Finally!

I know that those of you dutifully checking our blog have been confronted by the lead article "Butt Chamber" for far longer than you would wish. This article has been disconcerting to those amongst us with gentler constitutions. Thank you for persisting and for the suffering that you endured when you had to revisit this article each day. And to the others who gave up, I say, "Come back! Come back!"

We have been here in Lamar over three months now. We still don't have any pictures hung on the wall, but we are feeling completely in the swing of things. I have a few photos I've been wanting to post to show you around the town just a bit more, but then we will close the "We're New Here" chapter in our lives.

Yesterday, Jacob marched with the middle school band in an evening parade that was the prelude to the lighting of the lights downtown. (That's the third parade our town has hosted since we moved here! Are we partiers?) The lights on our town square are really quite festive.

Here's a couple of pics from the square taken in warm weather. First, the courthouse:

And this is what Sophie calls the "pink post office:"


I have mailed letters from that post office! Now, in case you didn't already know, our town is quite famous:


Most notably, it's the birthplace of President Harry S. Truman. Here's the home where he was born:


This is Nicole. She'll give you a tour of President Truman's birthplace if you're of the mind:


For some of our family and friends, you will appreciate Lamar less for its historical significance and more for this, the very hippest joint in town:

This is the Java Mule. It's located just off the square. Check out www. javamule.com. It really brews the finest espresso around, or so I'm told, all while celebrating the heritage of the Missouri mule. The smoothies are terrific and we'll be giving the hot chocolate a try soon. Uncle Rick, this is your kinda place!