P Fest

Our town festival was this last weekend. Maddox came up for his birthday pictures on Friday. We got some fun pirate pictures and a few 'Maddox pictures' too. :)

He was really happy for pictures to be over and loved getting to roast his own marshmallows that night. He talked about it for quite a while.

We got up early in the morning for the 5/10k. (No.... we didn't run it. But we did cheer on Sara and Uncle T!) The race route went along the street behind our house so we didn't have to go far to get to a good spot to cheer!

Since we've been in town, we've started a tradition of heading downtown during Prairie Fest for most of our meals. Some people we know (but Maddox had never met) sat down next to us at the pancake feed and Maddox quickly decided their little boy was his best friend. I love the age he is at right now!

Sara was up there and we (I?) made her put on her medal from the race for the obligatory photo op.

Cy made it down for the parade.

R skipped his duty in the dunk tank this year. I think the questionable condition of last years dunk tank scared him off. We did briefly check out the craft fair and other things going on. We went back up in the evening with the P family for the Hog Roast. The boys checked out all the emergency vehicles.

We stuck around for the magician and the atmosphere. Once we got home R started another fire pit and brought a mattress up from the basement for a makeshift wrestling ring. It also made a good sitting spot to watch the fireworks from our yard. I love that we can see our town and the neighboring town's fireworks without leaving the house.

Today we are bumming around, getting geared up for another week. Happy Sunday!

Back in Iowa!

We're back from the wedding. And there is no shortage of wedding pictures.

You can check out my pictures here.

Amy's pictures here.

And the chapel has pictures up too. (Along with the wedding video).

It was fun playing photographer. Though I imagine it's easier to play photographer when you are not also personal attendant, moh, baby sitter, make up artist, etc, etc. ;)

We had a great week. R had a great birthday. And soon I'm sure I'll have tons of pictures posted from it all. For now, we're recovering on the couch. Happy Weekend!

This Life

This life. This life of excitement. Of good friends. Fun. Family. Abundant blessings.

This life is better than I deserve.

Today is a good day.

VEISHEA

I love VEISHEA. I've celebrated so many of the different parts of VEISHEA over the years, but one of my favorite VEISHEA activities (besides pancakes and cherry pies) are the horse rides after the parade. There's just something about illegally signing away a child's life that doesn't belong to you and seeing their face light up when they are on top of such a tall animal. We used to get to ride horses growing up. We had horses right outside our front door. We don't anymore so this is a fun way to get to share this experience with our niece and nephews. Without having to scoop poop. Ahhhhh VEISHEA.

(Sorry for the bad picture, but it's the only Cy sighting from the day!)

Maddox really enjoyed the Ames High Marching Band.

Two of our favorite girls got to join us (three counting their mama)!

Mo figuring out what the surprise that required her boots (vs flip flops) was- and very excited about it!

Both of them did such a great job and I think they really loved it!

Ahhhhh VEISHEA!

More Hickstionary

I used to have all these pretty little tabs across the top of my blog about past topics.... then I realized that was way too much work and TAGS are much easier. So here's some past topics from the Hickstionary. You can search through tabs and use that handy little search box up top to find more! :)

FAITH

FAMILY

FOOD

FIRESIDE

FUN

FOREVER

ODDS/ENDS