Storm Damage

Shortly after we moved into our house last summer, we had lots of rain and some strong storms. One of those storms played musical chairs with the trash cans and split off a large section of our willow tree. A few weeks later, another storm took another big branch. We thought the tree was doomed and we started doing research on the cost of tree removal and went back and forth about buying a chain saw etc.... Well the tree seemed to be doing ok; it survived the rest of the summer and came back all green in the spring. We thought we would just need to trim some branches to balance it out and call it good. Cue Sunday night and a storm with strong winds. Our trash cans got blown over again (but not rearranged throughout the neighborhood this time), and our tree lost another big chunk. There is just one lonely little section left. So, we bought a chain saw. Pictures of that will come later (the forecast for the next two days is 95 with heat indexes around 105...so the the chopping up part is on hold).

So, take a moment of silence for our tree. We hardly had a chance to get to know you whole. Rest in Pieces.

Camping!

For Rob's 29th (for reals, not his second or third...his FIRST 29th birthday) we went camping out at Saylorville Lake with Kris and Marie. The weather was about as good as it gets...it rained lightly a little the first evening we were there, but it stopped in time to light a fire, and it stayed dry and in the 70s the rest of the weekend.

The weekend passed by quickly. We walked to the Saylorville Marina, visited the dam, grilled lots, and played a couple card games. The photo below is of Molly trying to find a cool spot after our walk on Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful weekend, but the sun was warm--so warm that all of us got a bit burnt. I missed putting sun screen on my neck all together. :( You can find the rest of my photos of our weekend here.

The Bridges of Madison County

My mother and sister came down for a visit last week, so we decided to go check out the covered bridges in Madison County Iowa (yep, the ones from the book and movie). It's about a 25 minute drive to Winterset, IA where we posed at the birthplace of John Wayne and explored their neat city park. After lunch at a local diner, we went to the rest of the covered bridges. It was a beautiful day and a fun little day trip.

I posted pictures which you can find here:
Bridges of Madison County Set