KateOhKatie blogs

Last Monday, Jeff’s parents took us on a short vacation to the Lake of the Ozarks (the “go to” vacation spot for a lot of Missourians).  His parents have some friends/neighbors who own a condo down there, and they let us (Jeff, his parents, and me) use it for a pittance.

I didn’t really take any “woo hoo here’s the condo” pictures, but it was really nice–3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full kitchen, screened in porch, etc.  It was in just the right size complex (8 or 9 buildings, maybe?), of 3 condos each.

Here’s my sock (actually, Jeff’s sock) on the first day we were there:

Jeff’s dad spent most of his time manning the grill, and taking care of Molly (she was on the floor, here):

Jeff spent a lot of time staring at the lake and musing upon the futility of existence, or mentally developing a perpetual motion machine, or something:

And I took pictures of cat-shaped plant stands:

The cove and dock (I think the condo was somewhere along the lake’s 23mm):

Molly and Jeff cuddled that night.  And, apparently, Jeff grew extra fingers.  Congratulations to him.

But really, Molly spent most of her vacation alternatingly chilling out:

and investigating the possibility of grill food being dropped:

I don’t know if she ever got any grill food or not.  But I bet she could tell you, if you could learn to speak Daschund.

The next day, we went to this lodge lookout placey thing.  Which had the most incredible lake view ever:

EVER.

They had a rustic checkers-y thing, which I wanted to play.  But no one else would play with me.

Rustic oversized checkers is SO MUCH more fun than regular checkers, you know.  Plus they’re good  if you’re, um, lacking in…um….fine motor control?  Yeah.

Anyway, then the top of Jeff’s head got chopped off:

Yet he kept on smiling.  What a trooper.

Like father, like son:

See?  Because they’re both standing at the railing!  Ha! Ha?  Hmmmm…

Proof that Jeff can act like he likes me (at least when the camera’s on):

From there, we went to the Lodge of Four Seasons (the resort Jeff and I stayed at on our honeymoon) to look around there for a while.  And I saw these flowers:

Aren’t they gorgeous?

Jeff’s mom told me what they were.  Then I forgot.  Because that’s what I do best, y’all.

Random:  there’s a waterfall inside the main building of the lodge.  See?

(it’s where we took this picture, over a year ago)

So now I have one of Jeff’s parents in front of the waterfall, too:

PS:  when I first typed “waterfall” above, I actually typed “waterfally”. Then I spent the next 5 minutes spacing out and thinking about “water folly” and what hijinks that might entail.  Really.  Welcome to my tiny brain.

Ahem.  Anyway.

After that, we went on a short cruise thingy, to look at some of the big fancy houses on the lake.  And I discovered that I have a tendency to feel a bit seasick:

Jeff doesn’t have that tendency, lucky bastard.

However, he does get carsick.  And we ride in cars much more than we ride on boats, so I think I win that one.  HA!  And HA! again!

On the cruise, we saw this super nifty house, which was the very image of a 1970’s grotto.   If they made grottos in the 1970’s.  I dunno…did they?

I should note, here, that all of this merriment was interspersed with much pool swimming.  To the extent that I would wake up in the morning and put on my swimsuit instead of clothes, ’cause I knew I’d be changing soon anyway.  That kind of swimming.  I love that.  LOVE.

Also, by necessity, I love my oil-free, sensitive skin, SPF45 lotion.

The next day–Wednesday, I think?–Jeff and I hit up the Osage Beach outlet mall, and Starbucks.  Which had a hole in it:

(What, you think I was lying?)  It looked like someone drove their car through Starbucks. Which doesn’t really make much sense, because there’s a perfectly good drive-thru on the other side of the building.  But there’s no accounting for taste, or something.  No, wait–there’s no accounting for drunk vacationers!  That’s it!

I also saw a cute car, and captured it forever in my memory and my heart:

Doesn’t it sort of look like the one from Get Smart?  Maybe?  I dunno…I’m not a car person.

Moving on!

Wednesday was, without a doubt, the most traumatic day of the whole vacation.  Because I swam in the lake.  Seriously!  Ugh!  I couldn’t see my toes, or anything.  And I wore a life jacket.  But dudes, I couldn’t see my feet! The water was so murky and…lake-y.  Full of fish poop, I’m sure.  Ewwwwwie.  I can’t believe I did that.

Behind this smile, is fear.  Pure fear:

Also, check out the new sunglasses.  Aren’t they cute?  $9.99 at the Fossil outlet!

Jeff had no fear in his smile:

Only ridicule, of his silly wife.  Hey, it’s OK.  I’d ridicule me, too.

Jeff’s parents were probably ridiculing me, too.

But I’m serious, people.  I couldn’t see my toes!  Or for that matter, my legs at all!  A fish could’ve bitten me!  Or touched me!  Ewwwwwwww.

But I did finally get in the lake, because I had a strong motivation:

Molly can swim! (with her life jacket of course)

Look at her go!

She doesn’t really like swimming, so she tries to get from point A (Linda) to point B (Jeff or Bob) as quickly as possible:

When she swims, her tail wags and splashes water everywhere:

Then when she gets to you, she’s SO HAPPY to be safe, that she licks your nose in appreciation:

It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

So that’s what motivated me to get in an let Molly swim to me once or twice.  Only then we were all in the lake, and there was no one to take pictures.  So you’ll just have to trust me.  Please trust me.

After the lake, Jeff spent some time making up and solving differential equations in his head:

While his mom and I stared at the lake:

(ugh…thunder thighs FTL)

Then it was time for the pool again!

I love when it gets completely glassy like that.  And I also love jumping in and ruining the glassyness.  I’m sure that says something significant about my psyche.

Jeff worked on his tan for a while, while I added another layer of the SPF45 and worked on my pasty.

But hark!  What is this?  A tan line?!

(more like a freckle line)

No worries, the other 99% of me is still lily white:

Also, for the rest of my life whenever anybody wants to see a picture of me, I’m going to give them this one.  Even when I’m 75.  It’s called ‘lying’, kids.  Or, if you wish, ‘denial.’

After our third swim of the day, Jeff and I headed off to dinner at one of our favorite Lake restaurants:

(we ate there on our honeymoon, too)

I took this photo to mark the momentous occasion in which Jeff seriously contemplated chucking my camera into the lake:

I think you can see the anger in his eyes and the hatred in his soul.

Not that I cared, for I was soon in possession of the best grilled chicken sandwich ever (mmmm sourdough):

(I forgot to take a picture before I ate part of it.  But it was stellar.  STELLARRRRR!!!)

and the best bloody Mary ever:

Grilled chicken sandwiches and bloody Marys tend to make me care not so much about the hatred in my husband’s soul.

Also, I hid the camera so he couldn’t chuck it into the lake.

After dinner we headed back to the condo for another swim, then came back to St. Louis (relatively) bright and early the next morning!  It was a really fun vacation, and I’m really glad that Bob and Linda let us tag along.  Even if I did risk having a fish bite my leg.

Settle in with the nearest cat and a cup of tea (bonus points if the cat will bring you the tea), here’s the exhaustive run-down of our Big Weeked Number One.

(Or, if you don’t care that much, scroll down to the bottom of this entry, where I’ve provided a handy summary of the events transpired.  For your pleasure)

We woke up at 3:30 on Friday morning, showered, brewed a pot of coffee, drank a pot of coffee, and hit the road.  It was dark.  Quite dark.  The highway was desolate.  Quite desolate.  I drove.  Quite drove.

The Wash U people had a breakfast buffet thing set up for all the admitted students, and people (including Jeff) mingled before the presentations and stuff began.  I sat in a corner and wound my skein of Cascade 220 for Jeff’s hat, into a ball.  Using a pen as a nostepinne, and feeling very MacGuyver-ish in the process.

Then we all went into the moot court room to listen to people talk.  I worked on my Alpaca Sox sox.

People talked a lot…about lawyer-y stuff.  That’s really not my thing, y’know?   In fact, that is SO not my thing.  I was so awkward, uncomfortable…the girls were all wearing business suits and tottering around on stiletto heels (radiating insecurity, if you ask me), while little ol’ me sat in the corner with my knitting and cowboy boots.  I’m pretty much the polar opposite of those girls.  Except the insecurity thing.  I just use knitting as my shield, rather than mascara and Prada knock-off bags

I was happy with my knitting, until tragedy struck….the ball of yarn rolled off my lap, and under the seat in front of me!  I was knitting-less for the remaining 45 minutes of the presentation.  When it was finally over, I was faced with the humiliation of asking the girl seated in front of me to hand me my yarn. (I was so freaking close to digging myself a hole, and hiding in it, with some yarn and Diet Coke, and never coming out).

The first presentations over with, Jeff then gave me permission to duck out, so I gratefully retreated to the campus coffee shop.  I spent the rest of the morning sipping a caramel latte and working on various projects.  I sat in a corner and was happy

Jeff came to collect me when the lawyer-y people were done talking, and we went to the car to have some sandwiches, stare at the mind-trippy fence in the parking garage (it was an optical illusion, I swear), and talk about how the visit went.  Jeff was exhausted but we couldn’t check into the hotel yet, so we went to the nearby Loop for some shopping and time-killing.  I finally go to visit Knitty Couture (and meet Thi!), which was definitely the highlight of my trip   I bought this:

That’s 7 skeins of Peter Pan DK.  I was thinking about making it into Basic Black, but now it may have to become Sunshine, if I can get gauge.

I also got some souvenir sock yarn:

I haven’t seen that colorway before, and it’s just too yumylicious to pass up.  It reminds me of stormclouds passing over a field of wild blueberries

I can definitely add Knitty Couture to the list of fantastic St Louis LYSs….and if we go to Wash U and move to University City, it’ll definitely be the closest one!

When we could finally check into the hotel, we did.  Where a nap happened.  A long nap.  A long, deep, satisfying, don’t-bother-to-set-an-alarm-who-cares-if-it-lasts-five-hours nap.  Man oh man…that was a nap of the gods!  (Sheratons have *very* comfy beds, fyi).

Once we finally dragged ourselves awake, we realized two things:

1) we were hungry
2) somehow, we had managed to eat all the sandwiches we’d packed (quite possibly while simultaneously napping?)

So we hit up Fitz’s for dinner–definitely a must-see in St. Louis!   It’s a root beer brewery and restaurant in one, located right in the heart of University City.  It’s always busy, but is also *huge* (they have two stories of a building), so we only had to wait about 20 minutes to get seated.  Jeff and I had gone there once before, when we were still dating (summer 2005).  We hadn’t been back since they discontinued his favorite soda.  But we decided it was high time to give them another chance, and I fell in love with the best diet cream soda ever.  So I was happy.

After that we just went back to the hotel and called it an early night.  Even though the hotel had a pool (and, knowing this, we’d brought our swim stuff), we couldn’t use it–it was closed for renovation.  What a bummer   (see what an emotional roller coaster my life is?).  So some Sopranos happened, then a lot of sleeping.

The next day we went back to the campus to wander around on our own, outside the constraints of a tour guide.  Since it was just me and Jeff I was feeling a lot more secure, even enough to break out the camera:

Jeff looking up at the University’s “big entrance”:

We loved all the gothic architecture:

Then we saw a tunnel of trees, not dissimilar to Truman’s!

(wonder if they had a lazy gardener, too?)

Then we popped into the library (which is that odd modern-looking building in the background of that picture up above) to see their miniature book exhibit:

Then we briefly contemplated having lunch at the library’s cafe:

(to interested parties:  we ultimately decided to go elsewhere.  ”Elsewhere” being, ultimately, Panera.  Ultimately.)

A statue of the university’s namesake:

(Point of interest:  Washington University was named as such *before* the state of Washington existed.  So nyah nyah!  Jeff and I decided that the University of Washington should, thus, be renamed “University of the state in the extreme upper left corner of the United States”.  It has a nice ring to it, right?  I think that’ll help avoid any further confusion

Looking across the quad:

(a photo which would be much mroe impressive if I had the wide-angle lens for which I pine)

Jeff at a crossroads, just like in life:

(that’s the library in the background, again.  Isn’t it ugly?)

More beautiful architecture, this time on the women’s studies building:

Also, a convenient representation of “undergrad” versus “law school”.  Here’s a typical bike rack on campus, on a Saturday afternoon:

And here’s the racks outside the law building:

True story.

Speaking of the law building, here’s the new building where it’s moving next year:

And just next door, here’s the law program’s current home, Anheuser-Busch Hall:

We’re in St. Louis, remember?  And actually, I’ve heard tell that there’s free Budweiser products at a lot of  the law school’s social events

Jeff outside the doors:

He’s already gained admittance, but will he choose to pass through?  We’ll know by next week!

(also, ps, I’m corny )

Plaque in the entrance, just to prove I’m not lyin’ about the name:

An awesome “Justice” gargoyle:

And here’s the bench where I sat the day before, knitting and feeling socially awkward!

(since I know you care)

A-B Hall has a courtyard in the middle of it, for students to eat, study, whatever, in.  I like it a lot:

The courtyard may also be used for pondering:

Inside the moot court room, scene of the previous day’s embarassing knitting incident:

And so ends our tour of the Washington University campus.  If you’re still with us, there’s more to go…

After a quick lunch, we decided to visit the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park, while we were in the neighborhood (Forest Park is right next to campus):

This shall also serve as proof that I was, indeed, also along on this trip:

President Jefferson also came along:

and by “came along” I, of course, mean “sat there and continued to be a statue”.

I managed to snap one more picture–of this amazing 1900s-period crocheted purse–before my camera died (yes, I forgot to bring my Nikon charger.  Yes, I’m an idiot.  This I know.):

So I had to use my old camera (of course I always carry a backup!) to capture this Napoleon lamp:

Napoleon lamp, I covet thee.

And also:

Poster of a wife mending her husband’s trousers while he mows the lawn, I covet thee.

After leaving the museum we headed down to Jeff’ parents’ house in South County (read:  about half an hour from U City), where we had our noses thoroughly kissed by the always adorable Molly, and had dinner at the best Italian restaurant in St. Louis (until proven otherwise), Joe Boccardi’s.  I had linguini with a spicy marinara that was “just right” spicy.  Perfecto!

Later that night we stopped by Jeff’s grandma’s nursing home, where I noticed this art print:

Zomg!  Knitting!

And even…

Zomg!  Knitting correctly!

You don’t see that every day, kids.  Ya really don’t.

We stayed with the in-laws that night and left pretty early on Sunday morning, headed back home.

By the time we pulled up to our house back in Kirksville yesterday afternoon, I’d made this much progress on Jeff’s Claudia hat:

This hat is not my friend, or yours.

‘Course, I don’t really know what I was expecting, knitting a hat on DPNs in the first place.  But that’s another entry, for another day.  I don’t have the energy to bitch about it any more tonight.

~~
Well, that was about it!  A little knitting, a little sightseeing, a few tears, a lot of laughs, and absolutely *no* progress towards a Decision.  Harrumph.  Oh well, I suppose that’s what next weekend is for!  Watch out, Chicago…I’m on my way.

Finally, for your summarizing pleasure:

If you were too busy/apathetic to read all of the above, here’s a handy-dandy abbreviated version.  To trace these over the course of the weekend, please consult the above graphical representation.
1)Getting up ass-early
2)Being socially awkward
3)Sandwiches
4)Yarn!
5)Pool closed
6)Nap!
7)Dinner
8)Pool still closed
9)Visiting campus
10)Lunch at Panera
11)Creepy guy in Panera
12)Getting away from creepy guy in Panera
13)Missouri History museum
14)Dinner at Joe Boccardi’s
15)Provel cheese from Jeff’s parents!
16)Driving home in the rain
17)Seeing the kitties
18)Sleeping in our own bed.

I’m home!  From my grand Kirksville>>Kansas City>>Baldwin City (that’s in Kansas)>>Lawrence>>Baldwin City>>Lawrence>>Baldwin City>>Kansas City>>Kirksville trip!  And might I say, I’m now intimately acquainted with the finer nuances of the rural highways of extreme eastern Kansas.

I’m certain this will come in handy when I appear on Fox’s new game show “The Rural Highways of Extreme Eastern Kansas.”  Sure to be a winner!

I started out my trip with the fastest stop at my parents house EVER.  I was in and out in 4 minutes, flat (yes, I timed it).

Walk in the door.

Leave with said water, bars, apple, pillow, and blanket.

After that, I partook in a fun adventure called “I-35 in Rush Hour” (this will NOT be a Fox game show), which encompassed chapters called “Miss my exit because of that bitch in the Geo” and “forget if I’m on the north loop or south loop”, as well as a sequel entitled, “Momentarily consider taking the 12th St. exit, finding a jazz dive at 12th and Vine, and spending the rest of my days bemoaning such blues-worthy themes as “I lost a DPN in the couch cushions” and “why the hell won’t the cats shut up?”  It fits rather tidily with the ongoing theme of life as tragedy, no?

Ultimately I ended up in Baldwin City, home of Baker University and my good friends Stef and Mandi.  Unfortunately, I was supposed to be in Lawrence–20 miles away.  After a few quick phone consultations, I determined how to get to Lawrence from BC, and in no time flat was at my cousins house.  From there, we quickly left for dinner at the Free State Brewery (yum!!!), where Kaitlyn (flower girl #2 in the youngest>>oldest procession) and I got this cute photo:

And this Just Plain Funny one:

Kaitlyn colored a lot, and I watched:

Then I colored, and she watched.  But I don’t have a photo of that one.  Also, I just realized that I rather resemble Cousin Itt in the photo above.  Oops.  I had my head turned toward Kaitlyn, and was resting my cheek in my hand.  Really.

My hosts for the evening, and Kaitlyn’s parents:

That’s my cousin Susan and her husband Mike.  I am forever indebted to them for showing me such a good time in their fair city.  Also, Susan reads this blog:  Hi, Suzy!

After dinner on Friday night we went back to their house, where I shamelessly bribed Kaitlyn with a Barbie movie (Barbie Swan Lake, I believe).  She and I watched it and cuddled and had a grand old time.  I love that little squirt.

Saturday morning, my hosts gave me a grand tour of the University of Kansas campus, and other points of interest in Lawrence.  For example:

Hunter S. Thompson’s house:

And a WWII memorial.  I didn’t take the requisite “stand waaaay back and get the whole thing in the image” shot, so y’all can’t really know what it looked like, but I did take a photo of Kaitlyn inside the memorial:

(after seeing this image, it shall be literally impossible to deny her resemblance to her Great-Grandma J.)

and one of the ceiling:

Followed by a couple of the muses (?), humanities (?) which adorned the memorial’s walls:

The one on the right is “science.”  I don’t remember what the one on the left is.

Then we had lunch at the Aladdin Cafe on Massachusetts St., where I had the best combination of felafel/hummus/pita EVER:

It was so good, I forgot to take a picture until I’d already eaten half the thing.  Damn.  Wish I could eat it again.

(by the way, it’s YEE-ro, not GY-ro or GEE-ro.  For the record.)

I almost got the Jasmine vegetarian special:

Yum.  Vegetarian dolmates, anyone?

After lunch, we wandered up and down Mass. St. and looked for ways for Kaitlyn to spend her worldly treasure of $6.  Along the way, we stopped in The Toy Store (that’s its name), where I couldn’t help but get a pic of these wooden dolls:

So “Asian” isn’t an ethnicity now?  Only African American/black is?  Really?

A case of PC-ness taken too far, methinks.

But it gets worse.  Because check out the white/caucasian family:

I’ll address each problem separately:

1)That caption, in case you can’t read it, says “Modern Doll Family.”  So, now what?  Are the “Asian Family” and “Ethnic Family” not “modern”?  Must you be white to be modern?

2)It is genetically impossible for two red-haired people to have a dark-haired child.  OK, so they adopted.  How modern.

3)What about families with two mommies or two daddies?  Or no mommy?  Or no daddy?

They should just have mix’n’ match families.  Grab bags. Big bins against the wall.  “Yes, I’d like one black mommy, one white mommy, two black girls, and one hispanic boy.”

If you’re gonna do it, do it right.  That’s all I’m sayin’.  Don’t judge the legitimacy of one family type over another.

Stupid dolls.  When I was a kid, there were 4 kinds of dolls: white with blonde, white with brunette, medium-skinned with dark hair, and dark-skinned with dark hair ?  Leave them all generic enough looking, and there’s something to please everyone.  Bah.

Damn, I’m sounding crochety again.

Moving on…

We stopped in here:

Where I came this close to buying this:

But I didn’t.  I did, though, get one that says, “One duckling, two ducklings, three ducklings”.

Yes, for the nonexistant Hooplings.  The Hooplings we don’t even intend to have for years to come.  Those Hooplings.  Jeff doesn’t like me to talk about it.  So I won’t.  Except to say that the onesie is VERY cute (yeah, yeah, no photo), and very tiny.  That is all.

I can’t wait to have Hooplings.  Well, yes I can.  But you know what I mean.

But back to my scintillating narrative…

After we finshed our tour of Lawrence, I had to get going on the next leg of my trip:  to Baldwin City (for real this time!) to celebrate Stefanie’s birthday.  For that, we went back up to Lawrence, and had dinner at On the Border:

Birthday Girl Stefanie is on the far right, there.  See me waaay at the back?

Then we went to a bar, I sober-chauffered people around, and then I crashed on the couch watching Clue with Mandi (in the blue and black shirt in the photo above) while everybody else partied the night away.  I was tired.  And, also, an old lady

I didn’t get to stay in BC very long, so I sort of felt like a bad guest or something, but I had a lot of fun while I was there!  I was glad to be able to help Stef. celebrate her birthday.

Sunday I woke up bright and early, and headed up to Kansas City for a brief hair-dyeing session and Stitch Knitch sale-visiting session with Mom, as well as a broken computer looking-at session with Dad.

The fruits of my LYS sale labor can be found on my Rav stash; it’s the three skeins of Borroco Comfort sock, the Cascade 220 for a hat for Jeff, and the Di.Ve Teseo to make myself a Calorimetry.  Lurve!

And so ends the nearly 500 miles logged on my odometer.  I’m glad to be home with my new yarn yumminess.  Knitting shall ensue–worry not, my friends!

As some of you might recall, I went out to Baldwin City, Kansas a couple weeks ago, to attend the Maple Leaf festival with my friends-practically-since-birth, Stefanie and Mandi.  And, in true Katie fashion, I took tons of pictures.  Also in true Katie fashion, though, I let them fester on my hard drive up until *NOW*, when I’m finally posting them.  What can I say, I’ve gotta stick with what I know!

Everybody was so happy to see me, even the fridge greeted me!

Of its own volition, I assume.

Stefanie’s mom and her grandma came down for the day.  And look what Stef and her mom did!

Oh yes, that’s inadvertently -matching shirts.  Aren’t they cute?  I promised I wouldn’t blog about it, but….whoops!

Had to start the day off on the right foot.  And there’s no better foot than….funnel cake foot.

Seriously though, kids, don’t fool around with funnel cake too early in the day.  It’ll make your tummy hurt.  Take my word for it.

As soon as we finished our breakfasts, it was parade time!

Look!  A Delorean!

Look!  Old-fashioned bicycles!  We had a huge discussion about how, exactly, one mounts those things.  I think the final consensus involved hay bales, tall dogs, midgets, or simply that they never got off of them.

I wanted this car!

Wheat State Pizza (remember this location!) and a sample of the crowd.  There were about 40,000 people there!

That afternoon, we just chilled out in the girls’ apartment for a while, where I took these t rippy pictures of Stefanie:

But what you didn’t know (until now!) is that I took those from all the way across the room, using a 55-200mm zoom lens belonging to a friend of theirs.  I <3 that lens.  I added one to my Amazon wish list.  I’m just sayin’ , is all  (anonymous benefactors out there?).

Here’s another example.  The zoom capability of my kit lens:

Compare that to the 55-200mm zoom lens:

Me wantey.  But alas, me wantey food and shelter more right now.  Poo.

Saturday night’s dinner:

Wheat State Pizza.

Mine was whole wheat crust, organic sauce, portabella mushrooms, and parmesan cheese:

I miss that pizza.  We had a great friendship while it lasted.  ::burp::

Mandi knitting while Stefanie frogged:

Sunday had a smaller crowd, so we started out bright and early again, with shopping and eating as our only two goals.

Mandi and Stef browse painted window wall hangy things:

Doesn’t look posed at all, does it?

We also looked at lots and lots and lots of jewelry:

Mandi and I bought matching earrings from this lady, ’cause we’re awesome that way:

Lunch was Wheat State again for Mandi:

While Stef was thrilled to lose her Giant Turkey Leg virginity:

Clearly an orgasmic experience:

I was just honored to be present at this occasion:

I love this photo, because it reminds me of one of those ones that they put in the newspaper alongside the headline “festivalgoer finds maggots in turkey leg” or something.  Not that there really were maggots in Stef’s turkey leg or anything.  K I’ll shut up now.

One final one, an then I’m *really* done posting pictures of Stefanie gnawing on a giant hunk of meat (yes I meant it to sound that way):

To swiftly change topics…
We were sitting near the first tree in Baldwin City to change color every year.  This was the only really bright foliage we saw all weekend:

And after a short excursion to the kettle corn stand, my purpose in life became fulfilled:

I love kettle corn:

Here are the souvenirs I came home with.  First, a SOUP-er cute soup mug:

And the aforementioned earrings which match Mandi’s (hers are blue, though):

aren’t they cute?

And the piece de resistance of my shopping adventure…a stoneware oil lamp!

Sweet!!!  I love this thing!  Makes me feel very Laura Ingalls Wilder-ish to use it.  Except Jeff won’t let me turn off all the lights and use it to carry around the house…wonder why?

I had such a good time visiting my far-flung friends.  I’ll have to fling myself back to them sometime soon   My only disappointment with Maple Leaf was the lack of yarn or yarn-related objects, but hey…I can find those any other day of the year!  It really was an awesome experience and I had sooooo much fun