The Mountain

Cleaning the Forest Floor

It was a beautiful, albeit windy autumn day here in Iowa City. We spent the first half of the day with Ava out at Lake Macbride, where she enthusiastically attempted to demonstrate the importance of leaf taxonomy. After wearing out her energy, we watched the Hawks finally defeat Northwestern. Can a fall saturday get much better?

Cheesy

We're not sure if it was because we said "Cheese" or because we told her she was going to be a sister . . . we'll keep you posted once we find out . . .

Summer Couture

Cuddle Time

Overall Rider

Typical Iowa biker garb . . .

Keeping Up With Current Events

Who cares about Osama when Ava has Lindsey . . .

Happy Easter!

Our neighbors Mark and Joyce invited Ava and I over for dinner to celebrate Easter, as Emily was working the holiday. Ava enjoyed the afternoon, especially the Easter egg hunt with their grandson Leif. Here are a few pics from this afternoon. . . Thanks again Mark & Joyce!

Nest Cam

This is a live cam on a bald eagle nesting in Decorah, IA . . . and the baby eagles are due any day. Pretty cool!

Ava's New Do

Yesterday afternoon, before our friends Sarah and Anthony stopped by from Chicago for part of the weekend, we took Ava to have her hair cut for the first time . . . and much to our surprise, she did remarkably well. Only a few tears were shed in the beginning "prep-work", but once the cutting began, Ava just fell into her typical flirty self, waving to nearby patrons and hairstylists, as well as saying "Hi" in her most optimistic tone. Will going to the hairstylist be a regular event for Ava? . . . we think not, but we figured 'hey, why not give her a cool do for her first cut'. Ava celebrated by coming home and eating some mid-afternoon snacks, and then taking a great nap before Sarah and Anthony arrived.

"All Done"

While our post-status to the blog has been at best lackluster, plenty has been happening in the life of Ava. Each day seems to make us smile at new developments and little quirks of her personality that are starting to emerge. However, in the midst of all this change, Ava still holds to some stalwart traits such as giving slobbery open-mouth kisses, and muttering "all done", with the conclusion of anything she's tired of doing. Tomorrow we'll be taking Ava for her first hair-cut, and Chris will have camera in-hand. We thought we'd post some recent photos of her as her hair has continued to lighten and lengthen.

1/1000th

I was driving home the other night from work and heard a story on NPR regarding a technique in which people on YouTube were playing popular songs, but stretched to between 1/800th or 1/1000th its normal speed. One of the excerpts was from the Jurassic Park soundtrack, which is great music to fall asleep to when played at this speed. Take a listen.