Michael - The Frisbee Golf King!

Lorin the Cribbage King!

Lorin is on the right...

Michael - The Tetherball King!

Grass Fed Beef

Here's a photo of some Iowa grass fed beef - I encourage everyone to read a book titled The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

Guess Jesse's Car!

Which of these three vehicles belongs to Jesse?

Party Time (Again) - Reception Style!

The wedding reception was in a very nice hall in little Richmond, Iowa...

Wedding Photos

Here are some photos from the wedding...

Tying a Bow Tie...

Jesse had the honor of tying the groom's father's bow tie - it was a process (starting with finding the video on You Tube...):

Kalona, Iowa

We took a trip up to Amish country just 20 miles north of Washington, IA. Kalona is a small Iowa town with a sizable Amish population.

The bakery there is famous for its baked goods, so we stopped for breakfast. It was a very good idea. I ordered a big pecan roll and a cup of coffee. The roll was about 5 inches square and 3 inches tall. When the bonneted waitress said, "$1.99 please" I had to ask if she had remembered to charge me for the coffee. She said she had. Wow. Here's a photo of the less than $2 feast on the bench outside the front of the bakery.

We saw horses and buggies on the road, several farms without electical wires running to them, and a farmer out in his field plowing with his horses.

Party Time!

After a successful practice at the church for tomorrow's Big Event, we headed out to Joe and Janet's (parents of Bob, father of the groom Matt) farm for the party. A large farm building hosted the festivities. The barbecue was covered with pork loins, hamburgers, and hot dogs. A fun time was had by all!

Here are some photos...

Washington, IA

Took a stroll around town this morning. It's a nice little Iowa town with straight streets lined by shady trees. The central square (what would be called a zocalo in Mexico) is especially nice with park benches and plenty of shade on a morning where it was in the mid-70s by 10am. A new library is being build on one side of the square.


Here's a photo of my parents, Arlene and Lorin, with the zocalo, er... town square, behind them.















On the walk we also passed by the church where the wedding will take place tomorrow. A huge white building...
















After the stroll downtown, Alex and Jason and I went to a nearby park to look for a "geocache" that someone had hidden there. Here's a photo of Alex and Jason searching for the small cannister. We never found it... (Later note: we went back several times and eventually the geocache felt sorry for us and found us (instead of us finding it) - Alex accidentally kicked the sprinkler head embedded in the shrubbery shown here and it popped out revealing the film cannister! It was a fake sprinkler head! The rascals!)



When we got home Mike arrived with little Vera. Here's a photo just before Vera hit the sack after a tiring morning at the pool...

Seattle in the Morning - Washington at Night...

Maybe not the "Washington" that you expect...


I'm heading off to the land of my youth - Iowa - for a Saturday wedding (Matt and Bethany). Matt is the son of my youngest sister, Lori.

The alarm clock went off at 3am this morning. 3 A M... In order to get on the "earlybird" flight to Denver that leaves around 5:30am, I had an early morning call. Paula generously joined me for the drive to the airport and took the car back home after dropping me at the airport. Mt. Rainier was glowing in the morning sunrise as the plane prepared for departure.

The flight left 20 minutes late, but made up for it with some spectacular scenery from my window seat - at one point Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. St. Helens were all visible - check out the photo the right. The flight traveled over Eastern Washington and showed the scablands that had been carved out by massive floods 15,000 years ago. We then continued over desert, farming, and more mountains until finally arriving in Denver - right on time.

The Denver airport was a beehive of activity and the three hours passed quickly before boarding began for the flight to Des Moines. I was in a middle seat (15B) for that flight and as we were loading passengers a problem arose when two people showed up with boarding passes that said 15C... There was a suggestion that they could both stand at the seat, but in the end one of the cabin crew members resolved the problem when it was discovered that the two passengers had exactly the same name! One had been moved from back in row 24 up to our row 15, probably as a result of this mixup (I can imagine the counter person saying, "There's your name! It looks like your reservation was moved to row 15..." In the end all was well when the seat in row 24 was still empty.

In Des Moines I was met at the airport by my nephew Chris (brother of Matt the groom) who has generously offered to loan me someone else's car for the weekend. Well, it's actually his car, but he sold it to someone else with the stipulation that delivery would be when I was done with it on Tuesday! Thanks Chris!

Chris dropped me at the car and I next headed north to Ames where Zoe (a niece - daughter of my sister Sue) is participating in Odyssey of the Mind World Finals. They were at the auditorium near the Iowa State University football field and I realized that I was in Iowa when I found myself thinking, "good, there's an overpass and when I'm up on top I should be able to see where the football stadium is..." I managed to miss Zoe's performance by just minutes. From all reports her team did a fine job.

Four of us piled into Chris's (or whoever's) car for the 2 1/2 hour trip to Washington, Iowa (not the "Washington" that you might expect when linked to "Seattle") in the eastern side of the state where the wedding will take place. My sister Sue, her son Alex, and Jason (husband of Sue's daughter Katy) decided to stop along the way for some food and had an Iowa favorite - Maid Rite. It's a "hamburger" made from crumbly steamed beef. Delicious!

On the ride across the state we saw several deer having late afternoon snacks in the corn fields (the corn is ankle high). We also spotted 4 cows on the wrong side of the fence (on the road side instead of the field side) - so we stopped at the nearest farmhouse and let them know. The farmer was very appreciative of the news and headed off to corral the beasts.

Eventually, around 8:30pm, we arrived in Washington (Iowa!) and found a house full of people at my other sister's - Lori (mother of the groom). Here's a photo of Jason and their daughter Ellie.

A full list of those around the house includes Mike (husband of Sue's oldest daughter Jesse and father of Vera), Alex (Sue's son), Carissa, (Sue's daughter), Katy (Sue's daughter), Jason (husband of Katy remember), Lorin and Arlene (parents of Jack, Sue, and Lori), Bob (Lori's husband and father of the groom), Cy (the siamese cat) and Izzy (a wild cat that likes to be left very much alone). I think that's everyone - you might need a scorecard to keep track...

It's getting late (11pm) - so I think I'll call it a night... It sounds like tomorrow has a lot of activities planned...