J K L

Jolly

I love being able to bring back some things my husband loves (and consequently most of my kids and usually myself) from America. He loves electronics and photography equipment but the cost and sometimes cumbersome packaging keeps me from making these purchases for atrip back to the Middle East. As a result, the "things" I love to bring back often results in some sort of prepackaged, very well preserved food that our family misses or just discovered.This time I brought back Brach's Candy Corn so we could pretend to enjoy the autumn here and nearly all of it has since been devoured. Slim Jims became our iconic road trip snack food (even for my two year old whose whole body stiffens up nearly threatening to go into convulsions when spotting the well known packaging). I also brought some Jolly Ranchers for my hubby's desk, so he can enjoy the sweetness of his favorite flavor, watermelon!
Now, for me personally, this awesome girl gave me a peanut butter jar filled with a divine mixture of rich, dark chocolate and creamy peanut butter. it looks like the concoctions from those old Recess Peanut Butter Cup commercials in the 80's. I treat it like gold!

Kitschy
Does anyone really know what this word actually means? I know I can look it up as I am writing this right now, but I think it might be more fun to give you an example.

Cadillac Ranch.You ever heard of it? In the great Lone Star State there is a "town" where we were sure Hank Hill actually resided as we peaked around every neighborhood corner watching for a group of men standing outside their backyard fence drinking their beers together. Amarillo is stereotype western desert city. Cadillac Ranch is just the icing on this cake. Think large corn field (no trees, not Midwest) with 10 Cadillac hoods buried in the ground and their tails flying in the air. Various social groups come and paint them for any reason they deem worthy and sometimes they are all painted the same color for a nationwide cause like breast cancer awareness. We stopped, took some pictures and even had a free tour guide who visits the ranch regularly and somehow knows the whole history of this event. It was a fun 10 minute stop leaving enough time for the kids to hope to find some leftover paint. They found it, then they left their own marks. This act seems suddenly so animalistic, like a dog marking his territory.

Learning to Fly
I love that my son really likes adventure and isn't really afraid of a lot of things, but at the same time, it makes me wonder what kind of adventures he will need when he is a teenager....

The ropes course at camp was a very attractive sight to my kids, especially my big one. He learned to fly...

He took a leap of faith...

and this mom hopes he is always ready to fly and watching for that next leap.

G H I

Grass and Geese

I have always taken grass for granted. Grass is amazing! It is outdoor carpet! The softest most refreshing place to sit or lie down and simply enjoy. Kids instinctively know that grass is great to play and run and tackle....you get my point. I know that sometimes it gets dried up and sometimes there are living creatures in it, but come on. This stuff is awesome! Why do I think that? Because where we live, grass is pretty much non existent and if you do happen to see it is usually in some sort of formal garden that never gets played in by anyone! So, I got really excited about go

ing to camp this summer. We were going to see so many birds, bugs and other creepy crawlies that belonged to the animal kingdom, experience some awesome midwest thunderstorms, and just be out in the great outdoors. When we arrived, the first thing I did was grab my 2 oldest boys and take them to the water hole to check out the swimming opportunities. It seemed there would be a bit of a shortcut on the grass so, of course, I want

ed to feel the grass tickle my feet while my shoes flipped and flopped! Upon arriving to the luscious green we immediately spotted random droppings placing a massive amount of obstacles to our shortcut! No matter, we were in the grass, we can work around it, besides the alternate route is now too far out of the way. Needless to say, what started out as a great memory of grass gently brushing our feet turned into a high anxiety drama of narrowly escaping geese droppings.

Hot Holiday

If you are ever in Indiana during the summer months and need a place for cooling off fun, I highly recommend going to Santa Claus, Indiana. That's right, there is a town called Santa Claus and yes it is decorated for Christmas year round, and I'm pretty sure the mayor is actually Santa Claus himself. They have an amusement park, called Holiday World divided into holiday lands (would you expect anything less), and a great water park! We enjoyed the slippery slides on the hottest summer day while the baby slept the heat away in the rental wagon (in the shade).

Ian

To Ian Warren Manbeck, the cousin of my children. We love you and we miss all your crazy antics and you are just an awesome kid! We love you!