Random Hap'nin's from the Hill, June edition... Part II

I had intended to cover our already busy weekend in one post but as you all know, I tend to get a little wordy and the last post was no exception.  :-)

So, here we are for part II and there will likely be a part III after today is in the history books since we have the one day Vacation Bible School at our church today and then my band plays at the opening of Altoona Iowa's Summer Music In The Park series at 7pm. 

Long story short, another busy day.

So, back to Friday...

Aunt Molly brought the boys & momma downtown and dropped them off at my work so we could stroll thru the Des Moines Arts Festival on opening day.  It was HOT on Friday, not as hot as it was on Wednesday and Thursday, but hot none-the-less.

I took more pictures of our downtown sculpture park than I did of the Arts Festival but that was probably because Lesley and I both determined that even if we were filthy stinkin' rich, art is not what we would want to spend our money on at this point in our lives.

And it was HOT.

Robby and Caleb were pretty much barking to take a rest or go home the whole time too, so it's obvious that their appreciation of the arts has not quite yet been fully developed.

This is one of the few large art pieces that I've ever seen that I like.  It's letters and numbers forming a person sitting with their knees pulled up to their chest and their hands down around their ankles. That is, if the front had not been cut away so that you can walk inside of it.  The boys immediately started to climb on it and I was reminded by a friendly officer of the law that climbing on the structures is indeed strictly forbidden.  Whoops...

Master C inside of the sculpture.  See that little kid in the green shirt standing behind the scupture (to the right of Calebs head)?  His momma was on the other side of that hill behind the sculpture and didn't have a clue as to where he had gone.  It was one of those situations that as a parent, you can see it developing in almost slow motion but I'm not going to leave my own kids to take him back (Mom was over looking at a booth or two that interested her).  So I kept an eye on the boy until I heard his momma panicking and then flagged her down. She thanked me profusely, hugged the boy and then ripped him a new oriface!  I think that's the proper order in a situation like that...

Big Brother Robby pretending to be happy for the electric eye!

I had the boys smell the flowers. Robby didn't think much either way, but Caleb was emphatic with their "yuckiness". He kept saying his, "yyyeeeuckk", over and over until we were walking away from them.

Both critters thought this was just the coolest thing and they needed to have their photo taken by it!

That is, they both needed to have their photo taken by it, just not together.

Some of the booths and one of the three big stages they had set up for various performances.

Looking down one of the roads at probably 1/4 of the booths set up.

And lest you think you'll be left high and dry should nature call you specifically, you will find a few rows of "portals", as I like to call them, in a couple of locations.  I put a flower over the face of the most recent satisfied customer to protect his identity. I did notice though that he appears to be rubbing his back side so perhaps his experience was less than stellar?

That night after the Arts Festival, I went into the store room to get a frosty mug out of the freezer and Caleb spotted the rocking horse that's been up on the shelf in storage for quite a while. He was adamant that I get it down for him to try out and I think he quite liked it!  I'm not sure of the age of that thing, but it was made by Mommas Grandpa.

Then, somehow, I was talked into setting up the tent in our yard off of the patio from the walk-out door of our basement, or if you'd rather, the ONLY flat spot in nearly all of our yard.  All 4 of us slept out there on Friday night, plus our beast, Rosey.

Caleb has captured the beast and truly thinks the porch of the tent is going to keep her contained for however long he see's fit to contain her.

Look closely through the open door of the tent. Robby wanted me to try and catch him airborne flying from one air mattress to another. Surprisingly, it only took two attempts to get it.

And here is flying man after he had injured himself. He was being as dramatic as only Robby can, limping around and making comments that it's the worst pain ever and so on. So I told him I was going to take video of him and post it on the blog. He saw me aiming the camera and this is the pose I got.  Miraculously, as soon as this photo was snapped, he was healed and went on with whatever was next on his list.

I got up at 5am to head to church for my Saturday morning mens group/Bible study and there was a fantastic sunrise.  I think it's kind of neat that it seems no matter how good of a camera you have, you can never capture the natural beauty of seeing it in person.

After Bible study, we made our first 2012 visit to the Downtown Des Moines Farmers Market

.  It was Calebs first visit and he seemed to be right at home with it.  We were a little worried at first because lots of people bring their dogs and they are dogs of all shapes and sizes, including one that Robby and I saw that I honestly could have ridden!

Caleb handled them like a champ.  He was excited to see them and pointed out to his family each and every one of them!  I'm not exaggerating.

Interesting to note, we ate Italian food (pizza), El Salvador food (papusas), Indian food (samosas), Mexican food (okay, America's version of Mexican food in a breakfast burrito), Dutch food (Dutch letters [pastries], and of course, Chinese food in Egg Rolls.  Caleb was enjoying trying all of them as we shared.

This is from the third story of the parking ramp that we always park in.  It's looking East down Court Avenue.

This is looking West from the same location.  You can't see down all of the side streets but it is a large Farmers Market that takes a while to get through all of.  In fact, I'm thinking they've stretched the definition of a "farmer's market" to get to this point, but it's fun and there's really good authentic ethnic foods.

So that about sums up part II. Lesley and the boys slept in the tent again last night while dad and the beast slept in their comfy sleep number bed.

I'll likely be back tomorrow to post about today's happenings.

Until then, take care and God Bless!