Batty.

Look what we found in the church! A wounded bat! Yuk! It was squeaking in that batty high pitch squeak bats have, but it recorded on my camera like a purring sound. Very interesting.



Phil took it outside to kill it. He had to use the foot on one of our benches to do this. I ran. Gross.

Beer Festival!

Phil's beer will be one of the "local beers" featured in the Bancroft Beer Festival on August 1. He is also the guest speaker for the evening and was interviewed by the Norfolk Daily News. You can read the article here:

http://www.norfolkdailynews.com/main.asp?SectionID=3&SubSectionID=104&ArticleID=17654&TM=37902.79

From the John G. Neihardt Center's website:

Besides being a renowned writer and Nebraska's "Poet Laureate in Perpetuity," John G. Neihardt loved good beer. On August 1st that love will come full circle in the first annual "Bancroft Neihardt Beer Festival," a specialty beer-tasting fund-raiser sponsored by the Neihardt Foundation.

The fest will be held at the Country Pub, 409 Main Street in Bancroft on Saturday, August 1st from 7 to 9 PM. More than 20 brews provided by area distributors and brew pubs will be available for sampling, along with appetizers, a demonstration of home brewing, and a silent auction of specialty items. "We'll be serving up a healthy helping of good cheer for a good cause," said Event Coordinator Paul Hammel.

Tickets are $20 and $25. Purchasing a $25 in advance includes a beautifully etched glass Neihardt mug. Proceeds benefit the Neihardt Foundation's programs and projects of the Neihardt State Historical Site, which requires additional private funding to operate.

Tickets are available through the Neihardt Site and at several businesses in the Bancroft area.

So join the fun, enjoy some of the finest new beers on the market, and help a good cause.

At The Parsonage

"Some women are dripping with diamonds
Some women are dripping with pearls
Lucky me! Lucky me!
Look at what I'm dripping with
Little girls!"

This was one of my "Miss Hannigan" days.



Lily and Clara are starting to play together so well! But Clara hogs the pots and gets so mad when Mama scolds her and tells her to share.

Our little "bow head"!

Our "Little Lutheran" (note shirt I thought was HUGE when someone gave it to us at the baby shower for Lily, but I had to get it out for her to wear before she outgrows it!)

Our sweet corn is ready for harvesting. Some of the ears are pretty big.

And some are pretty small.

One Month Old.

What is this?

*UPDATE: Thanks for your thoughts Ann! I took both girls to the doctor this morning, he said this could be a viral infection, I don't think he called it roseola, but he said something I missed and the rash is just one of the last symptoms of this virus, so perhaps that's it. Lily sailed through it without us knowing she had anything until now, but it looks like poor Clara has picked it up too and she's miserable with a fever (100.4) and on a antibiotic. Hopefully both girls should be rid of this by the end of the week.

Phil can't stand when grown ups respond to babies as if they're actually saying something an English speaking adult would understand, so this one is for him.

Clara had something to say too.

Jimmy this is for you. We had a nasty storm blow in pretty fast last week. It sent me and the girls to the basement. It was real exciting! I thought about how brother James always gets excited about a good storm coming in! Sorry the video doesn't really do it justice.

Our town celebrated its 125th anniversary last weekend. It was a busy and fun filled 3 days for everybody. We estimated that we had about 4000 people come!

Here you're likely to meet nice folk like the Schwedhelms!

I only went for the food; free ice cream cones at the library, snow cones, kettle corn, funnel cakes, burgers, pork on a stick and even delicious Mexican( I had that twice)!

Our neighbors really helped me out with girls so we could get around to all the events. Phil was very busy with different fundraisers so we didn't see much of him.

He was able to get away for Lily's first pony ride! She was nervous at first but quickly decided she really liked riding a pony.




She didn't like having to say goodbye to her new buddy "Token".

Here's the beard and mustache competition I had to watch. There were some very nice handlebar mustaches!

Clara just wondered when we'd be having another funnel cake.

"Seriously. Another funnel cake anyone?"

Lily kept cool with Mr. Vernon.

The girls were asked to model in the vintage style show. The models wore wedding and confirmation dresses from the 1900s through 2007. Clara wore a baptism dress from 1953. I had one of the models walk her down the aisle.



Lily wore a flower girl's dress from 2004. Phil even got in on the catwalk action sporting the suit he was married in. (And I must say he looked good!) He carried Lily who debuted asleep on Phil's shoulder. She was a still a little embarrassed about this when we took this picture and Clara still thought it was hi-larious!



After the style show we appeared in our parade. Phil's fishing boat was all gussied up for the occasion and pulled by a 1940-something Farmall tractor....

that Lily drove...

well wished she'd driven at least.

She had to sit in the boat with us and look really cute in her life vest.