Fun with Bennie the Bean

 Bennie the Bean in a cornfield

Want to have some fun with your kids this summer?

It's the Year of Soybeans at the Indiana State Fair and to celebrate Indiana soybean farmers are hosting a fun photo contest this summer.

Check out Bennie the Bean on Facebook and download your own "Flat Bennie." Then take him with you to your favorite summer destination, snap a photo with him and upload it on the contest site! The first contest runs until June 27 and then the fun starts! You get your family and friends to vote on your photo to win.

The prize is an iPad and tickets to the fair! There is even a second contest that starts in July!

I took Bennie with me and the nephews when we went to the Indianapolis Zoo recently.

Can you tell by the last photo that someone was a bit grumpy?

To learn more about soybeans, visit the Indiana State Fair's Year of Soybeans page or Indiana Soybean Alliance's website.

Linking up to Pinke Post.

For full disclosure, I work for Indiana soybean farmers and the Year of Soybeans is a project that I'm working to plan so I'm really excited about it and want to share it with everyone I know. That's why I did this post. If you have questions about soybeans and how they are grown in Indiana, let me know and I'll be glad to answer them (or get you an answer from someone who know more than I do).

Wordless Wednesday...Lemurs Love Pumpkins

Lil' Sister and I headed to the Indianapolis Zoo with her little guy and two of our nephews last Saturday. They were excited to see all of the animals, including the elephants.

Since it was the weekend before Halloween, the zoo was decorated with skeletons, spiderwebs and more. Several of the animals had pumpkins to play with, including my favorite of the day, the lemurs.

The little guys really enjoyed watching the lemurs' antics but eventually one of those blow-up decorations caught their attention. Even lemurs inside a pumpkin can't compete with a kitty cat popping out of a Jack-o-lantern!

Linking up to Wordless Wednesday, A Beautiful Mess, and My Life in Jenga.

(Oops...linked to these parties last night but forgot to put up my post. First time that has happened!)

Oh my love of butterflies!

I don't know when my love of butterflies first surfaced. Those graceful, colorful, dancing creatures...oh I love butterflies!

Maybe it was when I was a summer intern at a farm newspaper almost 15 years ago (gawd that sounds like a long time ago). I visited a butterfly farm - yes, a farm that raised butterflies - somewhere in Indiana. Maybe it was in the south, maybe it was up north, for the life of me I can't remember.

I do remember the lush green grass, the quiet woods and ALL of the butterflies. Small, large, orange, yellow, white and black - there were dozens of different types.

Oh the photos I took that day. I must have taken hundreds, I just couldn't stop. I wish I could share them but I shot them on film! Remember that?

Loading the camera with a roll of film; not knowing what kind of shots you got until - gasp - the film was developed; envelopes with prints and negatives. What a different world that was.

So all I have left from that transforming experience is a copy of the paper and an envelope of negatives somewhere in my closet.

Now I am a collector of butterflies. They are on my walls, shelves, clothes and even on my purses! I tell myself that I won't buy one more thing with a butterfly on it but then a picture catches my eye or a cute notebook calls my name and I can't resist!

These hang in my spare bedroom:

To try and ease my urge to gather more butterflies around me, I try and visit the Butterfly Exhibit at White River Gardens at the Indianapolis Zoo when it comes to town in the spring. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it.

After a long winter of constant meetings and a lot of travel, I had a day off of work so my sister and I took my nephew Tyler (who's so darn cute) to the Zoo on Good Friday and had a wonderful time. I plan on going back again this summer and then again next year and...well you get the picture!

Oh I love butterflies! Glad I slowed down and watched the butterflies go by.