Best in All the Land...

Posts to this blog have been sparse lately - sorry. I'll make up for it. One of my excuses is that Jude and I were whisked away to Iowa for four days in my mom's white Geo for a Dieken Chick Reunion of sorts. We busied ourselves hanging out with our parents, grandparents, sisters, aunts, nieces and cousins, most of whom had never met Jude. We had *awesome* weather and spent a lot of time sittin' and spittin' on my grandparents' back deck and watching sunsets over the corn fields.

Jude was a gentleman despite being out of his usual eating, napping and night-time routine. You can say you'll keep them on a schedule while traveling, but you just won't, so forget about it. He was up partying with the rest of us until 11 pm most nights.

He also got to spend time with other babies; a novelty for him since he has no siblings or cousins and only occasionally gets to see the neighbor baby. He stared open-mouthed at little Asher and Eden like, "Excuse me, but I'm usually the only small-bodied creature in the area. Can you tell me where you get off?" He had a perplexed look on his face much of the time, which I coined Cheerio Mouth because his tiny lips form an "o" to go along with a knitted brow and flared nostrils. It's unique, or maybe special, that look. We got much amusement out of it.

I guess I could write more, but you can just look at these pictures instead:

I'll leave you with the lyrics of the song my mom insists on singing whenever we cross the Iowa border. (Part of this tradition is to call someone -- the likely victims being Jono or my dad -- so that they can hear us singing it and know where we are.)

We're from I-o-wa... I-O-WA!

Best in all the land

Joy on every hand

We're from I-o-wa...I-O-WA!

That's where the tall corn groooowwws.