Who's Who in the Smilebox

Summerfest in Ankeny was invented to celebrate my birthday....ain't the city fathers 

just great? The four day week end celebration has all of the usual events, parades,

carnival, beer tent, queen contest, karaoke, and a big fireworks finale. Our high school

alumni association has their annual reunion during the week end. We have a golf 

outing, banquet, individual class reunions, brunch. The class of 68 celebrated #40 with

their party at this  golf course and car museum. The owner is a classmate and is on the

Forbes List. A very generous man that invited us to his company's headquarters.

We saw all  of Chevrolet's finest: Corvettes, Camaros, to the first and only big green party bus, 1932 I think. All convertibles and all beautiful. Some of my fireworks photos 

were really funny, you NEVER know what

you will get on film when shooting this event. Finally today I went to the official send off

for our two local OLYMPIANS. Shawn Johnson with her great smile will bring home up to

five gold medals in gymnastics. At 16 years of age, what an athlete. LOLO Jones is 26 and

ran a world record last week to qualify for Bejing in the 60 meter hurdles. LOLO donated

her winners check to Iowa flood relief. Her sponsors matched her donation and that 

$12,000 check went to a single mother to help her back on her feet after losing her  home

in the June floods. Shawn gave the same amount to Coach Chow, her gymnastics coach. His

facility was flooded also and Shawn had to spend time training in Ames prior to the

qualifying event. What a great week, we shot a 66 in the alumni golf event, no prizes! The

best part is visiting with long time friends that I don't get to see very often, local folks as

well as out of state friends. Time to relax....last night I had a steak on the grill and a 

martini, first one in a week.......sweet.....enjoy the slide show I put together from a newly

found web site, Smile Box. Free for two weeks. All photos from my "on a LARK photography

company.....