after mom is done cutting it out. Very impressive.


Thanks for the visit Matt and Sally, hope you made it home safe and sound.

Triple Toothless

We yanked Kenrick's third wiggler the other morning. He really looks different with a top tooth missing.

Signs of Fall

I thought the contrast of this tree against the sky looked kind of cool. My phone camera doesn't really do the scene justice. The colors are really starting to pop now, we'll try to get a couple of decent pix out before it's all over.

Another sign of fall is the appearance of large overflow piles of corn next to the grain elevators. This one is just down the road from us and we've watched it grow over the last week. The shape in the background, just to the left of the pile is a semi-truck, dumping another load onto the conveyor.

A New Hawkeye

Congratulations to Luke and Tammia on the birth of a new baby boy, Jarris James, on Saturday. Mom, dad, big sister, and little Hawkeye doing fine.

Cooling Down in a Cloud of Dust

So the weather has turned the corner into fall, finally, and the project upstairs is starting to look serious. I generated a massive cloud of dust this evening sanding the first coat of drywall mud and a couple piles of sawdust 'adjusting' the window frames to lay flush with the walls. Those of you who have seen our bedroom know about the low ceiling and the prominent skull-cracking protrusion at the corner of the hall. We always wondered what the pea-brain who remodeled the upstairs was thinking when he framed that particular feature. We still don't know, but I finally lopped that sucker off and blended the corner together like it should have been in the first place. Even if nothing else turns out the way Andrea envisions it (unlikely), this whole effort will be worth it just to be able to round the corner at night without ducking for fear of puncturing my noggin'.



I got the garden tilled on Saturday. Very proud of that.



And Iowa beat Illinois. Go Hawks! Actually, I kind of had mixed feeling going into that game (don't tell Luke), Iowa's been struggling and needed a win - and I am a Hawk fan after all - but it's been kind of fun to watch Illinois finally get on a win streak after going something like 2-30 in the last couple of years. It was a good game though, and I was glad to see Iowa get the win. Illinois plays Michigan next. Go Illini!

Isn't She Cute?

The title says it all. Finally, the promised belly picture. Only two and a half months to go.

Kenrick took advantage of the warm weather to practice his backyard acrobatics.

Adventures in Traveling

If you are thinking about flying out of Atlanta sometime soon, take my advice. Don't. This is an airport that takes the two-hour early arrival seriously. Beautiful terminal. Efficient self-service check in. Mind-boggling wait to get though security. I took this picture from about the halfway point - these folks are in one of four lines through the atrium - then made my way to the end to do the 50-minute shuffle. The line moved along okay, and there were probably twenty gates open at the security checkpoint, but what a crowd! Then, if you are leaving from one of the far terminals you have ride down the loooong escalator to get on the train that starts and stops with a jerk and then back up top and way out to the 35th gate just as the attendant is calling your name to assign you a seat. Anyway, I made it. I'm glad I got there early. I took a picture of the entrance to the Cat facility just before I left on Friday. Nice setting, compact little factory. If you squint you can see some finished log skidders in the far background. Or maybe not.

Georgia Kudzu

I said earlier that there were lots of pine trees in this area, but I didn't mention that most of the trees are covered in Kudzu vines.

This is along the side of the road across from the hotel. The vines drape over the trees, bushes, houses, slow-moving pedestrians, and everything else under the sun. Amazing.

Cajun Duck

This evening we sampled the local cuisine. Well, I don't think we're technically in Cajun country, but close enough that I don't know the difference. Our waiter had the classic southern manners to go with his classic southern drawl and the menu had a fine selection of blackened entrees. I had roast duck and andoulle sausage over cajun mashed potatos ("the meat jus' falls rhat ahf the boe'n") and chocolate "pee'kaun" pie for dessert. Very good. The vegetables were collards and fried okry. We didn't try those.



One of the people that I'm working with down here is from Costa Rica. Our waiter said to her, "Ah jus' luv youah aeycceynt, ma'am!"



Speaking of accents, I just found a translator for the language what's spoke here in Jawjuh. (I'd like to say something witty here, but I caint come up with nuthin'. Just click on the link)

Georgia, Finally

Besides the requisite 45 minute delay in Peoria, the flight to Atlanta went okay. As we landed in the fading light I was able to see the outline of lots of lakes and the deep green of what appeared to be heavily forested hills. The airport is on the edge of Atlanta, so we passed over scattered developments mixed into the forests and what seemed to be a semi-random network of roads that twisted and turned through the countryside.





The dirt, where exposed by new construction, is a light reddish-brown. I found out today that the ground is quite sandy, but tends to be severely depleted because of generations of cotton farming. Now there's miles and miles of pine forest, which is one reason Cat manufactures it's Forest Products here.





After I got off the plane, two things happened to me that have got to be some kind of a record. First, I waited for almost two hours for my suitcases to make their way from the plane to the luggage carousel. They weren't lost or anything, it just took them that long to get there. It only took us an hour and a half to fly from Peoria to Atlanta! Second, I got lost twice in one night in the rental car. I was pretty disoriented when I finally left the rental yard, having rode the shuttle bus to the lot from the airport and not really knowing which way was which despite the directions from Cat Travel and the rental company map I'd grabbed on my way out the gate. Turns out the directions were pretty worthless and the map difficult to make out in the dark while driving down the road and to make a long story short I got headed east down the freeway towards Atlanta when I should have been heading west to hook up with I85 South. After getting that squared away and checking my directions to the hotel carefully during the forty minute drive, I found myself in the middle of nowhere looking at a grove of pine trees where the Holiday Inn should have been. The directions from Cat Travel were worse than worthless, they were just plain wrong. Fortunately I had a Google road map and a vague recollection of the description that my contact here had given me about how to get to the factory from the hotel, so I backtracked a bit a found what I was looking for. All's well that ends well, I guess, but it was sure hard to get out of bed this morning.

Georgia Bound

Well, I'm sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to Georgia and thought I'd send out a quick note. I'll be in Lagrange, just south of Atlanta, for work all week. I've never been in the Peach State before and am excited to see somewhere new.





While I was packing last night I took a look at the weather forecast for Lagrange for the week. Sunny, warm, lows in the 50's, not bad. Current conditions; fair, 83 degrees, 100% humidity. What? I think that was a glitch. I hope that was a glitch. Anyway, I'll try to keep you posted, I'm sure I can find some strangeness along the way.





(The lady sitting next to me has a phone that quacks!)





Yesterday Andrea and Leanne had a yard sale and sold all of our good stuff. No, really most of it was junk, but they did sell a lot of it! Andrea has a bee in her bonnet and is emptying our bedroom in preparation for a makeover. (The bedroom, not her) She wants new paint, and new lights, and new shelves, and new dressers, and a sitting area with new chairs. She wants the bed in a new place and the computer downstairs. Her husband is on his way to Georgia for the week. I timed that pretty well, huh?

Photos

As you may have guessed from my very creative title, I've got a couple of new photos.



The other evening Kenrick lined up his Matchbox cars very precisely across the dining room floor. Precisely where we wanted to walk, of course.

The corn harvest is well on its way. I stopped yesterday to get a quick pic.

As you can see in the background, the trees are still quite green. We haven't really had cold enough nights to make the leaves turn colors yet. Good for corn picking, but it doesn't quite feel like fall.

The pumpkin harvest is also in full swing. Yes, pumpkins. There are a few packing plants in the area, so the farmers rotate the gourds in with the corn and beans every now and then. The pumpkins are kind of light yellow, fairly small, and handled a little differently than your familiar supermarket jack-o-lantern.

That's a row of stacked 'kins being lifted and hurled into a wagon. From the field they are usually piled into big open-top semi-trailers and hauled to the packing plant where they are unceremoniously dumped into a hopper for processing. I don't know what happens after that, but somehow they come out the other end in nice little cans. The breeze sometime smells like cooked pumpkin.

The boys seem to be showing an aptitude for bicycle maintenance. Notice the expert use of the chain cleaner. Wait, I think it's upside down.

This weekend we've enjoyed having Jean and Terry from Boise come and stay. Terry had some business in Chicago and Jean had some business with Andrea, so they took advantage of the timing and came down for a visit. The boys took to both of them pretty quickly, especially since Jean was willing to read them a few books.

I took Terry and the boys out to the park on Saturday to do a little orienteering. The local club was having an event in honor of National Orienteering Day so we picked the shortest of the three courses and took a leisurely hike through the woods. The boys did very well. Some of the terrain was a little rough for Anthony's short legs, but they both enjoyed finding the way-point flags and punching the score card to prove we'd found them all.

Bedtime

Anthony is the King of Excuses. One of his favorite tricks at bedtime is to quietly appear about ten minutes after I tuck him into bed. "Daddy?" he says in all seriousness, "I can't go to sleep."



"I know Anthony, every night you can't go to sleep, but every night you do, so just go back upstairs and lay quietly in your bed."



I'm not sure what he expects to happen. Breakfast maybe.



Anyway, the other evening I put the boys to bed and came downstairs, followed shortly by a serious looking Anthony.



"Daddy?"


"Yes, Anthony?"


"I've got toothpaste in my belly-button."

September Already?

The lack of pictures hasn't meant a lack of activity over the last couple of weeks. Kenrick started 1st grade and has homework almost every night, we had a very refreshing convention, and Anthony is climbing the walls. Seriously, he's been Mr. Tornado for the last few days and showing no signs of slowing down. He doesn't walk anywhere, he keeps a constant dialog of all activity, real and imagined, at full volume, and he won't stop messing with things! He wrecks nearly everything he touches and he can't resist touching the very thing you just told him to stay away from. I told Andrea that if he's anything like his daddy he'll grow out of it. When he's 20.

Oh, and Kenrick lost another tooth.

We gave it the ol' dental floss loop and yank this evening. Not sure how he's going to eat corn on the cob.

The weather has turned quite pleasant, although it's raining now. Was very nice for convention, for which Andrea was very thankful, and looks to be downright chilly this evening. This is a great time of year in the Midwest, with the leaves just starting to turn, the harvest in full swing, and with evenings cool enough for a bonfire and burnt marshmallows.

I promised some belly pictures, and so far have not delivered, but Andrea continues to grow. Baby is moving more and more. Andrea is moving less and less. I'll see if I can sneak in a tasteful profile sometime soon.