Brazil!!! (part one)

Here are some pics from my recent travels in Brazil (to a science conference). In order to put more pics, I'll keep the text to a minimum, let me know if you have questions about where a pic was taken or anything. We were in the town of Foz do Iguacu (mouth of the river Iguacu), and went to the Iguacu Falls, as well as the Itaipu dam (largest in the world) and the local bird park and zoo. Foz is in the crotch of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. It was pretty awesome, the town was interesting, kinda dirty, but definitely worth the visit. We flew to Brazil through Santiago, Chile, so those mountains in the picture are the Andes. Beautiful.

Durango, Colorado!

So to celebrate my new found unemployment, Lisa and I packed the car, packed the babies and headed to New Mexico and Colorado to camp for a few days. The kids did great, they loved the camping and hiking, although Lily was already a seasoned pro at camping. We met up with Ivy and Tom and Anne (Ivy's mom) at Jemez Springs, NM for our first night of camping in the Santa Fe National Forest, northwest of Albuquerque. John Milo and I took our first hike in his awesome hiking backpack early in the morning before anyone else was up (JM wakes up when it is light out, hence why he has heavy dark curtains in his room at home).

Then we headed to Durango, where we camped in the San Juan National Forest. We took the kiddos on a day hike to Engineer Mtn, which is a 12000+ peak between Durango and Silverton. We couldn't find the correct turn-off for the trail we were looking for as directed to us by the land management people, so we just hiked along a riverbed instead. Yes, I'm training him early to become a geologist!!! I made him memorize the stratigraphic section of SW Colorado before we left. Mostly he said "ga-ga-na...lola...", but I'm quite sure he was saying "Look at this fine example of the Fountain formation". And that last picture is of him holding his yellow bear bell...yes, we hiked (probably unnecessarily) with a bear bell!

John Milo shows his sensitive side by giving Lily hugs. Notice that Lily is not exactly sure she is okay with this situation! They were also quite helpful at unpacking the car.

Clearly we had many more adventures than this, hopefully I'll get the rest of the pics put on here before I have to deal with all the pictures I'll have of Brazil! Those will be less exciting though, since little buddy won't be making the trip with me :(

The Shop

It's hot here folks, like it is everywhere under the influence of the death ridge I suppose. Anyway, John wanted me to post pictures of his shop (almost finished) for his dad. And I'm sure he wants me to say that he worked outside on it alllll day in the heat. He was pretty stinky when he came back inside. So here you go, enjoy. And there is a token pic of the kiddo as well.

Happy Birthday JM!!

We went to one of John's sister's favorite places...a vegan restaurant!...called FairGrounds for breakfast. I thought this was a weird picture of the little guy...I have a feeling I'll be seeing that "Yeah, you're really not that funny mom, but I'll give you this token smirk" look quite a lot in the next few years!

I thought he looked like the E-trade baby in this picture!

We took some pics in John's parent's backyard the afternoon of JM's bday. Here's one of the family. He's chilling in his hawaiian shirt on account of it being a blistering hot day in the heartland. That's JM's cousin Lexi and her puppy dog Shelby, who John Milo looooved! Then John's mom with the grandkids.

PRESENTS!!!

Little Dude had a great time opening his presents, he did most of the opening himself too, so he was pretty excited. Elizabeth and fam got him some Little People, he loves them a lot, that's for sure! And always some books, which are a huge hit with the dude.

CAKE!!!!

Well, cupcake anyway! I made JM some cupcakes from weelicious, which is an excellent website for healthy recipes for kids, by the way. So I made him that with agave nectar instead of sugar in an effort to not make him totally sick on his birthday (we'll do that at Lily's party!). But of course no one else wanted to eat those, so John's mom got him a really cute cake with the requisite "Happy Birthday JM" on it that everyone else enjoyed. Somehow I didn't get a pic of it though. JM wouldn't dive in to the cupcake at all, he is quite the delicate little eater. So John had to mash it up for him, but then he ate the whole thing! Once he was getting toward the bottom of it he started offering it to other people (he does this all the time, too cute!). After all of that eating, it was time to work off the crazy sugar rush with some basketball.

John Milo gives this look in lots of pictures. John and I like to call it his "frat boy" look. I'm quite sure that in 19 or 20 years, there will exist pictures of JM in which he looks *exactly* like this...althought there will probably be a beer bong in the background...oh god, that gives me heartburn just thinking about it!

Welcome to Iowa...what's that smell?

Sorry so long between posts, in a short while I'll have plenty of time to post :) So we went to Iowa for John Milo's first birthday. Unfortunately we were all kind of sick, so we didn't get to do a whole lot while we were there, and I definitely didn't get in the requisite amount of shopping done. But we did introduce JM to golf! Here we are on #5 at the Elks Club in Iowa City. John rode around with John Milo in the cart while I played 9, and then I returned the favor later in the week. JM was really good, and loved all the fresh air. When John played, JM fell asleep by #7 and slept sooo sound for about 3 hours!

Here's John and John Milo on #4. There was a dog park behind the tee-box and he was very interested in all the barking that was going on behind us!

We also visited John's Mom's flowershop of course. Here is John and JM taking in all the moneys! That little kid ran himself ragged in that shop, especially because Judy has a whole display of stuffed animals. JM turned the whole thing over on himself and loved it. Bill and I sat there and ate lunch with him too, and since he ran around so much he ate a ton!! A whole grilled cheese, apple sauce and milk-the entire kid's meal!!

3q321111111 (that was John Milo's contribution)

Hello! Take my picture!

Can I get some service around here?!

Chillin' in front of the cooler...

Alright Stacy, that's all I can handle tonight, I have to go to bed :) You'll just have to wait for part two and the cupcake and present pictures until tomorrow!! Hope everyone enjoys these, like I said, I'll be updating much more frequently before long.