So I went and got myself signed up with flickr. I’d heard of this site, of course, because it is a part of Yahoo and is immensely popular. It was also recommended to me by Jeff – almost exactly one year ago.

So anyhow, those pictures in the sidebar over there will take you to my photostream. For the uninitiated, this is how it breaks down:

• Every picture I post gets thrown into my photostream.
• The photos in the photostream can be organized into large collections.
• Collections will contain sets, which contain a group of photos.

So that is the hierarchy. It takes a couple minutes to sort out, but a little poking around and you’ll be fine. You won’t actually see the collections very much. Those are mainly for me to keep things organized. I’ll be pointing you towards sets most of the time, one of which I’ve embedded below (use the button in the lower right corner to go full screen).

LuVerne Days

LuVerne days is an annual celebration that takes place in LuVerne, IA. LuVerne is a small town near my hometown of Algona. It serves as the origin of the last few generations of Martys. Several of us grandchildren got to drive some of Grandpa’s antique tractors in the parade. Abby even got to drive one back to the farm!

The ranch used to be a 7 hour drive if we kept moving and only stopped for fuel. When you add in kids, it turns into an 8 hour trip. When you potty train one of those kids it turns into a 9 hour trip. And when you stop in Grand Island to do some grocery shopping it comes in at a nice round 10 hours. We left on Monday afternoon and settled into our beds at about 1:30 AM on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning was Aunt Elaine’s funeral. It was about 1.5 hours back the way we came so we got to get up nice and early to make it to the church by 10:00 AM. The service was good – lots of family and it featured some excellent music. We got back home later in the afternoon and the relaxing was able to begin.

Wednesday was an “open day” where the kids got to live the ranch life without interruption. They are both big fans of cows now. Thursday was the Thanksgiving celebration which was met with much feasting and watching of the Style Network. Style Network? Not football? Yes, the Style Network. Friday saw more ranching and some pizza with friends. Saturday we hit the road again and made it home just in time for the KU vs. MU football game.

It was a good week with the obvious exception of the loss of a family member. We were blissfully disconnected from the cell phone and the internet which I found to be extremely therapeutic. We talked a lot with the brother in law about the pitfalls facing the church in this culture and got to sort our our long search for a church to call home a little bit. We got to sleep in, take naps, feed cows – I don’t think anyone could really ask for more.

Now, as soon as the computer at home is back up running there will be pictures. We even have one of Hayden hiding in my lunch box, so keep an eye out!