Grandma's 90th!

Yep, that's right...Grandma Esther turned 90 earlier this year and now it's Grandma Anetta's turn. The family got together to celebrate at 10 Mile Lake in Minnesota (near Fergus Falls) a couple of weekends ago. On Saturday the whole family wore Twins shirts to have our photo taken, and that evening we all ate dinner at the steak house at the resort. Games were played, lots of food was eaten, and good times were had by all. :)

My aunt Julie, Grandma Anetta, Tenley, and my Cousin Janee got together for a 4 generations photo. And below is a photo of Kris and Marie hanging out in the cabin.

You can find the rest of my photos from the weekend here.

Having a Bad Day?

Nothing a little Captain Picard can't fix. :)

End of Summer Recap

Well it's October, and I'm dreadfully behind on blogging...so even though it's chilly and the leaves are mostly turned, I'm going to blog about stuff that happened in August to catch up a bit and to remind us of warmer times.

In August we finally got our yard fenced in. We were on a waiting list for much of the summer...but it's been so nice to let Molly out without having to tie her up. She loves running all over and greeting the neighbor dogs and kids as they walk by. There was a bit of a fiasco the first day they were installing the fence posts though. They hit a gas line next to our neighbor's house. The lead of the fence crew excitedly told me that they would have to evacuate the neighborhood. So I stood outside with Molly on leash in case we would have to leave in a hurry. We waited for about 40 minutes until the gas company arrived (the police and fire departments were there within 10 minutes) and then were told we could go back in the house. It delayed our fence being installed by a couple of days, but nothing blew up.

More photos of our newly fenced yard (and our neighbor dogs) can be found here.

About a week later, we went to Farm Bureau's annual State Farm Day. Rob and I really enjoy getting the chance to go to the Iowa State Fair for free....but we always make up for our free admission by spending too much money on food. We may have to savor this year's experience as Rob's company was sold off from Farm Bureau to an out of state company, so they may not have State Fair day next year.

Rob thoroughly enjoyed his smoked turkey leg as usual. The rest of our photos from the 2011 Iowa State Fair can be found here.

And to end off the summer recap...a photo of our dog Molly. You can find more of her here.

Fall updates to come...during fall hopefully :).

Fun With Science

Want to know how that works...this next video explains the laws at work.

Des Moines to Sioux Falls

We went up to Sioux Falls this last weekend to visit family and friends. It was a busy weekend of running around, but we had a nice time. We got to eat out at some great local restaurants: Grill 26 and Krav'n. We also ate at The Original Pancake House which is not local, but we don't have any in Iowa, so it was a really good weekend for food :).

On the way there and back home, we drove past the flooding that's occurring along the Missouri River. It really seems like it's been flooding there all summer--since the end of June. The river finally crested about 2 weeks ago, but the water is still very high. Parts of the interstate are still tunneled off with flood barriers and I-29 just North of Omaha is still closed completely. The photo above is from Sioux City, Iowa. The rest of my photos (taken from the car) can be found here.

Independence and all that Jazz....

Sorry about the delay on this one...our internet has been intermittent and it was a miracle I was able to even upload these photos to flickr. Thankfully a tech was out today. He couldn't figure out what was causing our problems so he just replaced everything (new line to the box, new splitters, new modem). The internet seems to be working much better. I hope it stays that way. We had a pretty quiet 4th at home. Rob hasn't been able to take extended vacation yet this summer because of some back up issues at work--so we stayed home for the 4th and had a nice relaxing weekend. On Independence Day we went to see the new Transformers movie (which was better than the 2nd but not as good as the 1st) and went to see the Fireworks display in Urbandale (as Johnston doesn't have one). They moved the display this year to a different park--which was very handy because they posted a detailed map of where people were allowed and where parking was and exactly where the fireworks were going to be shot off from....which made things really easy. We left a bit early to avoid the parking hassle. Rob read a book and we took a break to play a couple of rounds of Fluxx. The fireworks show went a full half hour and was packed with large fireworks which lit up the sky directly over our heads. We were so close that our car was littered with cardboard debris. We'll definitely go back next year if we're in town.

Tree Clean Up

Over the long weekend the weather finally got a bit cooler and we had time to finish cleaning up the part of our tree that fell. Rob tried out our new electric chainsaw. It worked like a charm. It made quick work of the thickest part of the tree. The small branches were the time consuming mess. Now we get to start working on the part of the tree that's still standing. Pictures as we go will be posted here.

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