A cake. A very tasty cake, that I made, that the family ate in two sittings over as many days. This thing probably weighed about 15 pounds. Matt insisted I post a picture of it. One of these days I'll start a dedicated food blog (me and 200,000 other foodie wannabes.)
The Becker Cornhuskers Society. I think they're planning on unionizing next summer. That never goes well for either side.
Renee, close up, just because she's cute close up. Sometimes. Other times, I wouldn't touch her with a twenty two and a half foot pole. Here, she is happy because we just had dinner at Friendly's, which is a very rare treat indeed. A rare treat for everyone else at the restaurant that evening was when she stood up and announced (very loudly), "I need to
POOP!" 
The Dogshank Redemption. Over the past few months, the dog has been chewing her way through the gate we use to keep her confined to the kitchen when we're not home. She's chewed through one bar at a time. Last week, we came home from church and found she had finally chewed her way out. I don't think she knew quite what to
do with herself once she got out; I think she just went back in under the kitchen table and took a nap. Dogs don't always think these things all the way through.
Elena, close up, just because she's cute close up. She's bravely working her way through her bowl of bean soup. Periodically, I make some kind of beans for dinner, because they are very cheap, very healthy, and really quite tasty. Despite their reputation as the "Musical Fruit", they have never quite caught on here, and the children all still complain when it's bean night at the Becker house. We have yet to lose any one to bean poisoning. There was also some dissatisfaction with the corn muffins I made. I heard, "Hey, there's
corn in these corn muffins!" Yes, indeed. If they had found peas or tomatoes in the corn muffins, I might have granted a little more validity to their complaint.
Here we see the natives in their natural habitat. It's fairly easy to figure out what a typical day-in-the-life is like for them by digging through the artifacts they leave behind. Just as with sedimentary rock, the oldest layers are on the bottom and become more recent as you work up towards the top. Petrified food particles indicate that these people had a diet that included bagels, toast, and cream cheese. The remains of a brewed caffeinated beverage can be found in what was probably the matriarch's drinking vessel. Their work day can be pieced together as well: math lessons first, followed by some scribbling on paper, then English grammar, guitar practice, Lego building, and paper airplanes. Soup spills on top of everything indicate the tribespeople did not need to go far for their mid-day meal.
Occasional catastrophic disturbances disrupt the layers, but can tell a far more interesting story. Note the appearance of a wild beast in this photo- a single leap up on to the work area could lay waste to an entire morning's work. This tribe, while they maintain a main base camp, is still largely nomadic. When resources like pencils or Ritz crackers run dry, individual members may head off in search of replenishments, sometimes never to return. They almost always leave behind trails of books, candy wrappers, and hand held video games, and an experienced tracker can sometimes locate them to re-join with the rest of the tribe.
Here we see a lone tribesman. He set off on his own when he failed to achieve dominance over the others in the group. In this circumstance, his chances for survival may be better than if he had stayed with the group; however, it is uncertain as to whether the group will ever accept him again.
