Josh Byers

State Fair Day

Today, we had our second annual family excursion to America’s Favorite Fair…or so they say. It was a tremendous opportunity to eat just about anything on a stick, mow down a deep fried candy bar, see hundreds of live cows, and get ridiculed by a clown in a dunk tank. Wow.

It was pretty hot, but unlike in CO I decided to wear sunscreen. I think Mia really liked the animals. While we were looking at the pigs a cow mooed really loud and Mia stopped dead in her tracks, whipped around and got a huge grin on her face. I laughed out loud. She also got to pet a horse, goat, and kissed a llama.

By far the best thing about the state fair is the food. While I did not get my deep fried donuts this year, I did get a chocolate covered nut roll. I am still buzzing.

We didn’t make it into the midway but I am sure if we go next year Mia will want to go.

Interesting side note: USA Today ranked the Iowa State Fair as the number 2 attraction in America that you have to visit, right behind Las Vegas. Now, I’m not sure what their critera was, but we do have a pretty cool butter cow, and you really can eat almost anything on a stick. So make plans next year to come and experience America’s Favorite Fair…

You can see more of our fair pictures on Flickr.

New Videos

I have just posted several new videos in the video gallery. Guess who they star? This is sort of experimental and there a few bugs I am still working out - so be patient. The videos are optimized right now for broadband connections. Sorry to those of you with dial-up. I will work on getting a dial-up section as well. For now it is my way of trying to push everyone forward to better technology. The world is so much better with broadband… Anyway, enjoy.

That Thing She Does

It’s every father’s job to tell everyone how cute and adorable his daughter is and I am no different. As I think back to before she was born and we thought she was he I could have never imagined having a girl. Now I can’t imagine what life would be like if she had been a boy. (does that make any sense?)

Nevertheless, in the car tonight she was making a screeching noise. The noise was one that if a little louder could be quite annoying, or if it had kept on, but each time after the warble left her voice she would tell herself “no no” be quiet for a couple seconds, and repeat.

It was one of those time where you smile to yourself and force yourself not to look back. Thank goodness for rear view mirrors.

I hope to post some new video soon of our dancing queen. She’s got a routine that gives Napolean Dynamite a run for his money.

You might have noticed that the sidebar on the right is getting a little fuller. I joined google’s adsense program. More for the novalty I guess, but maybe I’ll make a little money. It is a free program that pays me everytime someone clicks a sponsored link. So if you would like to help feed a hungry mouth…or put little Mia through college, go ahead and click. That’s it just click.

I have even come up with a fun game for the ads. Google places ads relevant to the content on the site. So the challenge is to figure out what newsletter entry was the refference for that particualr ad. All right, it’s not Frogger but it can still be fun.

And now for the thought of the day……..”Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and the world laughs harder.”

You’ve been great. I’m out.

Some New Photos

Mia and Regan at the Longs
I just finished uploading almost 4gb of photos from the past year and beyond to flickr. There are 4 new sets that were not on the old site.

The new photos include: Caleb’s Graduation, Abi’s Graduation, Our 4th of July trip to Indiana, and our Summer Vacation to Winter Park.

You can view the photos by going here.

Enjoy!

Something New

The last couple of days have been marked by things that are new. Awhile ago Mickie’s bathroom mirror fell off of the wall. Fell off? Yup. And in the

process a big piece was broken off of the corner. This gave her the inspiration to redo the bathroom. She wanted to paint add a new light fixture, some other accessories and of course a new mirror.

The bathroom stayed the way it was for a few weeks until we saw a sale on mirrors at Menards I picked one up and then it sat in our bedroom for another couple of weeks. On Sunday Mickie got the ball rolling and started painting. I jumped in and we finished the whole thing last night.

The other new thing and really big deal at our house is Mia’s swing set. On one of the trips to Menards we found a small swing set with a slide that was discontinued…and you will never see a happier girl.One last item. I placed a subscription field on the right side. If you would like to be emailed whenever the newsletter is updated and don’t want to bother with RSS (although RSS is very cool…) enter your email and click subscribe.

A New Era

So this is the first entry in the new blog…better make it good.

Greetings to you all! It’s been awhile since we last talked. Hope everyone is doing great. The Byers household is slowly getting back to normal. We have had a crazy July. It started off with a trip to Indianapolis to visit our friends the Longs over the 4th. There was some good golf and a crazy wait at the Texas Roadhouse (another story for another time.)

I then broke my 26 year streak of not attending a funeral by going to 2 in 3 days. Mickie’s aunt passed away so it was off to Missouri and then we went to Wisconsin for my grandpa’s funeral.

We had a few days at home but then headed to Winter Park, CO for vacation. It was a lot of fun. I’m glad we were in the mountains with the 90 degree heat instead of in the city with the 105 degree heat! Look for a video of Mia’s first Alpine Slide ride soon.

So now we are back to normal - whatever that means.

Mia is growing up faster and faster. She decided today that she needed to kiss Mickie and me (multiple times) and no, I am not complaining. She is really into the game of peek a boo as well. She will hide behind a wall, couch, or whatever and stick her head out and say “peek.” It really doesn’t get any cuter than that.

One last thing, if you subscribed via RSS to our previous newsletter, you will need to change your feed address. I was cleaning out my server and accidently deleted my entire newsletter…which contributed to the swiftness of this new design and format. Sorry for the inconvenience.

So, hope you enjoy the new site. Make sure to leave your comments below!
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