Snakes on a BRIDGE!

Ahhhhhh, nature day! I finally got back out in the swing of it! This time I brought Art’s friend Si and Si’s brother, Anthony and mom, Laurel (who is also my friend). We went to Woodlake Nature Center and spent time in the interpretive building looking at the live salamanders and snakes and the dead otter and birds, then we went outside and looked out on the floating bridge. “A snake!” cried Art. “I saw a REAL snake! I’m not being silly!” A few minutes later we saw THREE (!) snakes wrestling (mating) on a log. Then they slithered onto the bridge. What fun!

Photos from Cait and Zach’s wedding.

Cait, Jessica’s cousin, was married last weekend to Zach. I took some photos that day, including this photo of Jessica and her likewise pregnant sister Emily. Below is a gallery of a bunch of wedding photos.

Best train track and I’m on a horse.

Here’s Jessica email form the other night:

—————
From: “Jessica Parker”
To: “Ben Garvin”

Boys are playing on what I think is my best train track ever! And just
walking around each and pushing their individual mish-mosh trains around.
Both kids have one piece of bullet train, one piece of recycling train and
lots of other hodge podge pieces. Art’s singing the Train Song from music
class while he goes around and around. You are on a horse.

Hey! You really are a stud! You’re on a horse just like the Old Spice guy!
I really got a winner.
————-

And it’s true, I WAS on a horse. Shooting photos for a story on fun things to do with your kids. At one point my horse started galloping (I had tapped it with my heals in hopes of a trot) and I couldn’t stop it cause I was holding two heavy cameras in each hand. Funny and scary.

Here’s the funny ad Jessica was referencing:

PhotoPapa and Lewis.

This is from Cait and Zach’s wedding.

Don’t try this at home.

and another nice photo from the egret’s nest (a pretty drainage ditch near our home).

Lewis and Brian.

Three attempted photos of a grasshopper.

this is REAL.

Jessica at 34 weeks. A month to go!

Can you tell why my brother and I had to wait before continuing our disc golf game?

Ant Farm birth.

When Jessica and I first moved to town we lived in an apartment in Uptown and had this poster on our wall. One night as we both labored over what I could call a new photo column I planned to pitch at the paper, we were given the idea from this poster. I post this now since I just threw the thing away (cleaning house, throwing sh#t away!), and wanted it to be forever archived here on the blog. And while I’m at it, I’ll be having a final Ant Farm book signing at Common Good books in St. Paul on Friday November 12th at 7pm. And upstairs in Nina’s coffee shop they’ll be hanging a bunch of prints from the book. Hope you can come!