Owls

I have been so in love with all the cute owls everywhere. Julie has a super cute purse and I just found a really cute shirt for Gabby.... thought I would see if I could make my own...so meet Gabby Owl, Gavin Owl, and Owls in Trees. :)

Hmmmmm

Is this too strange?

Better?!

Or these?

Wouldn't these be cool 6x12 overlays? They are just weeds I took photos of alongside the road in Iowa.

Anyone know?

How can I turn this into a 12x12 screen print transparency...like the really cool kind that Hambly makes?
Wouldn't it be cool? :)

Day 5 continued

I just love this first picture....here we were at yet another farm. Stopped for ice cream, and cold water. And here are these three Iowa farmers sitting here in the shade...watching the crazy bikers go by. Sometimes we would stop and chat, Iowans are extremely friendly. I was really wondering what these guys were thinking. :) They had this 10 person bike here...apparently they really ride it in parades and such...super fun photo opp!

We stopped again today to see Mr. Pork Chooooooooop!! The kids did their best again to imitate his call.

Here's Barry from Hell's Kitchen in the last pic....this is his 20th year doing RAGBRAI! Amazing!

Finally at camp we hit the pool, Mom cooked a great sirloin steak meal. Big thunderstorms were expected tonight. It was comforting to know that we were just a few yards away fromt he high school in case we had to seek shelter. Turned out to be pretty mild. Phew! Only 2 more days of riding!

Day 5 RAGBRAI

Cedar Falls to Dunkerton,
35 miles.

Off again after a night of breathing RV generator fumes. EW. Most of the time the RVs will turn their generators off at night, a little courtsey for the 10,000 or so people in tents...not tonight. The noise doesn't bother me, in fact some people like the "white noise" of the generators humming...plus I had my handy dandy earplugs. It was just the fumes. We must have been in the direct line of one of them...I woke up kind of nauseated...but off we went. We tried to be really quiet and not wake up Gran and Gramps...and we forgot to have anything to eat, we usually grab something to start the ride, especially for the kids. Well, about 3 miles out of town Gavin started complaining about his stomach...poor guy was nauseated from an empty tummy! So he had to stop on the side of the road to try to throw-up. Nice. We had him eat a little Power Bar and Gatorade...luckily he made it to the first big pancake breakfast spot about 10 miles out.

Delicious pancakes, sausage, coffee and juice. Hits the spot. The pancake guy would let the kids try to catch a flipped pancake on a plate... that would have been fun except Gavin had a meltdow when his kept sliding onto the floor. Geeze! This is not turning out to be Gavin's best day! I was really able to keep a calm and open, even happy mood. There was a guy having breakfast here who really put it all into perspective. His buddies carried him from his modified bike to a chair and then got him his pancakes and juice. He was sitting there all happy, joking around, clearly so hapy to be there working his ARMs off in the sweltering Iowa heat. His had no use of his legs. He was doing RAGBRAI on a bike that he pedaled with his ARMS. Amazing, inspiring, wonderful. Seeing this guy, and people like him is, for me, what RAGBRAI is all about....the strong and wonderful Human spirit. Really, really cool.

Day 4 Continued again

Man, I wish Blogger would let me put more than 4 pics in a post. :)


You can see here that life isn't all happy and dandy on RAGBRAI. The monsters almost brawled over this silly little ball. I just love this look that Gavin is giving his sister...oooooo she was ornery!













What's a gathering of 10 thousand people without a political statement or two? The little piggies represented the National Budget....all lost on me but the kids thought it was sooooo cool!






Back at camp with Gran and Gramps. Mom was showing Gavin his picture...loving the way he was looking up at her. Melt my heart.








And last for today. This dude has 10 RAGBRAI patches on his shirt...that latest one dating back to the 1973...that's a lota RAGBRAIS!! I wondered if these 10 were the only ones he did....I would have asked but he was on his cell phone. :)

Day 4 Continued

At the Expo in Cedar Falls....Coooooooool Army dudes. Gavin was so impressed, especially when they let him sit in the truck and try on their hats! These guys were really, really cool. We love our soldiers!! :) The Marines were giving away a water bottle if you could do 10 pull ups....Sean made it to 8 and got the lanyard Gabby has on. Guess he's not tough enough for the Marines! :) hehe


















Sean was really really really hungry, especially after all those pull ups! Can you tell? Love this picture!

Gabby was all cute and smiley when she put on the Army hat so we told her to look tough...this is what she did...we both totally cracked up!

Day 4 RAGBRAI

Our day off! No riding today, it is water park day!

We settled into our campsite in Cedar Falls around noon ready to take it easy, we were freshly showered and a little less sore in the tush! :) We hit The Falls, by far one of the coolest city pools I have ever seen. It is more accuratly called a waterpark...I was having too much fun on the slides to take any pictures. The kids were in water heaven!

After hitting the pool we went back to camp and decided to head to the food expo for dinner. We split up and collectively had lemonade, smoothies, spaghetti, baked potato with broccoli, and tenderloin sandwiches. There is a reason most people GAIN weight on RAGBRAI! :)

Can I just comment on Sean's picture here....yowza! ;)

Happy 38th Anniversary

To my Mom and Dad! You are an inspiration to me...on what it takes to make a marriage work and endure the hard times and have fun along the way. Thank you for that and of course thank you for getting married in the first place...without you there wouldn't be ME!! Ha ha ha. Love you guys!

This is a little album I created for them with the July kit at Tally Scrappers....you can check out the rest of the album here :)

Day 3

Humboldt to Clarion, 40 miles.

Phew...another boiling hot day. Another 40 miles. Gabby had a rotten cough so she opted to stay with Gran and Gramps today instead of ride. Sean found out that it is a heck of a lot easier to ride with one less 40 pound kid! We were evenly matched today.

First stop was Thor...a tiny little town with a jail on the street...hee hee. Gavin had fun climbing on the tractors in the street (used for bike parking) and Uncle Robby grabbed him and yelled at him for 'stealing' the tractor and threw him in jail. Gavin thought this was hilarious so he kept going back on the tractor and getting thrown in jail.

We were happy to roll into Clarion today just to try to escape the heat. At the edge of town some group was selling big cold glasses of fresh squeezed lemonade....man does that hit the spot. I think that between the four of us we downed about 7 glasses and then filled our water bottles with it. Yum!


We got the bikes packed up on the motorhome. We with our sore tushes were all pretty happy that we were taking the next day off...spending the night at Dave's in-laws in Cedar Falls where his preggo wife Patty and little girl Devra were staying for the week. They are all kinda cousins to us since Dave's sister is Sean's sister-in-law...so Gabby and little Devra bonded over shoes bracelets and purses. It was good to have a hot, real shower and sleep in the AC! We also had a wonderful feast. Tomorrow...the water park. :)

Day 2 Continued

A cool pic of all the people pulling into one of the pass through towns...this is typical...so many people and everyone is happy and having a great time. I read somewhere this week that one of the best things about RAGBRAI is that it restores your faith in this country, gives you a real sense of community even in such a huge group of people. That is bay far my favorite part of this ride...it sure isn't the heat and all the work! :)
Our camp site in Humboldt. Surrounded by thousands of tents, RVs and busses. It is amazing how well this thing works. Dad grilled some great burgers tonight, hit the spot!
A beautiful Iowa sunset sky. I just looked up from my camp chair...and there it was. Beautiful.
The kids crashed easily tonight! :) Princess Gabby claimed the motorhome couch as her offical bed for the week, we would carry Gavin into the tent with us each night so he wouldn't get into trouble in the RV. One day he was trying to start the generator...geeze!

Tomorrow we ride in the morning...to the halfway town, Clarion.

Day 2

Laurens to Humboldt, 36 miles


So Mom drove us to the half way town today and we got on the road about the same time the majority of the other riders were getting there. Our first stop was a Firehouse for some giant hot dogs...wow, we really ate a lot of hot dogs on this trip! And yeah, that's one of them Gavin has in his mouth. One of the fire guys brought his hat over for the kids to try on...it was heavy!

Back on the road...hot hot hot. Every time you stop on this ride...you just start to sweat, dripping sweat, it even gets into your eyes! You feel pretty cleansed after a shower at the end of the day! :)

Gavin crashed in the Burley today...this would be the ONLY nap he took the entire trip. Poor thing, when he woke up and got out of the Burley his foot was numb and he totally fell. It was an agonizing 5 minutes of pins and needles after that...not a fun way to wake up from a nap! Dave from the well known Dave's RAGBRAI Page took a picture of him snoozing and said he would put it on his site. It was pretty funny!