A Wedding in Maryland

"We'll just run down to the old abandoned church and back. Should be about 1, 1.2 miles there, so we're looking at 2.4 miles, round trip." Trent said.

For years as we grew up, I affectionately referred to my cousin Trent as "Chub Roll". His brother Kyle and I were the fearless champions of all things good, whereas our younger brothers Shelby and Trent were the portly faces of all things evil. When we'd play war games,  Kyle and I were always the brave and true Americans, Trent and Shelby were the scheming Germans. 

But recently Trent has jumped onto the Fitness Train. He developed a taste for weight-lifting and exercise when he joined the National Guard. When he finished Basic, he returned 35 lbs lighter and with a gleam for fitness twinkling in his eye. 

I had joined a van load of Graber cousins and relatives and traveled into the mountains of Maryland for my cousin Melanie's wedding. We had arrived Thursday evening at a pristine chateau hidden back in the woods where we'd be rooming for the weekend. After less than an hour from our arrival, Trent decided it was high time we went on a run. After all, we had been on the road for 15 hours and our legs needed to stretch! He exclaimed.

I wasn't against the idea. Back at home, I occasionally go on runs. I have a route that I run that is 0.7 miles one way; 1.4 miles round-trip. Two miles would be a stretch, but I was up for the challenge. The weather was incredible. The sun had just set, it was around 71 degrees, and there was a slight breeze wafting through the pines. After stretching and limbering up, Trent and I took off down the smooth blacktop road. We hauled along at a decent pace, but it still took 11 minutes to get to the old church. We took a short break and did some push ups before heading back. "I'm feeling great!" Trent said. "My legs feel better now than when we started." I wasn't feeling too awful just yet, but my right leg was cramping so we took some time to stretch before resuming our run. On the return trip, I began to doubt we were going "only" two miles. The moonlit road seemed to stretch out before my eyes, doubling the distance between me and the sweet, sweet pond back at the cabin. My lungs began to burn, and I was acutely aware that I was running at 1,726 feet above sea level higher than I run at home. Trent calmly provided encouragement and advice as I wheezed like a locomotive with a siezed piston. "Use those long legs to lengthen your stride. It'll save you energy." "Inhale for two steps, exhale for two steps. Short breaths not only rob you of oxygen, but they rob you of energy." "You've got good form with your arms as you run. I had a friend that ran with his arms clenched at the chest. Very inefficient."

We ran back down the lane to the cabin, and it had taken us 15 minutes to make the return trip. My initial oxygen-deprived plan of action was to jump into the pond immediately and drink a few quarts of pond water. Trent cautioned that I should probably stretch and walk for a little bit, just so I don't cramp up and drown. He also mentioned that I should probably drink some water before going into the pond, lest I get tempted to drink questionable pond water. I thought nothing of Trent's mind-reading prowess at the time, but marveled at it later when I had regained my sanity.  I took his advice, meanwhile hoping that we had run more than two miles. Otherwise, I was seriously out of shape. "I miscalculated that distance. It was probably a mile and a half to the church, so we just ran 3 miles." Trent mused. THREE MILES! AN IMPROMPTU 5k?! A warm feeling of accomplishment accompanied the warm feeling of my leg muscles tightening up like banjo strings. After an extended period of flopping around like a wounded groundhog stretching, I took a relaxing dip in the pond. A mist was rising off the surface and the water felt refreshingly cool, but not icy cold like I had expected.

On Friday morning, my uncle Corby showed up with his four-wheeler and told us we could drive it around and explore if we'd like.

 "Careful," Grandpa cautioned "That thing can get up to 75 mph!" I wasn't about to let that claim go unverified, so I whipped the four-wheeler up to a face-blistering 70 mph before I ran out of straight road. I traced the route Trent and I had run the prior evening and used the odometer on the four-wheeler to see just how far we had run. Four miles. FOUR STANKIN' MILES. And we ran it in 26 minutes, or 6.5 minutes a mile. The only thing that prevented me from being completely tickled about the discovery was the dull ache in my legs. The trip by ATV was considerably shorter (it took me roughly 4 minutes) and far more pleasant, despite having various bugs assault my face at high speeds. I have determined that the Good Lord provided trusty four-wheelers to save us from unnecessary leg pains.

We spent the afternoon helping set up the outdoor reception for my cousin Melanie's wedding. Grandma Ruth bustled around helping with chairs and decorations and then jumped on a swing set. Seriously, I hope to grow up just like her someday. :) 

The wedding on Friday was splendid. The ceremony was elegant and simple, (which seems to be the wedding theme this decade) but it was also unique and charming. The pastor told a story about a man who bought his bride for eight cows to make her feel special. I found the tale to be extra pertinent because Nathan, the groom, works on a family dairy farm. His family had butchered a cow for the reception meal, so I determined that Melanie was bought for one cow, or thereabouts.

At the reception we were fed inordinate amounts of food. A massive meal, followed by chocolate shakes, cake, ice cream, tasty wafer straw things, and cheesecake pops. It was painfully delicious. 

I've been to a few weddings lately and I always remember to take photos of things after the wedding is over. This time, I remembered to snap a photo of the bride and groom. 

Melanie paused from making sure everyone received a cheesecake pop to take a photo. She's the best. 

We threw bird seed as Nathan and Melanie left. There was a considerable pile of seed on the church parking lot once we were finished. My cousin Ryan and I determined to return with firearms the following day to snipe crows. A whole murder of crows, because that's what a group of crows are called. 

Back at the cabin, my cousin Whitney kept ramming into the screen door. So grandma disappeared for a moment and came out with these: 

Grandma couldn't find scotch tape so she grabbed a few band aids to work as helpful warning signs. 

Aunt Jana, Whitney's mom, added to the notes when no one was looking. 

And we all laughed about it for the rest of the weekend. 

[Side note: all of you should buy my Aunt Jana's hilarious book, entitled "One of Those Days". It's a compilation of some of her "Mommy Diaries" articles and they're expertly, humorously written. Those of you who are allergic to comedic wit should probably steer clear of this book.]

On Saturday morning I received a text from Dad informing me that Mom was in the hospital due to carbon monoxide poisoning. She had been power washing out the basement with a gas engine pressure washer and felt extremely sick a few hours later. Dad ran her to the hospital and she quickly improved. We spent a lot of time praying for her and we were grateful when the doctor released her Saturday afternoon. 

Aunt Kris fed us a monstrous brunch on Saturday morning. Moments after finishing the wedding meal, I had declared I would no longer need food for July. But the brunch caused me to completely forget my declaration and I ate waffles and cereal and fruit like I had just stepped off the Mayflower with nothing but sawdust and shoe leather. 

After brunch, Ryan and I grabbed a .22 rifle, a BB gun, ammunition, and raced to the church to slay some birds of prey. We arrived to discover two chubby crows gorging on the piles of bird seed. We whipped into firing range with a whoop and the crows lazily flew into the nearby woods. So we set up a stakeout and waited for them to return. After fifteen minutes waiting on the birds, we left. Perhaps the crows were full. Perhaps they were extremely cautious. Or perhaps it was because Ryan and I were talking and laughing loud enough to alert all woodland creatures in the state of Maryland. We returned to the cabin to blast a few squirrels that had been chewing through the window screens. We searched in vain but found no squirrels. (Later, after we had put our guns away, a squirrel ran up Aunt Jana's leg, just to mock us.) Uncle Corby spied the bloodthirsty glint in our eyes and told us to flush some pigeons out of the barn and shoot them with a shotgun. We flushed them out, but I managed to miss all three pigeons that flew past me. Even though we were unable to procure the heap of vermin carcasses we wanted, we still had an enjoyable jaunt. 

Ryan took Shelby and I down to the Mennonite Historical Archives to photograph some articles for his research in the history of the Mennonites. We learned all sorts of interesting things about our Menno history, including some history of our hometown, Kalona. 

I read articles on church divisions and strife that sounded eerily similar to what our churches are currently going through, except with the issues of the 1850's, like bundling. 

The rest of the cousins and relatives went to visit Swallow Falls while Ryan and Shelby and I dug into historical files and records. Iowa is beautiful but it lacks waterfalls, so I had hoped to go see some while in Maryland. It all worked out nicely though; Ryan, Shelby and I returned to the cabin and I had a relaxing afternoon catching up on some reading. 

Saturday evening we had a wonderful potluck with Grabers and Mausts; both sides of Aunt Kris's family. We gathered in a large open pavilion just down the hill from the cabin. Scarily large quantities of food were consumed amid the joyful din of a hundred conversations. I watched one of Kris' relatives fly his fancy quad-copter around the campground. The quad-copter was equipped with a camera that captured incredible birds'-eye views of the surrounding area. The relative (I dearly wish I could remember his name, because he was very pleasant) had used the quad-copter previously at the wedding reception to get footage of the guests eating outside. While the quad-copter recorded footage from above the campground, several rounds of Spike Ball and sand volleyball were staged. Many of the youth jumped enthusiastically into the games while the rest of us sensible humans laid around the picnic tables like beached whales. I strongly believe in a 4-hour mandatory waiting period between a potluck and vigorous exercise. I nearly broke this very policy by joining a game of Spoons.  Fortunately, I was eliminated before the group decided that snatching a spoon off the table wasn't exerting enough. They decided to hide the spoons in the moonlit yard and run for them once someone had gotten four-of-a-kind. 

After the festivities died down, we packed up our belongings and prepared for the return trip. We all piled into the van at 4am on Sunday morning and arrived back in Iowa Sunday afternoon. We averaged 70mph, thanks to the plethora of Graber feet stepping on the accelerator. 

Adventures like this one are all kinds of fun. A road trip with close relatives to visit more close relatives, a fairly laid-back weekend in a beautiful forest cabin, attending a wedding, and eating far too much food. I've truly been blessed with the family God has placed me in. 

Jamison & Ciara's Wedding

My trip to Oregon started at my cousin Kyle's home, which I blogged about previously. It was more like a pre-trip vacation. Here's some photos that I didn't add to the last post.

Kyle's faithful dog, Willow.

Running around in one of Kyle's bulletproof vests was AWESOME. Come at me, Willow.

Kyle's very own Adventure Chariot.

My trip to Oregon started by driving to the wrong airport. I'm sure this happens to everybody in the whole world just me. I wasn't about to trust my ancient GPS so I planned ahead and printed out directions from Kyle's to the airport. But when given the choice between Eppley Airfield and North Omaha Airport, I logically chose the latter. C'mon, this is what comes to mind when you think "airfield".

But that just shows how wrong preconceived notions are. This is North Omaha Airport:

I plugged in my ancient GPS and it rewarded my distrust by slowly acquiring satellites. This process takes ten minutes on a good day, so I decided to speed up the process by doing some footwork. I walked into the small hangar and met the sole occupant: an octogenarian reclining leisurely in an armchair, watching the Iowa football game on a small television. I liked him immediately.

"Excuse me, sir. You have a beautiful airport here, but it's the wrong one. Where's the main Omaha airport?"

He eyeballed me for a moment. What he saw no doubt confirmed his suspicion about my entire generation; a group of strangely-dressed kids with money to travel but not enough brains to know where they're traveling.

"Eh, ah, well..." He scratched his chin, totally unaware that my flight was an hour away and I was panicking a wee bit. "You just need to head East on the nearest boulevard, then eventually you'll see some signs."

I envisioned driving for 12 hours and seeing signs, alright. 

The ones that say "Welcome to Ohio".

"I can't quite remember the name of the street." The old man said. "But you just turn East and eventually there will be signs for the airport."


His directions proved true and I quickly rushed to the airFIELD. Finding the correct destination was only the first hurdle. I then had to find adequate parking that wouldn't cost me my life savings while the car awaited pickup by Kyle and his wife. I turned into a "Convenient Outdoor Parking Ramp" and texted the location of the car to Kyle. I unloaded my two check-in bags (Thank you, O Benevolent Southwest Airlines!) and immediately recognized my next hurdle: carrying all of my worldly possessions from the outskirts of the airport complex to the terminal. I then began to question why I had so much luggage for a 10-day trip. As a Mennonite, I felt full responsibility to make good on the Two Free Checked Bags policy that Southwest offers. Mom filled a cardboard box with goodies for her daughters in Oregon and I loaded a steamer trunk the approximate size of Rhode Island for myself. With precious few hands to manage the luggage, I wore my coat and backpack despite the temperature soaring past 75 degrees. So by the time I threw my check-in bags at the nice Southwest attendant, I was all sweaty and pretty much a nervous wreck.

Mom's cardboard box was bursting at the seams, partially because she packed so much, and also partially because the slippery cardboard box visited the parking garage cement a few times on the way to the terminal. The Southwest attendant brought me a roll of packing tape and I stitched the box back together. It eventually made its way to Oregon all in one piece.

My flights were uneventful but very pleasant because Southwest is the coolest airline in the entire US. No assigned seats! How cool is that. On my way to Denver, I sat in the front row by an elderly lady and her husband. She had flown countless times, but this flight was her husband's first, so she talked him through each step, and comforted him during each spot of turbulence.

My flight to Portland was shared with a nice young Christian lady that I never caught the name of but wished I had. She was reading "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?" and I was reading "One Second After". The majority of the flight was fairly uneventful but our concentration was interrupted frequently by a small clique of giggly teenaged girls a few rows back. They laughed about everything, including how silly their laughs sounded. The male flight attendant stopped by their aisle roughly 36 times on his own volition. The girls were too short to press the Attendant Button, which made me thankful. They giggled and cooed at the middle-aged flight attendant. Christian Girl and I smiled and postulated on the vast emptiness of their craniums.


Near the very end of the flight, we soared over a large mountain range and hit our very first serious turbulence of the day. I've been given worse spankings than that turbulence, but obviously the Clique had never experienced anything so terrifying in their life. They immediately began wailing that we were most assuredly going to perish. Christian Girl and I laughed. The "bumpy air" subsided and we landed safely.

As we exited the plane and headed toward baggage claim, I meant to ask Christian Girl what her name was. Instead, I caught sight of my sister Shannon and several of her children, so I ended up running over to them instead.

I spent many awesome days with my sisters Shannon and Shelley, who had joint custody of me. I stayed at Shannon's to begin, then Shelley's until Pastor Floyd's family arrived, then I moved back to Shannon's, with occasional stops at Shelley's. I was constantly making the 15-minute trip between the two homes and quickly had half my luggage at either place. I spent a lot of time with my nieces, nephews, Shelby, and even a little time with Jamison. My days were filled primarily with recovering from the shock of how much my nieces and nephews have grown in my 10-month absence. Charlotte and Carita are nearly walking while Jocelyn has a decent grasp of at least two languages, English and Gibberish.

 Benson had his 8th birthday when I was out there.

Annika and Elissa

Carson, reloading his rubber band gun after an intense skirmish.

Jocelyn, getting some office work done.

Charlotte, pondering her life's decisions while using a walker.

Jamison, the dapper groom.

Shield your eyes, Shelby's dessert is strong enough to cause 

cardiac arrests just from one glance.

October 5th, 2013.
Oregon is beautiful. There's a slight breeze pushing the morning fog away and the sun is breaking through the ever-present rainclouds. Today's weather is going to be fantastic.

Jamison organized a breakfast at Pioneer Villa this morning, and around 20 people came. Friends, relatives, and siblings. Because of the healthy dose of Iowans present, there was a decent amount of noise being produced by our group. We ordered breakfast and jokingly tried to talk Jamison out of getting married.

"What would it take to get you to walk away from the wedding?" Pastor Floyd shouted over the not-so-dull roar.

"Not much." Said Jamison.

I was shocked, but realized Jamie had thought we asked "What could stop you from getting married?"

We reworded it and he replied, "Oh, I don't think you'd be able to keep me from getting married. I love Ciara." So we laughed and congratulated him for his big day.

This is the newest Instagram shading option. It's called "Mortuary", for when

 you want your healthy, handsome friend to look sickly and pale.

Stephanie declared that her waffle was inedible. Shelby started munching 

on it because hey, free waffle.

A booth full of Jamie's charming sisters.

Solly told us about that one time when his fantastic girlfriend Christina caught a four-foot shark.

In the back of my mind, I remembered that my sisters were planning a giant brunch. So I didn't order much food. A slice of grilled ham, two eggs, some hash browns, and orange juice. As a side note, the food out here in Oregon is great (and there are way more Gluten-Free options) but the staff is definitely more, uh, East-coast? I can't really put my finger on it, but they're not as friendly as humans are in the Midwest. Except for the girl who works at Subway. She definitely had a Midwest sense of humor.

We had a wonderful time with Jamie, who sat there like this was any other Saturday. Just hours away from his marriage to a beautiful Oregonian, he's extremely calm.

After breakfast we ran back to Shelley's for a monstrous brunch. Floyd Yutzy is assisting in the marriage ceremony, so he and Elaine, Christopher, and Michelle are staying at Shelley's. Konrad and Shannon's family joined, and we had a grand brunch.

Uncle Shelby with Charlotte. 

My sister Shelley and her husband Randy. In the background is Randy's brother, Justin.

My sister Shannon and her husband Konrad

Michelle and Christopher

There was a snafu on the wedding brochures that labeled Solomon as a "Friend of the Groom" instead of his rightful title, "Brother of the Groom." But aside from that tiny detail, the wedding went incredibly well.

 I already said this once, but seriously. DAPPER.

Jamison, his bride Ciara, and her mother Juanita.

 We snatched up Jamie for a pre-wedding prayer meeting in the nursery/Groom Changing Room.

We got the two lovebirds hitched up and proceeded to the reception. The church's gymnasium was completely packed with tables and chairs and guests and food. At the open mic, we got to make fun of Jamison and Ciara and tell heartwarming childhood memories. Several people sang songs, including Jamison's Dad, Darrell. Jamison sang a song to Ciara that he had wrote, and by the end of it, he had captured the hearts of every single girl in the audience. Whole generations of young girls will now expect their fiance's to write them endearing love songs for their weddings.

Ciara threw her bouquet to a mass of energetic bachelorettes, and Jamison tossed a garter a distance of 8 inches, which caught everyone except me off-guard. I full-out tackled the garter. The bachelors standing there empty-handed cried for a re-throw, but Jamie declared that his botched toss was final.

[For those of you counting at home, this marks my third garter. I've also gotten a wedding pickle thrown in lieu of a garter, but I didn't catch that one, technically. Wrestled it from a girl, who wasn't supposed to have it in the first place. It was the bachelor's pickle, after all.]

After the reception, we staged a marriage ceremony for myself and Becca, the poor girl that caught the wedding bouquet. Because that's the logical next step.

Mom, I'm sorry you couldn't make it to my wedding. It happened so fast.

We cleaned up the church and gym before heading home for a few hours of sleep. On Sunday, my good friend Kyle (not to be confused with my cousin Kyle) picked me up and took me to church. My pastor Floyd spoke and it was a fantastic message about what true Church looks like, and it's still rocking my little world. More on that in a future post.

After the service, we headed out to the coast. "We" included Shannon's, Shelley's, Floyd's, Shelby, Myron & Alissa, and myself. We took three vehicles and blasted out to Newport, OR for the afternoon. It was beautiful.

I just now decided that The Coast is going to get a post of its very own. Seriously, I have so many photos to share it would possibly wreck the internet. Those of you whining "Are we THERE yet?" may now relax. We are "there", and "there" is the end of this post.

Congratulations, Jamie and Ciara!

My Roommate Got Married So I Guess He's Moving Out

I wrote this post backwards, partially by mistake. Travel back in time with me as I recount the past weekend.

Sunday, September 15th: Grandpa built a deep fat fryer to end all fryers. He and Grandma put it to good use whipping up the best gluten-free fried chicken I've ever had in my entire life. We started this fantastic tradition last year, so I was very glad to attend this year's gathering.

My brother Shane, eating a gluten-free apple fritter in a seductive manner.

Sweet, crispy fritters, I loved you the moment I laid eyes on you.

This is how one properly eats fried chicken when one is trying diligently to prevent splattering grease on one's clothing. "Why are you so dressed up for a family reunion?!" You may ask, as did my relatives. Well, I was too lazy to change from the previous day's activities, which takes me to

Saturday, September 14th:

Shane Schwartz, my childhood friend, just got hitched to the apple of his eye, Alaynna. I miss him already, but that's pretty silly because it's not like I'll never see him again, right? Married people have loads of free time to hang out. :)

Shane moved most of his stuff in the week prior to the wedding, and as his move progressed, I slowly realized how much of his stuff I was using. Like the coffee table. And the computer desk. So now I have my desktop perched on the dining room table as a temporary bandaid until a suitable computer desk/table can be located.

I'm pretty excited that if Shane and Alaynna decide to return from their honeymoon, they'll be living just a mile or two from me. In the meantime, I get to babysit Nigel and Mitzy. When Shane finally decides to take his dogs, I'll petition for joint custody.

The wedding was simple but very elegant. Shane told me it was going to be "a gypsy wedding" and I had no idea what to expect. I was pretty surprised to find out that a gypsy wedding looks exactly like a stylish wedding with lots of color.

Shane and Alaynna asked me to be their emcee at the reception, which was held outdoors at Rodney & Jodi's. I snapped a few photos in the moments I wasn't blathering on the mic. I got to announce all the exciting events, such as the "Poopity Corn and Nachos" and a "Pickle Toss". Instead of tossing a bouquet to the girls and a garter to the boys, Shane and Alaynna tossed dill pickles. Tanisha Stutzman caught the girls' pickle and then stole the boy's pickle, so I ran over and wrestled it from her in a gentlemanly, totally polite way. I wasn't entirely sure how to preserve my Wedding Pickle so I disposed of it. I considered eating it but it had rolled on the ground due to an unexpected between-the-legs toss from Shane, which is how it got past all us young men and into Tanisha's hands.

On the night Shane met Alaynna, a small group of us were sitting in Kalona on the sidewalk outside the Coffee Shop. The conversation turned to weddings, and we were talking about little details we wanted at our weddings. Alaynna declared that she wanted elephants and zebras at her wedding. Evidently zoo theft is frowned upon, (viewed to be similar to swiping an antique painting!) so I brought some coloring pages instead. Alaynna also mentioned she wanted people to throw radishes instead of rice upon their departure, but I had forgotten about that part until Kerri reminded me. Kerri waited to remind me til AFTER the wedding and before the reception. We considered buying radishes and dicing them (because we're not completely evil) , but there wasn't any time.

So now they're on their honeymoon in [redacted for security] and they'll be back on [insert date here].

Friday, September 13th:

A few days before August began, I challenged my brother Shaylon to read 1,000 pages in 1 month. For a prize, I promised we'd get some delicious grub at Buffalo Wild Wings. In response, Shaylon started burning through books faster than a groundhog in a garden. He read the entire Chronicles of Narnia and, since school started halfway through August, read some books for Literature. He read close to 1,100 pages in 31 days. On Friday, we went out to eat together. Shaylon and I both got loads of wings and shared a basket of French fries. [Insert photo of a sauce-covered pair of Graber boys] I asked him about book reading and the 1,000-page assignment. He said it was tough, but the reward was worth it. We played some trivia games and then afterward I took him to a gun show in Cedar Rapids.

Now you may think I'm completely stark raving mad, but I'd recommend taking your kids/siblings to gun shows. Gun shows are very family-friendly. The police officers, guests, booth owners, staff, EVERYONE is extremely polite. The distributors are charming and helpful and completely alright with letting strangers get their sticky fingers all over the merchandise.

We spent an hour and a half there. Shaylon was completely fascinated with the 37mm flare launcher and the display case full of bayonets. We walked past rows and rows of handguns, shotguns, rifles, spare parts, accessories, scented candles, relics, knives, gun cases, exotic shotgun rounds, clips and magazines, potent bug sprays, war memorabilia, and more. Admission was $7 for adults but Shaylon got in for a dollar. Because I'm a nice older brother, I told him I'd pay his admission to any gun show he attended. Because I'm a Mennonite, I added the clause: until his 13th birthday when he would be considered an adult.

I returned to the weekend gun show on Saturday morning with my manfriends Christian and Brooks. Here Christian examines ammunition prices. His face tells you exactly how exciting those prices were.

In this photo, I'm holding a firearm I have long admired: the Fabrique Nationale PS90. Straight out of science fiction, it fires the rare and delicious 5.7x28mm round. If it weren't for the 5.7x28's outrageously steep price, I'd be saving my pennies for a PS90.


Thursday, September 12th:

My brother Shelby came out for the wedding, and he arrived just in time to join Dad and I for our golf outing. The annual event is hosted by Plumbers Supply, a company we purchase our duct, water heaters, and other various supplies through. I'm pretty horrible at every type of golf that isn't Miniature, but I really enjoy it. My friend Brooks happens to be awesome at golf, so we took him along to bail us out. The weather was beautiful. Much cooler than the previous week, with a hearty breeze and plenty of sunshine. 

Halfway through the course, I finally managed to properly introduce my golf ball to the face of my driver. With the wind blowing against us, my ball cruised out to 200 yards and landed on the fairway. It was the farthest I've ever hit a golf ball WHILE being able to find it. (Who knows, maybe that ball I crushed into the deep woods went 300 yards? With the help of a squirrel?) Brooks hit his golf ball much further, but I didn't let that minor detail dampen my victory dance.

This monstrous tree is right in the fairway of one of the golf holes. 

I love large trees. I quietly pondered on the best way to remove the tree, put it in our minivan undetected, and transplant it in my yard. 

We played "Scramble" golf, which means all four of us would tee off, then proceed to the best-placed shot. We would all hit from that location, and continue in the same fashion. We also played by the "Two-putt rule", which stated that after you landed on the green, you would putt to try sinking it in one shot, but in the event you missed, you just added one more stroke and called it good. There is no better way to play golf than this. We finished the day with a score of -3. Most sports frown upon negative scores, but not golf. The negativier, the better. Our score put us in the 2nd Flight of four flights, but not high enough to garner prizes, so our two-year prize-scoring streak was broken.

At the end, we were fed a giant meal and our names were put into a drawing for door prizes.
"For the $50.00 cash prize..." the staff announced, "Our winner is Shelby Graber!"

We cheered and Shelby sheepishly got up and snatched his winnings. We told Shelby he deserved the $50 because he was the #1 candidate for "Most Responsible Money-Spender" in that room full of beer-chugging plumbers.

"Now for our $75.00 cash prize.."

Roughly 120 of us waited anxiously as they grabbed a name from the basket.

He pulled out a name. Brooks saw it. The name was Shawn Graber.

One staff member whispered to another, "We just had a Graber. Pick another."

They put my name back and picked SOME OTHER DUDE.

I was pretty bummed about it. Next year, I'm changing Shelby's last name to Porkbuns on the admission paperwork. That way, he can win his prize without ruining my chances for sweet cash.

It was a wonderful day though. Taking a Thursday off to golf and eat food was excellent.

As soon as I returned from the golf outing, I turned around and met with some manfriends to take Shane Schwartz out to eat for his bachelor party. We went to Red's Alehouse in North Liberty, where I discovered truly delicious gluten-free flat breads. Despite being stuffed from the meal at the golf tournament, I ate the medium-pizza-sized flat bread, along with a large portion of bacon cheese fries and a couple of Dilly Bars. The suffering I endure for my friend's sake!

Afterward, upon Shane's request, we diligently scoured Netflix for a good kung-fu action movie, but were sorely disappointed when we couldn't find one that we hadn't already seen twice. So by complete chance, we ended up watching possibly the most hilarious, ridiculous, strange, awesome movie ever created: Iron Sky. You'll need a significant lack of maturity to enjoy it, but it tickled our funny bones in ways they haven't been tickled in a long time. Nazi's living on the Moon in a Swastika-shaped colony? Sarah Palin as president, with an Oval office filled with moose and bear taxidermy? A horrifying super-powerful German weapon powered by a smartphone? All that and more.

If I were to travel further back in time, I'd tell you about my youth group's wonderful weekend camp out at Sugar Bottom. But I don't have time right now, so that will just have to wait.