Breakfast with the McCarter's

Yesterday, Mark and Liam spent the morning with our good friends Ben and Erin, who are newly married and about to embark on an awesome adventure. Erin (a lawyer...they both are...but the good kind) has taken a position as the clerk to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Palau. Palau? You ask. Where is Palau? I thought the same thing. Learn more about it here (disclaimer: as an academic and the wife of a teacher, I don't usually endorse Wikipedia as a reliable reference, but for this...perfect). It has been helpful having friends move to exotic locales, because it has improved my geography. An interesting fact about my American education--I am about to get my Master's degree, and I have NEVER EVER been required to take a geography class. Isn't that crazy? When my friends Mary and Joey moved to Singapore two years ago, I learned how awful my knowledge of Asian geography was, so I boned up a bit. Then Ben and Erin had to go and move to Micronesia...I had to learn Asian geography all over again!

Anyway, Ben took some awesome pictures of Liam and I wanted to share them. We'll miss you, Ben and Erin! Best wishes and happy trails.

Liam gets a snuggle with Erin.

Liam is learning to drink water out of a cup.

Trouble is...sometimes it leaves a ring around his nose and cheeks.

He's also becoming quite the chatterbox, as evidenced below. I'm not sure where he gets that from...

Liam is a thumb-sucker. At this stage, it's not a worry for us, just another thing that makes us think he's super cute.

More evidence to support the super-cute claim.

Alas, some photos

Okay, so our camera ran out of batteries mid-trip, so I stole all of these from Emily's Flickr. I'm not sure if she's going to sue me for copyright infringement, but I'll take my chances.


Team Iconic Bond sets out for Day 5 from Cedar Falls


Jon & Egan, Mark & Liam

Finished (that there is the Mississippi River in Bellevue, IA)!

Support Crew does breakfast at Perkins in Dubuque.

Emily takes an unintentional abstract photo of herself and Liam

These are for you, Allison...

Camping outside of Dyersville, IA (where Field of Dreams was filmed)

Prunes.

Stale Blog

Disclaimer: This is a blog without photos, though I will provide links to photos on other sites/blogs. Liam lovers, you can get your fix that way.

We have been busy the last three weeks, first out of town on vacation, then recovery from vacation this week. Why is it that taking a vacation almost requires another vacation when you get home to get yourself back on track? Nonetheless, we had a great time on our two-week family adventure, hitting Ohio, Illinios, and Iowa (and driving through Indiana twice) for the Bryan family reunion, time with my gals in Chicago, and then to Iowa City. We then set off on a driving/biking tour of the state of Iowa as Mark participated in RAGBRAI, an annual bike trek across Iowa. See Josh and Tara's blog for more information on the boys and their RAGBRAI adventure.

Liam and I spent most of week two of our vacation in Cedar Falls with Emily and her brood, hanging out and driving around Iowa in the Sprinter with a U-Haul trailer. Good times. Julie also came to visit Cedar Falls mid-week, so we got to see her twice in the span of two weeks! (Liam lovers, here's where you'll hit the photo motherload :))

All in all, great fun. I'll try to post some new photos soon, but we are moving two weeks from today, so don't hold your breath. I haven't even started packing yet.