It's a contest!

Were these photos taken this week?

Sure looks like a heat wave, dunn'it?

Turns out they are nearly a month old at this point as Robby and his friend, Noah had a play date prior to the school year kicking off.

Robby and Noah have been friends, no joking, since well before they were 1 year old.  They went to the same daycare together and ended up in the same school together.

They play a LOT of football together at recess during the school year and even got to compete against each other last year during the flag football season (although I believe I heard that Noah is playing tackle this year... a very sour point with Robby since his daddy won't allow that yet).
 

This is out at the Thomas Mitchell park East of Altoona/Pleasant Hill.

Again...

And the photo that likely preceeded the first one of three sweaty boys!

It's that time again... tha furst dae uv skool!

Hard to believe that it's here again! 

Summer is over, vacation has passed, the state fair (and some dude's $25,000.00) are gone, and we head into the time of year where the gardens are done growing and the kiddos head back to school! 

Yes, we did just get back from vacation and yes, I'm going to try to post up some photos and stories of that trip, and again, YES, I'm delaying by doing blog posts about Rosey, Nala and you guessed it, the boys going back to school!  :-)

You see, we have well over 800 pictures from three cameras to sort thru from vacation so it may take a bit of time to organize and post even a small percentage of them.

Until that fine day arrives, here are the varmints on this past Monday morning while dear ol' Dad sat at work and momma herded them out the door to start the new year.
 

Robby, perhaps channeling the recent visit to Maryland, sporting his RGIII jersey.

Caleb, also possibly channeling the recent trip to Maryland and more specifically, the National Zoo, looking fantastic as he starts the year anew.

And a peaceful photo in between battles/arguments and other good stuff that only brothers can muster.

I repeat, how far the boy has come!

From being deathly afraid of the "massive beast" known as our dog, the 13 pound Rosey, to slowly warming up to her and then other animals including the neighbors chocolate lab, Daisy Mae, riding a camel, holding bunnies and so on, here is honest to goodness proof of the small (but ever growing) Chinese boy and his increased trust of animals! 

This is Caleb with our vacation hosts dog Nala.  I was less than encouraged when I learned they had a dog, and a big one, but Caleb was okay with her in a matter of minutes of meeting her the first time.  This photo was taken the day before we left, but could have been taken on day 1. Caleb wanted this photo for "Pampa"! :-)   The Hawkeye's jersey is merely a bonus.

Caleb wants a German Shepard after Rosey dog goes to the great fire hydrant in the sky.  

Can I commit to that?  Nope, not yet, although Nala was just about the best convincing evidence that you could want!  I really had a great time walking her and looking at the turtles in the pond and the deer behind the fence while doing it.

Back from vacation... yet, something is missing!!!

After 8 days on the road (and I'm a gonna make it home tonight!) at our friends house in Gaithersburg, Maryland, we're back home!  

That's all well and good, but something is missing. It's small and BIG at the same time!

To make matters worse, my buddy, guitar playing, singing, keyboard playing, songwriting buddy had to put his own beast down today.  

Cookie was a good dog and got to be known by Robby, myself, and even Caleb after being deathly afraid of poor old Cookie when I had to take the boys to his house last summer while momma was in class and I needed to rehearse for Bob's cd release party.

Back to the point.

Rosey is up at G'ma & G'pa's house as they were entertaining her while we were gallivanting around the country!  She is still there and we will see her this weekend as we travel to western Iowa to see Grandma Pat and Grandpa Arney, which is LONG overdue!

Grandma sent us a picture (a few of them really) to tie us over until we see the beast again.

Rosey get's her near nightly golf cart rides while being cared for!

Hopefully, she'll want to come home!!  

I can honestly say that coming home to a house without a beast running up to greet me is no way at all for a man to return home!

Silver Wings, Upon Their Chest...

So finally, here we are... 

I promised as I did the post here, that there was more to come on Momma's big night.  It took a while to get around to it, but here we are!

We left Garner a little earlier than we normally would have to ensure that we were back in time for the nurse pinning ceremony at DMACC for Momma and the ladies who graduated the program with her.  We got about 1/2 at home before we had to get ready and leave to drive back to Ankeny (which we had driven through on our way home).

We get up there, find the building and the room with very little problem.  We managed to keep the boys' fingers out of the cake and got a table to seat ourselves for the evenings proceedings.

This is just a wide shot of people milling about, Caleb getting close to the cake, other folks taking pictures and the what not.

Aunt Molly has arrived!  Mom is writing a brief dedication in a book for someone, while Rob takes a break from his George Washington book and Caleb looks on in disgust.

Here are the masters of the ceremony for the evening as it's summer, late notice for the instructors to speak, so Mom and her friend Krista (I think I've spelled it correctly) did the introductions for all the graduates.  They did a fine job and it was a very nice ceremony with everyone getting a chance to say a few words.

After Krista introduced, Momma Lesley the Nurse, I had the honor and near impossible task of pinning her... uh... pin, to her blouse.  My fingers are WAY too big to control the WAY too small apparatus of the pin.  It took a long time which is why we're giggling.

We were required to stand up in front of the other peeps while Krista wrapped up what she had to say about Mom.  It looks like Mom took offense to something in this photo and is ready to "throw  down"!

Here's a shot of the 8 grads reciting/reading their nursing oath.

The Des Moines area's new nurses!  I think it was evident throughout the evening that the families were proud of everything these women have gone through.  It's obviously not easy, nor should it be with the field they're going into, but they did it, and Dad, Robby and Caleb are proud to have our own personal nurse in the fold.  I have a suspicion that it will come in handy more than once with the way the three of us carry on.

And then there was the cake!  Cake with white and blue frosting!  Robby has a knack for getting ice cream, frosting, peanut butter and whatever else all around his mouth as much as he gets the kibble in it.  Let this serve as proof.

Caleb, not wanting to be shown up, sticks out his tongue not realizing that you have to eat the frosting instead of scraping it off to get the blue tongue and teeth.

And a picture of the Mobile Chaos Unit as we were ready to head out and pack it up for the evening.

And there we have it.  Almost seems hard to believe that she's done with school already but then if I think back to the time when I can recall her talking to me in the skywalks of downtown Des Moines about quitting her job and going back to school for nursing, it seems like forever ago.

Such is the dichotomy of life, I guess.

Regardless of my pontificating about things I'll never fully grasp, I say a hearty congratulations and I'm proud of you for taking the leap of faith!

Guess Who I Got To Do Some Work For Me

It's never easy to coax the hippy boy into doing actual manual labor, but yesterday, for reasons that only the Good Lord knows, he wanted to help me! 

We're preparing to stain the deck but of course, it needs to be cleaned/power washed first.

I spent the better part of yesterday (and a night or two before that) trying to get it done.

It's done now and here's proof of the boy helping.  

Caleb helped a bit too, but he was more afraid of the noise of the machine so I had to hold the wand with him and that's not good for my back.

Last Weekend This Weekend, Before This Weekend Is Last Weekend...

I think it was last Sunday night that I said, "I will post more tomorrow..." and here I am on Saturday morning trying to get to that. Go figure. 

So a week ago Wednesday, Momma and the boys went up to Grandma & Grandpa's house in Crystal Lake and spent some time with them.  

They played basketball both with Grandpa and Momma, Gpa took the boys fishing twice and they never got so much as a nibble.  They went to the Hancock County Fair in Fall-like conditions (obviously as a result of Glo-bull Warming) and made homemade bagels and even probably more stuff that I either don't remember or didn't hear about.

Then on Saturday, Aunt Molly and Daddy drove up to Garner, IA. to the local pizza ranch where I ate with reckless abandon and erased my weight loss for that week...   sa-moooooth!

Enough of my ramblings...  on to the pictures!
 

One of the aforementioned basketball games.  The boys stand in awe of G'pas B-Ball prowess!

Caleb and G'ma hamming it up for the camera... well, Caleb hamming.

This is at the Hancock County Fair.  The boys had no long pants or sweatshirts packed with them, because why would you at the end of July in Iowa?  The owner of this tractor was having troubles with the wheels being out of balance so he paid the boys to become wheel weights for the day!  I'm kidding, they both needed naps and since there was a shortage of beds and hammocks in the area, Momma put them down here.

Robby has been lasered in the back by aliens and is being assimilated as the photo was taken.  Caleb is doing his best to jack around at all times.  He does it good.  BTW, those are G'mas shirts/sweatshirts the boys have on.

Caleb, still with his teeth in his head, holding the killer rabbit from Monty Pythons The Holy Grail movie.  I don't really think it's the same bunny, but it does bear striking resemblance!

Robby, risking life and limb with the same bunny, poses for pic.

On to the much safer baby chicks.  I still can't believe how far Calebber has come in the last year and a half when any animal would send him into conniptions!

The hippy-boy, looking fantastic holding a chick of his own.

We had no pictures at the pizza ranch although I would like to have posted a picture of the second piece of chicken I had eaten, but afterwards we went over to Momma's aunt & uncles house in Garner, Jack and Wanda.  Their great grandson, Z, was with them and the three boys spent a good majority of the time outside doing this!  They had a blast. Caleb looked at the picture when I was typing and said, "Fun. Do again. Far, far away.".

And that ends part one of last Saturday.  More to come later on Momma's big night!

The Mobile Chaos Unit & Dwight Yoakam... what a 3 Pears to draw to!

Okay, first off, I am keenly aware that back in the post about Caleb and the Zucchinis,  I had mentioned that we had a big weekend and I was going to cover it. I still am.  However, I have found that doing rather intensive posts during the work week doesn't work out all that well for me.

So, what am I babbling about today?

Well, that would be Dwight Yoakam.  You know him! Don't play dumb...

I had NO idea that he was playing in Des Moines as of Wednesday morning.  I was walking down to a fantastic little cookie/muffin place called Do Biz with a fella I work with as he was bringing in 2 dozen muffins for our work area.  After roughly 12 years in downtown Des Moines, I still don't know the lady's name who runs the place, but I can tell you that she is fabulous and is of some type of Asian descent.

Anyway, on our walk down there, we see some large buses by the Marriot hotel, and I make a comment that it looks like tour buses and the fella I'm walking with says, "Yep, probably Dwight Yoakam's as he's playing at Simon Estes tonight.".  

What the heck???

I asked him if he was kidding and threatened him if he was, although he could kick my butt with relative ease.  To my surprise and delight, he was not kidding and Dwight was indeed staging a concert in roughly 12 hours!

Fantastic!!

Now, how do I attend?

Well, Momma took care of that and soon we had tickets for our family.  Turns out, kids don't need tickets so we tried to find some folks to go with us.

Uncle Frank obliged and bought us dinner at the Capitol Pub & Hot Dog prior to the show.

The show itself?

Just as de"dwight"ful as the show in January that I took Robby and Grandpa too.

This is the fella who opened the show, Greg Hanna.  He wasn't bad but as I get older, I'm sometimes mildly embarrassed by young mens lyrics.  He was one of these young men.

Uncle Frank, the gorgeous fella.  I was happy that he came with us and I hope he had at least half as good of time as I had! 

The man himself!  D.W.I.G.H.T.   This guy caused me to base a family vacation around driving down Hwy 23 and stopping in Prestonsburg & Paintsville KY, to see his hometown and also Butcher Holler since I was freakin' out on his recorded catalog as well as Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose cd at the same time.  Regrets?  None, other than we didn't have more time to spend there.

Obviously, DY's drummer, multi-instrumentalist (in the background) and his fantastic guitarist who has been tasked with the unfortunate task of playing many years of Pete Anderson's guitar parts. He does a fine job and wields many gorgeous guitars.

Another of his guitars, which appears to be one of Dwights signatures "Dwight Trash Casinos" made by epiphone, although it's red instead of white like the one DY played in Clear Lake last January.

Just a wide shot of the Simon Estes amphitheatre.

Another wide shot with two fantastic varmints in the foreground!  This was Calebber's last stand as he didn't last much beyond this.

I told ya!!  He pretty much gave up at some point and laid down on the blanket we had brought for the boys.

And a little while later, Robby joined him in a state of unconciousness. There's one (or two) at every show!!  Although, most of the time, they're not this young.