This past weekend Beloved flew to Lansing, Michigan for the Iowa Hawkeye game. Surprise win! One of the best ever! I'm so glad he was there. This Hawkeye is proud of the scramblers.

I loaded the little angel into the car on Friday and drove to my parents' house, where Blondie and I watched the entire Jurassic Park trilogy and Wall-E (I was a Wall-E virgin) and spent the weekend making puppets and carving pumpkins and laughing until my sides hurt and cuddling and eating with our parents and my girl. It was awesome.

I got to see all of my local aunts and uncles and two of my cousins. And -- for those of you who follow me on Twitter -- we did make it five hours round-trip with no DVD player. YES WE DID.

 

My finger puppet is based loosely on Lauren Conrad. Note the Barbie tanning oil glued to her bikini bottoms. Ahem.

 

The little angel's puppet featured freckles.

The little angel's puppet also had a sequined bustle and had recently taken a spring break vacation to Panama City Beach.

Blondie's is going to be in a textbook, so I'm a little worried about copyright posting the photo.

So I'll show you her klassy puking pumpkin instead.

 

Evil lurks on the farm. It gets VERY DARK in Iowa.

Speaking of which, now that I'm out of swatting distance, I will admit that while I was dicking around helping Pa load his wood pellets for his corn boiler out of the Morton Building, I asked if I could take out the riding lawn mower tractor that I learned to drive on. It's larger than a surburban riding lawnmower, and really should be classified as "tractor." Well, I apparently slowed down too much before I popped the clutch into third, and before I knew it? I was doing a wheelie all the way across my parent's yard. Oops. That was exciting.

 

Blondie gave the little angel a princess cowgirl hat, which has totally changed her vision for her Halloween costume. So I just ordered some fake cowgirl boots on the Internets.

Yay, October! It's so important (I think) for couples to have time to play on their own. I'm glad Beloved had his day in the sun, and I had a great time with my family.

Carry on.