Solon Beef Days and Johnson County Fair

In an attempt to soak up all of Iowa while we still could, we made sure to get back to Solon Beef Days. Solon is a small town near Iowa City. We love that fair because they have lots of fun free stuff for kids. First, big wheel racing.

Jonah made sure to wear his hat backwards for extra speed. He made it through two heats, but Wyatt was a big winner in his age group coming in second place. He got a big fancy ribbon.
After the wheel barrow races the fire fighters set up the barrel-spray game. I'm sure it has a better name than that, but I can't remember it right now. Two kids get a minute to try and spray the barrel toward the opponents' side. When the buzzer rings, whoever has made it to the other side of the center marker wins.
Wyatt did not enjoy it. He didn't like getting sprayed in the face, even with the goggles. Jonah wanted to go shirtless and seemed to like it a bit more.

Then a week or so later, we went on down to the Johnson county fair. This is where the certified tractor pulls take place. If you win this pull, you get to go on to the state pull at the Iowa State Fair (biggest state fair in the world!!!). The boys did good, but their parents aren't true tractor pull enthusiasts so they didn't have the training other kids had--and I'm saying that in complete seriousness.

They did still win a ribbon and a soda, which was prize enough. Here's Jonah with one of his best little friends, Bennett.
After the kids' tractor pull you can go watch the big boys' tractor pull--extremely loud and exhaust-y. We didn't know you needed to bring ear plugs (and maybe a gas mask, too) so we weren't there for long.

Trek Fest--this time with parade!

Luckily we were still in Iowa for the annual Trek Fest. This year, we got there early enough to see the parade--definitely worth it. Plenty of people watching to do as you will be able to see from the photos.

If you didn't know, Riverside, Iowa is the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. Yes, I said future. Even though they wore awesome 70s hairstyles and miniskirts in the tv series. Captain Kirk has yet to be born. Here are some great photos of parade attendees and participants, floats and other random stuff that make this a must see if you happen to be in Iowa in June.

If you can't read the banner on this next one it says, Washington County Pork Queen and Pork Princess.

This is a photo of the "crazy grandpas" as J and W liked to call them. The Shriners in Iowa do a lot of good--build a lot of rec centers, parks, etc.--and they also do awesome stunts on these fat three wheelers in small town parades. They pop wheelies, ride on the front and one back wheel, and go super fast. Max wants to be a Shriner now when he is a crazy grandpa, or sooner.
Another Shriner vehicle--the front and back wheels turn separately so the car can be crooked, but drive straight down the road.
Not really sure about this--I will admit, I was a little nervous that this bull was really THAT trained and wouldn't freak out and gore one of us.

Trek fest isn't all about Star Trek, it's also Riverside's town fair so there are rickety carnival rides complete with toothless carnies.

This is one of the floats that sits in a parking lot after the parade so you can pretend to fly the Enterprise.

Tractor pulls--one thing we will really miss about Iowa! Last year, Wyatt was very nervous and didn't dare to ride the tractor in front of everyone, but this year--I don't know if it was the tiger face paint or what, but he jumped right on and pulled pretty far.
Jonah did well, too. He made a full pull on the first run and had to come back for a second round.
We will miss you Riverside Trek Fest.

Canada II (loads of photos)

Since Max's job didn't start for another month and a half after graduation (and because we hadn't sold our home yet so we were sort of just hanging out in Iowa), we decided to make the trek up to Scott and Pat's lodge in Quebec again. I mean, we're twice as far now that we're in Utah. This time we did the driving in one very long day--15 or 16 hours I think. Cheaper and only painful for one day rather than two. However, we'd readily do two 15 hour driving days because of the destination.

We kayaked to rocky points where we picked wild blueberries (our pirate treasure we hid in the hull).
Wyatt did this at least 3000 times during our 5 days there. He was much braver than just a year before when it came to jumping off the dock and swimming around.
Max kayaking the Kipewa with Uncle Scott.

And we all had fun at Grand Chutes--Emmett came with us, just didn't do any of the jumping.




Plenty of ping pong.

More kayaking....

and swimming...and frog catching...

Seriously--wouldn't you drive 15 hours for this?

And this is how every day ended--happily exhausted!

Thanks Scott and Pat for letting us come up on such short notice and for your hospitality while we were there. Our boys say they want to move to Canada...can you blame them when this is what Canada means to them.

Catching up again!

I know I don't have to always try to catch up on what our family is doing, but I'm trying to keep a family record so here I am again, catching up.

Way, way back in June, Max graduated from the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.

He had been class president and was asked to give a more informal speech at the lunch before the graduation ceremony. His speech was really great because he included every person in his class--28 people--by writing fictional journal entries that had to do with something that happened to that person during the course of the program. He was the hottest graduate too, if I do say so myself.

Grandpa Stirling and the boys found ways to pass the time at the luncheon.