Category: Us

Next Outing…

Hello!

For Jack’s next adventure, we did not have to head very far…just to the backyard! It was a rare summer night: cool and NOT raining, so Jason and Jack decided top to put up the tent and camp under the stars (with the supervision of Charlie.)

It’s a good thing that they practiced putting on the rain cover. Jack woke up in the night thinking, “Is that rain on my face?”

At dusk everyone headed out to set up for the evening/night.
Can you spot Jack loving up Charlie?

A friend lent us her cots which worked extremely well for the night!
Nice and comfy!! (Thanks J!)

Jason brought out the TV so they could watch a movie under the stars. It worked out nicely…Charlie even enjoyed the movie before heading to bed.

Charlie and I headed to bed (inside) shortly after the movie started. I thought for sure I would hear the boys come inside during the night, but no one showed up inside until 8:30 the next morning!

Jack loved it and said he slept soooo well! He also learned that you don’t need to go somewhere to have an adventure!

Next week…Jack and I searched high and low during this outing!

An Outing!

Hello!

This summer Jack and I have decided to do an “outing” to a local/Iowa destination that we have not been to before or have not been to for a long time. Can you guess where we went last week?

Does this help?

Well, this will give it away!

If you still haven’t guessed, Jack and I headed to the Botanical Gardens in DesMoines! Jack was in charge of picking the place, the tour (using the map) and taking some pictures!

When we first started our tour, we were taken by the SIZE of the plants and leaves. They were crazy HUGE!!

While walking around, Jack and I felt like miniature people walking through a jungle. It was amazing!! Even this shovel was larger than us!

We headed to the outside gardens to check out these trees. Jack took this picture…love the view he decided to take of it!

This is the same tree!

What? We were actually looking at the Bonsai trees! Jack loved how the trees looked like full grown trees, just miniature versions. There was one that was over a 100 years old!

We continued our outside walk, finding a wonderful waterfall. It was so nice and cool underneath it and very loud!! We sat there for some time.

There was an area for home ideas and we decided that this little nook would be awesome to have in our yard.

After the Botanical Center, we walked down to the Robert Ray Asian Gardens. Jack was amazed by the building and statues around this fun little area.

Jack found his “sign”, the rooster, at the zodiac walk.

I am always amazed to find a rock that is heart shaped. Start looking…they are everywhere! Yes, I know this one was probably “made” this way.

Since we were downtown, a trip to the t-shirt shop Raygun and Mars Cafe for Thelma’s ice cream, was on the menu!

Our first fun outing for the summer was a success! We don’t put a “time-limit” on our trips..some have been an hour, some have been all night (hmmmm…) Stop back next week to see what Jack planned as his next adventure!

PS…Sam is always invited, but this is the summer of football, working and of course, friends!! 🙂

USATF Weekend…

Hello!

This weekend was spent at the USATF Championships at Drake Stadium. Lots of fun and some really good races!

One of the best parts were our seats…front row (always good to know a person who is connected to an event.) We also taped it on TV, so when we got home, we would look for ourselves (so humble!)

Friday night, Sam, Jack and Jason got some good TV time! After the men’s 100, Noah Lyles who won, ran past my boys!

Skipping to Sunday, Jack and Jason headed down to the track and once again, I spotted them on TV later that evening!

Now….back to Saturday! Jason, Jack and I all headed to the blue oval! Shelby Houlihan (who ran for Sioux City) won the 1500 and Lewis Johnson interviewed her RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!  Look at that camera…straight at us! Sam and I knew we were about to get some serious screen time!

Once we got home, I quickly found our TV time…


Where am I in the above picture? I was sitting between Jason and Sam! You can barely see my t-shirt in the second picture!

I suddenly knew how Mike Wazowski felt in Monsters Inc. (click on picture to watch the short video)

That’s ok…I did get a picture with her when we were in Oregon!

But once again…I can’t make these things up!

Ingenious?!

Hello!

While going through Jack’s school items, I came across this page in his Science journal and asked Jack about it.

Me: Were you to draw a picture here?
Jack: Ugh! Yes!! We had to draw a picture at the beginning of every unit. I was tired of drawing pictures, so I just put “insert image here”
Me: Hmmmm. Was the ok?
Jack: She never said anything.

Looks like a good idea, but we obviously need to work on how to spell the word “insert.”

Between you and me, if I had a student do this, I would give them an automatic “A” for being creative.  🙂

Black Eye…

Welcome Back!

Two weeks ago, I was bent over pulling weeds out of my garden bed. Charlie was outside with me and running around. She loves to do what we call “Hot Laps.” That is where she runs as fast as she can around the garden bed.

Well, she ran around the garden once and ran behind meas usual. She then came around a second time and decided to jump over me or over the garden or over to Jason who was standing near me. Unfortunately, when she jumped, she ran right into the side of my face with the top of her head. It. dropped. me. to. the. ground.

Soon, my black eye and cheek started to appear that evening…

The next evening.

This is what I looked like when I went out in public…with make up and concealer!

This is after one week.
I finally went to the doctor because I still couldn’t open my mouth very far. X-rays showed everything was fine, just a lot of swelling in the jaw area, which hampered the opening and closing of my mouth.  The doctor also said above my ear was one big bruise, which was covered by my hair.

The black eye is strange, because she hit me on the cheek (where it is bruised) to right above my ear. Not near my eye.

Starting to heal with the nice yellow and green bruise!

Now everything is healed except for the dark purple under my eye, which is not even noticeable anymore with thick concealer.

Did people ask about my eye. Oh yes! Jason wondered when I went to the doctor if a social worker would be called into the visit. A friend came over and when I answered the door she said, “Oh my word. Do you need to get the kids and I can take you to a shelter?”

Me: “No. But why would you take me to a shelter? You have a huge house! couldn’t I stay with you?”

Lesson: Stop pulling weeds out of the garden.

What A Find!!

Hello, Hello!!

Yesterday Jack wanted to use the OLD camcorder to make a movie. While playing around, he found an old SD card inside of it. I put it into the computer and found pictures that were taken of Sam after he was born!! I KNEW I wasn’t crazy thinking there should be some more pictures. So here’s a long post of pictures of Sammy meeting his family! The pictures are all fuzzy and not the best quality.

Sam with my mom.

Me meeting Sam for the first time. I’m a little puffy. Check out the infamous pony tail at the top of my head that my mom put in while I was in labor.

Just a little bed head going on…remember, this is taken after 18 hours of labor, emergency c-section and recovery room.

Cousin Logan!!

Cousin Meredith and Uncle Pat

Aunt Steph

My Dad

My sister who was soon named “Aunt”

Grandma Sharon

Holding Aunt’s hand…pull up his tee please!!

Why is he at the end of the bed and not being held??

My BFF Sonja!

My dear friend and teaching partner, Joni and her daughter Katy. Katy kept saying, “I can’t believe he isn’t even a day old yet!”

Jason’ good friend, Eric or as the boys call him Uncle E.

Great Friends Brad and Meredith with their first born, Ryan.

Baby Sam on his first day home…check out his red hair!

There were many more people that visited us in the hospital, but I think I may have told Jason to stop with the pictures. I do remember on this day that I would talk, then sleep, then talk , then sleep…I was still on Morphine after surgery.  Honestly, I don’t remember any of the people visiting except my family,Uncle  Pat, Joni and Katy…that was some good morphine!

I’m so excited to find these photos. Hopefully there will be something I can do to get them more in focused!

OH…Why isn’t Jason in the pictures…he was taking them all! 🙂

 

Hello Again!

Why Hello, Again!

I am sure you are tired of Charlie’s frowny face…so aren’t you glad that I finally decided to post once again! 🙂 I think she had started to frown on my lack of blogging!

Today I want to introduce you to the new South Side Hy-Vee employee!

Sam is now giving a friendly smile in every aisle! He is super excited and happy he now has a job so he can “cop some goat sneakers!”

(Translation: He’s excited to earn money so he can buy some cool sneakers.)

Congratulations, Sam!

Nice.

Hello!

We woke up on Monday  morning, after getting home late on Sunday night, to our mailbox being smashed. Fortunately, ours is the one that is still standing…somewhat.

Our neighbors were damaged and needed to be repaired immediately. We assumed someone hit them with their car. But, there were no skid marks or evidence that a car hit the boxes.

Then, as we were outside that morning, a gal drove down the lane and had HER mailbox in her car! She said her mailbox and her neighbor’s mailbox were both “hit” the night before.

So, obviously it was someone doing this on purpose. So frustrating and for absolutely no  reason.  People ask, “Didn’t you do stupid things when you were young?” Um..absolutely!! But I never damaged anyone’s property.

Hello!

Welcome Back!

What a whirlwind weekend. On Thursday, we flew to Oregon to attend the Prefontaine Classic Track Meet (amazing!) on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Then back home on Sunday.

Monday, we started moving the boys back into their rooms because the remodeling is now complete! (yippie!)

Jason and Sam put up the beds…

…with a little help from Charlie, of course!! Yep, she crawled right under there with them to see what was up! She doesn’t want to miss a thing!!