Just hanging out

Wow, I just realized I haven't written anything for a few days. I just got caught up on the blogs I read. My goal for this week is to update my blog with the list of blogs I read regularly. The list is growing as I find more cool blogs to look at. I especially like looking for blogs written by fellow Iowans, and enjoy the fresh perspective on life (and the weather/climate) from people who live elsewhere.

On Friday, we were awoken soon after 5 a.m. by our weather radio. The first couple announcements were severe thunderstorm warnings or flood watches. The one that got us out of bed was the tornado warning for the central part of OUR COUNTY...pop up out of bed, is what I did. Big Sis easily awoke and went running toward the steps. I gently told Lil Sis what was up and I picked her up (didn't have time to grab 'blankie') and headed downstairs. We turned on the TV. I realized we were ill prepared to ride out a real storm. The batteries in the flashlight were dead and the portable weather radio was in the car (smart). I ran upstairs to quickly grab fresh batteries. Cool Daddy-O made a made dash to get the favorite 'blankies'. I cleared out the area under the pool table...where were going to head there if things got loud. Fortunately, no tornadoes attacked our nearby vicinity. We returned to bed.

The phone rang early and we learned we would be starting school a bit late due to a power outage. WhooHoo...the girls slept in and then we had a repeat of that breakfast we had last week....the not so healthy Double Chocolate muffins.

After Big Sis got on the bus, I hopped in the "green car" and drove to Iowa City to get an oil change at the dealer. On my way, I listened to 1040 AM/WHO radio and listened to some gas saving driving tips. At that point, I decided to drive no more than 5 mph over the speed limit that day. (Apparently no one else on the road knew that you could save money by driving under 80 mph....except for the truck drivers....they were being smart.)

Some of the highlights of my day alone in Iowa City: buying stuff at the new Menard's (COOL), eating at Culver's (YUM), browsing a bit at the big mall, and fulfilling my list at Target. I also had to go to WalMart to get hair color with my awesome coupon. (I've used 4 buy one get one free coupons in the past 6 weeks and now have 6 boxes on deck.) On my way home, I stopped a bought some 'unmentionables' at the mall in Williamsburg. It was a very fun day!

NEWSFLASH! Lil Sis declared she's going to leave her eyes open around Grandpa now, since it's summer, and all. To celebrate, Grandpa and Grandma stayed for lunch on Saturday. For the first time in 5 months (no I'm not exaggerating), we ate a meal with the grandparents and everyone had their eyes open the entire time! Lil Sis sure can be head strong. I think this ability will serve her well later in life in the career of her choice.

Big Sis caught her first toad last night as she was sitting by the fire in her jammies. I wasn't able to locate the camera in time. "No", I told her, "you can't keep it".