Baby Book Photos, Part 1

While I was at my parent's house I found my old baby photo album (that I hadn't seen in many years) and decided to bring it home to scan some of the photos. It's been a blast to look at, although there have been a few cringe-worthy photos (which will not be seen on this blog, heh) that I could do without.

Here's what I've scanned so far...

I was 3 days old when this picture was taken at the hospital before coming home:

December 7th, 1977, almost three weeks after I was born:

December 26, 1977, a little over a month after I was born. My mom is rockin' some kind of sweater in this picture, but I can't quite figure out what's up with the tree and the person under it:

My Grandpa and Grandma Brackin and my Aunt Anna came to visit:

My 3 month-old picture taken at Sears. Right before the photographer took my picture, I spit up all over the navy blue outfit. My parents were determined to get my picture that day, so they took the outfit into a restroom and washed it by hand and wrung it out and waited for it to dry, then they came back and got this shot:

Easter morning, 1978:

Spring of 1978:

August and September 1978:

My first birthday in November of 1978:

And Christmas. My mom made that stocking and she still has it:

February 1979:

Family snapshot from May, 1979:

This photo was dated from June, 1979, but I'm not sure what the occasion was. That's my grandpa and grandma Nodland's Nova in the background and my uncle Al's Pacer, so it must've been some sort of family get together:

My dad used to take me on bike rides all the time and he would deliberately ride through lawn sprinklers in people's yards as we rode along, getting us soaked. He says that I used to laugh hysterically and insist on riding through the water again. Also, both of the cars in the background were ours and the blue car was brand new. He must've been jumpstarting the old Ford.

OK, back to scanning...

Rose at Pine Lake Camp

80/35 and Camp

On Saturday we drove out and dropped off the girls at my parents so we could go to the Des Moines 80/35 Music Fest. We got to see my parent's new house just outside of Des Moines and the massive lawn they have to mow now, haha.

It was surprising to see just how much Des Moines has changed since we lived there and driving through our old neighborhood brought back a huge rush of memories. The whole neighborhood has changed and all the old buildings nearby have been torn down and replaced with fancy condos. The place has gotten all hip and trendy with bicycle rental stations throughout the area and lots of little hipster cafes and stuff. So weird. My old workplace has expanded and the Drake neighborhood has seen a lot of improvements as well.

We've been wanting to go to Zombie Burger downtown for a while, so we finally got the chance to do that and it ROCKED. That is the coolest place and the burgers are awesome. I ordered a "They're Coming to Get You, Barbara" burger (which was a two-patty burger with two grilled cheese sandwiches for the buns, caramelized onions, cheese, and bacon... sooo good) and Cynthia ordered the Pittsburger Romero (ham, egg, cheese, fries, mayo, coleslaw). Some of the wait staff were in costume, too, and the survivalist vibe they had going on was super cool. The windows are boarded up from the inside and there are a lot of decorative elements from zombie flicks throughout. BUT here's the best part: after our burgers arrived, a dude wearing a fedora and a long-haired dude came and sat at the table next to us. Isn't that great? Oh wait, but the dudes were Rivers Cuomo and Brian Bell of Weezer! A few minutes later the rest of the band joined and they sat down right across from us. They seemed cool and Cynthia got to talk with Pat, who seemed like a really chill dude. So that was our Zombie Burger experience.

We spent some time at Gray's Lake and watched a couple of nerds working on their katana sword fighting moves, then we went and rented a couple bicycles and rode around Woodland for a while.

The music festival was crazy and super crowded, but we ran into a couple of people we knew there, which was cool. It was so hot pushing through all those crowds of people and the buildings all around reflected the heat and sunlight, so we cooled off in the shade for a bit before the show:

Weezer played almost all of their blue album and pretty much covered all their hits as well as a couple of songs we hadn't heard before. By the time the show ended at 10:30 the whole crowd was a mass of sweaty, slimy people and our clothes were sticking to us from layers of sweat and gross. We took off out of there and stopped to get a bite to eat before going back to my parent's house.

The next day we took Rose to Pine Lake Camp in Eldora. Her friend Lila went, too, and Rose was really excited. Rose gave Lila a tour of some of the buildings and then we went to the camp store to buy some stuff and then got in line for burgers. Rose barely had time to say goodbye to us before she was off running around and talking with her friends (there were a couple other kids there that she knew from previous summers).

The trip back to CR would have been long and boring, except that Emily talked our ears off the whole way because for once she didn't have to compete with Rose's onslaught of chatter, haha.

July 4th, 1979

Independence Day

For the Independence Day weekend we went up to Independence a day early so that we could leave off the girls and go on a date. We saw Jurassic World, which was awesome, and then came back and sat around the fire in the backyard.

In the morning we went to the parade along Main Street. Independence actually pulled off a better parade than the Freedom Festival parade (way to go small town!), although there could have been fewer tractors in the lineup. It used to seem so weird to see farm tractors in a parade, but it almost seems normal now, heh.

Some kids who sat next to me:

Now that's a snow thrower:

Hey, it's Joe Winters!

Can you see Emily?

After the parade there were some bands playing in the park along the river and small plane rides (see previous post), so we skipped the music and went on a plane ride. Later in the afternoon Rose and I went to the Wapsi and skipped rocks for a while and watched the water going over the dam. In the evening we watched the fireworks: