Category Archives: Life

Becky, Dawn, Derrick, Event, Jaycees, Music, Shannon, Suzie, Willy

06-07-08

July 14, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

Pretty much all of the images from the folder 06-07-08 are from Ames on the Half Shell’s Family Night.

I believe the name of the band was Murphy’s Law. There are plenty of images of people that weren’t Jaycees in this collection:

The picture of the pie was a rhubarb pie that Shannon had made me for my birthday.

By adding these images to the Photography 139 Gallery I was able to restore the following historical “An Artist’s Notebook” posts to their original glory:

HEAVEN AND HELL

FAMILY NIGHT

I took plenty more photos during Family Night. If you are interested, you could see those images by clicking on the link below:

Next Saturday’s walk down memory lane will involve the first time Scottie D. and I ever went formally tenderloining, plus some sunset pictures, and the cherry on the top will be pictures of the Ames Party Bus.

Boone FUMC, Music, Nature, Road Trip, Youth Group

Decorah Waterfall

July 12, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

A quick announcement before we get to the meat of this entry.

I will be working a concession stand at the Boone Municipal Band Festival today for the church. I will be there. I think some of my family. Some of the kid’s from the youth group. I think the money will go to the youth group, but I’m not entirely sure.

Unfortunately, we have no freedom with the menu. We are being forced to serve beef burgers. I know. Gross. The loose meat sandwich is an abomination that will burn in hell next to the only thing more evil than it. The open faced sandwich.

Oh, you don’t think I’d forgotten about the open face sandwich had you! Oh no, my hatred for you still burns. IT BURNS!

That being said, you could do worse than come out and buying some water or chips or tea from us. You can even buy a stupid loose meat sandwich and then just throw it in the trash where it belongs.

You will be doing 2 good deeds that way. Supporting a good cause and making sure there is one less loose meat sandwich in the world.

Also, the Municipal Band Festival usually has pretty good music.

We will be working the concession stand from 2-7.

While I know I’m not selling you on the food, I had forgot to mention there would also be pie for sale. Delicious homemade pie!

Come and get it!

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Back in May of 2017 I went on a little road trip to Decorah to see their waterfall. I would call it by name, but I’ve seen it spelled about 4 different ways. So we’ll just call it the Decorah Waterfall.

Here are some pictures:

The last 2 pictures are from the Ice Cave. I didn’t go very far into the cave because I was travelling alone and I didn’t want to get stuck in a crevice without somebody being able to point and laugh at me or pull me out. That is the price the Lone Wolf* has to pay to be a Lone Wolf!

*Scientifically documented.

Animals, Baby Got Rack, Flowers, Macro, State Fair

Take the Time to Plant

July 11, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 3 Comments

I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some.
― Herbert Rappaport

Digging deep into the backlog here. The following are pictures from an August 2016 trip to the Iowa State Fair. Yes, I have pictures from 2016 I still haven’t even edited.

As many of you know, I the Discovery Garden is my favorite place on the Iowa State Fair fairgrounds. Every trip to the State Fair I make a stop there. This is often when I tell the people that go with me, go do something else. I’ll meet up with you later.

This particular trip to the State Fair was when Baby Got Rack was competing in the Farm Bureau Barbecue Contest. While the meat was smoking, I snuck over and grabbed these photos.

Animals, Contests, Flowers, Macro, State Fair

Without Troubling a Star

July 10, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

All things by immortal power. Near of faR, to each other linked are, that thou canst not stir a flower without troubling a star.
-Francis Thompson

This post signifies the final batch of photos from Donna’s flower garden. However, before we get into that, I need to make an announcement.

Results for 2018 Iowa State Fair Photography Salon

I got two pictures into the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon this year!

A few things I want to clarify:

#1. The Iowa State Fair Photo Contest and the Boone County Fair Photo Contest are not connected. They are completely independent and couldn’t be more unrelated. The Iowa State Fair Photography Salon is one of the hardest photo contests in the country. People from all over enter it. They only display 20% of the pictures that are displayed. Full-time professional photographers often don’t get photos in. Past judges don’t get photos in. The judges change every year, so it is impossible to guess what the judges are looking for every year. I pick the photos I enter into that contest. It is the contest I take seriously, even though I know it can be very arbitrary.

#2. Therefore, the photos I entered were not the same photos that I had people voting on last week. Those photos are for the Boone County Fair. The Boone County Fair doesn’t start for another week. I will enter the photos that people voted on July 21.

#3. I have a rule that I don’t enter a picture in more than one photo contest. Therefore, none of the pictures I entered in the Iowa State Fair were in the list of 50 pictures that people could vote on for the Boone County Fair.

#4. I don’t know what pictures were selected. You are allowed to enter up to 4 pictures. I entered 4, but I Don’t know what 2 were accepted for display. 2 of the 4 entered I haven’t released yet for public consumption. No real reason for that, other than I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

#5. I’ll get to find out what two got accepted for display when I go to the Photographer Reception. I think that is the Sunday before the Iowa State Fair, but I haven’t really looked into that yet.

#6. Finally, if you go to the Iowa State Fair and want to see the pictures in person, the Photography Salon is on the top floor of the Cultural Building. You can ask the attendants where pictures by certain photographers are and they will show you, if you don’t want the challenge of trying to find them on your own.

#7. In about a month I’ll unveil the process of picking the photos for the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest. It will be similar-ish to the way we did the Boone County Fair Photo Contest, but with some slight tweaks.

I’m pretty stoked. Glad I came out of Photography Contest Retirement!

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Here are the rest of the flower pictures:

Don’t worry Russell, there is plenty more flower pictures in the backlog!

Andy, Animals, Birthdays, Boone FUMC, Macro, Mom, Naima, Willy, Youth Group

Happy Birthday Naima!!

July 9, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

Naima turned 7 today!

Here are some of my favorite pictures of her over the years:

I hope Naima had a happy birthday! We will do some of her favorite things any way. Sleeping. Going to the park. Eating.

Art, Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Jaxon, Mission Trip, Road Trip, Street Photography, Vacation

Houston (Vidor) Mission Trip – Day 8

July 7, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

This is my telling of my experience on the Boone First United Methodist Church Youth Group’s Mission Trip to Houston (Vidor). There were 18 people on the mission trip and all of them experienced the mission trip in a completely different way than I did.

Therefore, you should pull your tired bones out of bed on Sunday, July 8 and drag yourself to the basement of the Boone First United Methodist Church (703 Arden Street) between worship services (approximately 10 AM) and listen to the other 17 people give their testimony about the mission trip. I’ll probably run my yap as well. There will also be a video. Also, there will be refreshments.

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The last day of the Mission Trip was the shortest as it is only a quick 8 hours from Tulsa to Boone. I spent most of the day driving and we stopped for lunch at an IHOB in Liberty, Kansas for lunch. Jordan’s choosing. We stopped at the Junction Creamery in Osceola for ice cream to celebrate Summer’s Gotcha Day. Other than that, the day was just bathroom stops.

I drove almost the entire day, so there aren’t many photos.

But here is my day in photos:

#wafflelife Always stay in a hotel with free breakfast. Hotels that charge for breakfast are bull(expletive deleted)!!!

As the kids were packing up the van, I took a few quick shots around downtown Tulsa.

Bathroom break and gas stop.

This is a stupid rule.

Stopping in Osceola for ice cream!

Watch out Anna, that lady behind you is eyeing your Cookie Monster!

This is how Summer smiles!

This is how Summer shows joy.

Emily and officially the last picture of the mission trip.

We got home a little after 6. Sadly, when we got home we found out that Megan’s car had been towed. Nobody had paid attention to where she parked and the city towed her.

After that was sorted out, I somehow got out of returning the vans to Ankeny, so I went home. Saw Naima and tried to re-orient myself back to normal life.

It was an amazing trip on just about every level. I really can’t recommend going on a mission trip enough. Especially with a youth group. It is rewarding beyond your imagination.

Andy, Candid Portrait, Football, Jaxon, Mission Trip, Road Trip, Vacation, Youth Group

Houston (Vidor) Mission Trip – Day 7

July 6, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

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Friday morning everybody works on cleaning the building. Then you have a quick breakfast (usually this is a packed breakfast), everybody says goodbye and then you hit the road for the long, long, long trip back to the Cyclone State.

After cleaning the building, the kids got to put a pie in the face of each of the YouthWorks employees as a reward for buying so many shirts.

My day in pictures:

YouthWorks!

Jaxon packed up and ready for the road!

Our toilets for the last 18 hours.

Breakfast!

Megan got one of the honors.

Pie in the face!

This was Talia. I think she was literally in pain.

Ashley was next. She was the Site Director.

Last was Brogen.

Our super caring kids did lead blinded Talia to the water.

Group photo!

Before we headed back we stopped by the Texans’ practice field. Megan’s “hot” older brother is the turf manager for the Texans.

He oversees their 3 grass practice fields.

He also see the turf on their indoor practice field.

The guy is like 26 and he already has his dream job. Thanks to a degree from Iowa State University.

Group photo on the Texans logo.

A closer photo.

Overturning a practice tire.

Kyle sized tire.

The Schoff Bros.

I was shocked to see that the Astrodome is still standing. They are turning it into a parking garage.

Inside NRG Stadium. He is also in charge of the turf in the stadium.

We also got a tour of the stadium where Houston’s professional soccer teams play.

Also managed by somebody from Boone County. This time from Ogden. Also an Iowa State graduate. Seeing a trend?

Most the tour was of the concourse, we weren’t able to go down onto the field because the Houston Dash had a game that night.

Celebrating in the pool at the hotel in Tulsa. (Photo cred: Tiffany)

Not pictured:

Most of the day. After we left Houston, most of the rest of the day was spent on the road with one mission. To get to the hotel in Tulsa before the pool closed at 11. We ate lunch at a Chick-Fil-A. Then we drove with only bathroom stops all the way to Tulsa. We got there a little before 10.

Andy was a swell guy and ordered up a bunch of pizzas from a local pizza place in Tulsa. I think the place was called Mazzio’s. It was delicious.

The kids got to swim in the pool until almost midnight, before the hotel employees realized they were still in there and kicked them out.

For the first time in over a week, I got to sleep in a bed. It was glorious! It was everything I remembered that sleeping could be!

Andy, Candid Portrait, Mission Trip, Vacation, Youth Group

Houston (Vidor) Mission Trip – Day 6

July 5, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

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Thursday was the last day of full mission trip activities.

Here is my day in pictures:

The Rattle Snakes had breakfast prep.

Alan and Autumn preparing the lunch prep table.

The Cowboys had building maintenance.

Other Chris was nice enough to take the trash out for us in the rain.

Megan sweeping the floor.

Anna sweeping.

Since we were going to a new house, we were told that we needed somebody from Nehemiah’s Vision to take us to it. They didn’t show up for a good 45 minutes after we were supposed to start working. We lost an hour of work time.

Jordan getting a workout in.

I forgot to make a bag this year. I also forgot to send any messages this year. I failed.

YouthWorks shirts. They usually give away a shirt at the end of the mission trip. They didn’t do this year. So we used Methodist Men money to buy a shirt for every kid that wanted a shirt.

Shirts

From Wednesday night’s worship.

Ways they can take what they learned on the Mission Trip home with them.

Waiting almost an hour to even leave: thumbs down.

Mackenzie found her calling. Staining.

Caulking and puttying.

Ellie from Missouri staining shelves.

A kitchen full of stainers.

Mackenzie really took to staining.

Fred telling his story.

Anna staining the bottom.

Almost quitting time.

Mackenzie doesn’t want to quit.

When we got back to where we were staying, we were greeted with the news that the plumbing in the bathrooms had stopped working. No showers or toilets. However, they had a trailer on site that was converted into showers.

Thursday’s shower, quite frankly it was a big upgrade over the showers that were in the building. The showers in the building were designed for midgets. Anorexic midgets. Which is also the name of my new spoken word album dropping in time for Christmas shopping.

Kids waiting for the adults to be done showering. Sidenote: Andy got locked in to his shower. Somebody had to come help him out.

Anna is always throwing shade at her dad for eating gas station hot dogs, but she never had one. So we made her eat one. She was not impressed. She was right to not be impressed, but at least we pushed her outside of her comfort zone.

Donovan helping grill for the Community Cookout. This is my 4th Community Cookout. In the past there has been 100-=150 people show up. 3 people showed up. Understand that it was their first ever Community Cookout, but 3 people was pretty sad. I would have thought some of the Baptists would’ve shown up. They must have found out about our dancing.

This ice cream man was the only black person I saw in Vidor the whole time we were there. Remember I told you about Vidor’s racist past. He did not live in Vidor. With Methodist Men money we bought ice cream for everybody on the mission trip.

Thursday was Summer’s Gotcha Day. The awesome staff at YouthWorks made Summer a cake to celebrate! If you don’t know what a Gotcha Day is, it is the day when a new member of a family* during the adoption process.

The last full day of the mission trip is always an emotional day. As the kids (and yes adults) realize that they will not being seeing the family** that they have spent almost every moment with for last 4 days.

The final worship service ends with a foot washing ceremony. One of the YouthWorks staff washes the feet of the adults. Then the adults wash the feet of the kids in their group. The first time I thought it was extremely weird. I know the story about when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples:

John 13:1-17 New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet

13 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

But still, until you go through it, it is hard to explain how powerful an experience it can be.

After the foot washing, we had our Church Time. As always, it was emotional as everybody had unpacked the experiences from the trip. It ended perfectly. Jordan told everybody what this trip had meant to him in his life. After he spoke, we prayed and ended the night with a group hug with Jordan in the middle.

Not pictured:

Kolbe convinced another adult on the trip to put together a PowerPoint with the lyrics to CONVOY and COUNTRY ROADS so that they could project them on the wall so when they serenaded the girls, they would actually know the words.

I don’t have video of this because I joined the Vidor Boys Choir on that night. It is rare that you get to see me fire up the golden pipes, too bad you can’t see it.

*With apologies to some people’s definition of family.
**See above.

Andy, Animals, Baby Got Rack, Contests, Flowers, Football, Holidays, Iowa State, Kio, Linda, Macro, Michelle, Micky, Mom, Nature, Pastor Sarah, Photoshop, Shannon, Teresa, Travel, Vest

Freedom and Flowers

July 4, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?
-Oscar Wilde

Before we get into the meat of today’s blog, we need to start with…

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you had an continue to have an enjoyable 4th of July!

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Time to hit up the back log and publish more pictures from Donna Jones’s flower bed!

There are more of Donna Jones’ flowers in the hopper. For those of you that are fans of “flower porn” as Micky likes to call it.

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The votes have been tabulated and these are the photos that I will be entering in the Boone County Fair:

Technically there was a frog picture that got more votes than the picture of Shorty, but I’m not going a photo contest without entering a black & white image.

Thanks to the people that voted: Sarah Karber, Michelle, Micky, Vest, Mom, Teresa, Shannon, Kio, Aunt Linda, Jordan, Andy, and all of the fellow SmugMuggers that voted.

If you want to see the photos in the flesh (so to speak) they will be on display at the Community Building at the Boone County Fairgrounds. on July 21 and 22.

Baby Got Rack will also probably be competing on July 21. So mark your calendar!

We will do something similar when it comes to the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest.

Alisa, Andy, Candid Portrait, Mission Trip, Pastor Sarah, Travel, Vacation, Video, Youth Group

Houston (Vidor) Mission Trip – Day 5

July 4, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett

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The third group from Bone First United Methodist Church was the Rattlesnakes. They had breakfast cleanup on Wednesday morning.

Here is my day in pictures:

Alan organizing stuff.

Summer and Autumn.

Autumn balancing cups.

Summer cleaning dishes.

There was a bunch of donated furniture in the building where we were staying and a lot of it came from Iowa State University.

Finishing up dishes.

Cleaning up after lunch prep.

For the first time all week we could see some blue in the sky!

Hands in!

Megan and Mackenzie finishing up in the living room.

Cleaning up the ceiling rollers.

Anna and Ellie from Missouri packing up the tarps.

Jordan cleaning up the floors.

Tiffany getting paint out of Mackenzie’s hair.

Jordan and Anna finishing up the trim.

Jordan keeping his selfie game strong.

Really strong!

The Cowboys, without Ellie from Missouri!

With Ellie from Missouri. Can you find her?

Kolbe doing Megan Squats. Anna trying not to look impressed.

On our way out of the house that had been our work site all week, the daughter of the woman who owned the house stopped by. She started crying while she was thanking us for our help. Some of the kids cried. I held strong though. For the most part.

Next we went to house where we unloaded drywall.

2 trailers full!

Maci. The anchor of the drywall team!

Kolbe and Jordan

Drywall team!

Teamwork!

Allegedly Kolbe and Anna are Big Hosses. Either they don’t know what that means, or I don’t. Take your pick.

The Cowboys had dinner prep.

Mixing lemonade!

Look at all this pizza the Cowboys made!

Luckily Megan was trained in knife work back in Boone by Brad, one of FUMC’s master chefs.

Anna, showing leadership skills!

Sonic run!

Sonic!

The Ukeladies rocking worship!

Okay, this is bizarre. I drove all the way to Vidor, Texas to see that 2 of my cousins are chaperoning a church in Missouri. Kari and Wendy. We are like 3rd cousins or something. They knew me, but honestly I didn’t know them. I know them now though.

I’ve been telling you about how much Kolbe LOVES the song CONVOY. Below is video evidence

The group that does lunch prep has to do a creative way of introducing supper to the rest of the group. This is how The Cowboys introduce supper!

Not pictured:

Wednesday night we were told that we were no longer allowed to play secular music. Now, we weren’t the ones playing the music, it was the YouthWorks crew that was playing secular music. Normally YouthWorks plays Christian music, but this year I would describe the music as “Humble Narrator’s Junior High Mixtape”. Lots of AC/DC and Guns’n’Roses and Bon Jovi.

A member of the Baptist Church we were staying at came in and heard the music that they were playing. They were shocked, SHOCKED, that they were playing secular music in their building. And it was so hard too. That was the end of the secular music. Well, at least the end of secular music for the most part, but we’ll get to that.

I texted Pastor Sarah, about the secular music ban. She wrote back, that we were lucky the Baptists didn’t find out we were dancing in their building.

I texted to Alisa and she texted, back: “Were they playing Cardi B.?”

The Cultural Event for Wednesday night was going to the Baptist Church for Bible Study. The boy and girls were segregated into separate groups. The boys group listened to Part 3 on a 4 part series on “How to be a Real Man”.

Part 3 of being a “real man” is being romantic with your woman. The teacher used the example that how he is romantic with his wife is listening to her talk.

This was followed with a lesson how to use a compass.

I confess that it was incredibly boring and I began staring at the floor and counting the time until it was over. Then all of a sudden I heard an audible gasp across the room.

The compass guy had pulled a switchblade-lie knife out of his pocket. He was trying to show that the metal in the knife threw off the compass’ reading of true north. It was then that Andy pointed out to me that the compass guy was carrying a gun. Texas.

From what I gathered, the girls talked about “being nice”. Particularly in a blended family.

After worship and church time, the boys “serenaded” the girls with John Denver’s COUNTRY ROADS.

After that, I stayed up until 1 AM talking with Chris the Youth Pastor from the Missouri church and Donovan. It was 3 hours of conversation about the church and it was great perspective. It was perhaps the low key highlight of the trip for me.

I knew Thursday morning was going to come quick, but I’ve had later mission trip nights than this one. At least this one wasn’t spent in a hospital Emergency Room.