Another Dam Update

On Saturday, we worked outside in the garden, pulling weeds, etc. The garden is not something worthy of pictures. Let's just say we mowed about 2/3 of it because the weeds were the only thing that grew. We did manage to uncover 4 tomato plants, 4 pepper plants, 3 broccoli plants and 3 small rows of zinnias and marigolds. The girls attempted to swim and play on the slip n' slide, but they were soon freezing.

After all that hard work, we drove through McDonald's and traveled to Lake Red Rock. The girls insisted on checking out the flood status over there. There is still a lot of water. The walkway to look closely at the spillway was closed. The pavement was buckled and there was a lot of debris along the way. We were able to stand near the rocks where there were lots of splashing waves.

We stood near this man for awhile. I think he was having a GOOD day! He gave 15 to 20 fish to a family who was fishing near him while we were there. He told them he had 150 fish in his truck and had given away over 100 fish so far that day. As we watched from a distance, he continued catching more fish.
This guy walked up to him and they were talking for awhile. And sharing fish.
It was very windy today and mostly cloudy. The clouds moved on in time for the beginnings of a beautiful sunset. It was even more beautiful on our way home, but I didn't get any pictures (our camera batteries died before that).
The girls LOVED getting splashed! Big Sis DID NOT want to go home. It wasn't pretty. Lil Sis happily skipped to the car, while Cool Daddy-O carried a kicking and screaming Big Sis. Big Sis doesn't act this way very often. She's begging to go back tomorrow. We just might do that.

Our Cherry Tree

The girls have been helping pick cherries this week. In the 11 years we've lived here, we've only kept the cherries one year. We let our neighbor pick them ....we usually end up with some pie out of the deal. That's enough for us.

Big Sis helped yesterday for the third time this year. She really enjoyed climbing the ladder. And talking. Our neighbor said she was quite entertaining.

Little Sis spent her time outside whining about why she couldn't climb the ladder and other little stuff. She decided to come inside and resume playing with Legos.

We went out for pizza last night. Mmmm! We've finally found a pizza place we LOVE! Have I mentioned we've lived here a long time?

Pay It Forward Friday!

An Iowa Mom is hosting Pay It Forward Friday. It's where I link to one of my favorite blogs, and so on. Go, check out the link and learn more :)


Title Of Blog I Would Like To Feature Is: A Lazy Organizer

URL To That Blog: http://laragallagher.com/blog

I Like This Blog Because: She gives great organizing tips, yet she's human and is sometimes disorganized. She's funny and has great ideas. She also has a newborn.

Here Is A Post I Enjoyed: Oh, they're all good...just check out her side bar entitled "paper trail" to check out past posts.

FOR MORE PAY IT FORWARD FRIDAY'S, VISIT AN IOWA MOM.

Go check out the Lazy Organizer. Then go read An Iowa Mom and create your own link to your post on your blog.

This is my first week doing this....I plan to make it a habit. Join me, if you will.

Some people wonder why there's a bucket in my trunk...

I only have one interesting tale from the past couple days. Today, after story time at the library, we went to Wal-Mart and our favorite grocery store. As we opened the trunk to get out our re-usable grocery bags, I remembered that the car was sitting outside in the rain today. I grabbed the bucket that resides in the trunk, and held it under the left tail light to collect the rain water that would otherwise drip in the trunk. The girls were laughing about the car peeing.

A retired gentleman walked up to his truck parked near by and appeared curious about our activities. I told him we had a problem and the repair would cost $300, so we just decided to carry the bucket with us. He agreed that the bucket was a much more economical solution. He then added that it's a good conversation starter. He laughed and said he could tell others, "Hey, I saw a lady milking her car today!" So, yeah, I'm the lady that milks my car.

Don't Look Now, but I Think We're Being Followed

We had a very interesting day. Cool Daddy-O and I participated in a geocaching event with several other participants. We arrived at our favorite coffee house and listened to the rules of the day. The first part of the event was not unlike The Amazing Race. We were given a piece of paper with the name of a local business with a question to ask when we arrived.

Before we started our journey, I ordered a cup of java to go. As I was waiting, the organizer of the event came up to me (Cool Daddy-O was sitting outside waiting on me) and asked if I minded being on TV. He then asked if our local TV station reporter could accompany us on our adventure. Before I knew it, I was wearing a microphone and telling Cool Daddy-O what was happening.

Our first clue took us to the library where we posed the question, "Where are your bookworms?". We had to sign in that we were there and then we received our next clue. Each of the ten clues we collected contained parts of the coordinates that were needed to find the hidden caches at one of the county recreation areas.

At the carpet store, we asked where the shag was. At a jewelry store, we asked for a green jewel. At a grocery store, we asked if they had sardine ice cream (it was on back order). At a local cosmetic store, we asked if they painted frogs. We looked for elbow grease at the hardware store. We learned that the local shoe store doesn't carry size 24 ballet slippers.

Yes, all of this was videotaped. In a small to medium sized Iowa town on a Saturday morning. The customers in each of these businesses gave us very odd stares when we walked in with a camera man in tow. They were also quick to get out of the way so they wouldn't be filmed.

We didn't even try to explain what was going on. First of all, so few people know what geocaching is and secondly, not everyone knows about our local TV station. Hopefully, they'll all learn a bit more after the show airs later this summer. For those of you who are curious about this, just leave a comment and I'll let you know when the show will be on. It may also be available to watch on the station's website.

Once we had our coordinates collected, we fought a tremendous number of bugs to find the five hidden caches along the hiking trails. I only fell once...I was tripped by some weeds that "grabbed both my feet" and I went down on all fours. I thought I was unscathed as my hands and knees were fine. When I arrived home, I discovered that the 2 spots on my legs that felt hard and swollen (I though they were bug bites) were actually giant bruises. Apparently, I was attacked by some branches during my fall. I've always bruised very easily...so it looks a lot worse than it feels.

We also met some new people and got to see what some of central Iowa's geocaching celebrities look like. There are some people who view this hobby as an addiction of sorts and some are quite competitive. So far, we're just in the hobby for the fun and exercise. I think we're going to continue to meet some pretty cool people too.

This weekend we attained our 50th find (although we haven't figured out how to log the most recent 5). For more information on geocaching, you can check out the link under "fun stuff" on the right side of the blog.

There's a First Time for Everything

Tomorrow Cool Daddy-O and I are participating in a Geocaching event. We're leaving the girls behind with a sitter. The girls don't know what we're doing. So, I decided to take them on their own geocaching adventure this afternoon. There were four new caches hidden in town that had not yet been logged. We found all four and we were the first to find each of them! Whoo Hoo! Sometimes, there are prizes for the first person to find a cache. We found $1 in the first one and $3 in the last one. The last one was hidden on the side of one of our favorite buildings in town. The place we affectionately call "the ice cream store".

Here they are after they finished their cones. Notice they are wearing huge t-shirts. These shirts were gifts we received from a friend during VEISHEA. Initially, we decided to use them as paint shirts. We recently discovered they make excellent ice cream shirts too. Chocolate is the favorite flavor of our little ones and I just got tired of chocolate ice cream stains on their shirts. They think they're pretty cool to wear, and I don't stress out about their clean clothes. Cool Daddy-O loves his new shirts too! They all have cute little slogans on them about not getting drunk and causing riots during ISU's VEISHEA celebration. It's actually pretty amazing that Cool Daddy-O wears something with ISU on it. He is a Hawkeye, you know.

Today was the last day of Bible School. The girls had a blast and enjoyed singing along with the music CD as we were driving between cache sites this afternoon. They also LOVED playing on the monkey bars at the church's playground.

Next week, we're going to be lazy and sleep in. We're going to wear jammies until 10 or 11 every day. Then we're going to hang out at the library and learn about bugs.

I'll try and post more geocaching tales tomorrow after our fun date / outing!

Why Is the Playground Flooded?

Here is a photo of the spillway at Red Rock.

We traveled to Lake Red rock again on Monday. I wanted to show the girls the changes since last Wednesday when we played on a playground near the spill way. We were able to drive over the dam and look down as we drove across. Sure enough, all we could see of the playground was the very top of the swing set, and the little roof tops of the climbing parts. Little Sis kept asking "why?". We spent some time at the visitor center and talked about the animals escaping the flood waters.

Big Squirt checking out the lake

The girls are attending Vacation Bible School again this week. This morning as we were driving to the church, we talked about what we're thankful for. Little Sis is thankful for mommy, daddy, cats and stuffed dogs. Big Sis is thankful for family, our car, friends, animals, etc. Her list went on and on. I'm thankful for blue skies, good health, two wonderful little girls and an awesome husband. I'm thankful for cats, too. :)

Thoughts on the Floods of '08

A beautiful sunset reflecting in the flood waters

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I don't know where to begin. So much has happened since my last post. My brother was rescued while evacuating his mother-in-law in Cedar Rapids on Thursday. We went out during a severe thunderstorm warning to drive 12 miles to get Cool Daddy-O his birthday pizza for supper, and we didn't even use the windshield wipers (didn't get wet either). That was weird. Played a community band concert inside. Some of the songs we played were Blue Skies, Rainbow Connection, The Thunderer....the theme seemed appropriate for the night. As we were playing, the skies were clearing from a very stormy day. I found myself feeling very thankful that our town was dry.

On Friday, we met an author / illustrator of a children's book, saw a magic show, watched artists demonstrating their techniques, ate ice cream for supper, ate lasagna for dessert, drove to a nearby town to see the river escaping its banks, and entertained an out of state visitor.

Today, we had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, walked around an outdoor art show, sat in an art class with Big Sis, and went to a birthday party for Lil Sis's friend.

Tonight, Cool Daddy-O and I went on a date. We took lots of pictures of the nearby river's escape. We saw a very cool, outdoor, historical, theatrical performance. We ended the evening with dessert at our favorite coffee house and read The Des Moines Register's account of the flooding as we ate.

Usually, by this time of year, Iowa is a giant cornfield with an interstate going through it (or so it sometimes seems). Now, it seems to be an ocean filled with rooftops and trees with an occasional island of rolling hills and high plateaus. I'll close with several pictures I took today.

Cool Daddy-O works here. See that evergreen in the middle of the water? He estimates it is 15 ft tall and there really shouldn't be any water in this picture.

New bridge across the river where Cool Daddy-O works. The river is usually about half this wide. Sounds like this bridge could be closed if the water level rises another 4 feet.

We were treated with a horse drawn trolley ride at the end of the outdoor performance. The narrator told "horse tales" during the ride.

Thanks for sandbagging efforts, we have clean water in our town!

Rising Rivers Road Trip

Couldn't help myself today...had to go on another road trip. My main mission was to see the area where the girl scouts are going to have a ceremony this weekend. Couldn't get there, but we could see the beautiful new water slide playground equipment. The area where they are going to camp out is on high ground, though.

The girls and I then hit the gravel road running parallel to the river, to check things out a bit more. They had a million questions, which I tried to answer, but my patience was wearing thin. We saw evidence of people evacuating and moving all their valuables and vehicles to higher ground.

As we continued on, we drove by these cows. I know the commercials say "Happy Cows come from California". Well, I've never been to California, but I think Iowa cows look pretty happy, too. Big sis was impressed that the cows stopped what they were doing to watch us. Fortunately, there was no one else on the road, as we stopped and took some photos.

We eventually found our way back to the Lake Red Rock area to see what had changed since last night. Most notably, we were unable to drive to the spillway like we did last night. Instead, we parked down stream where we usually watch bald eagles in the winter and walked closer.

As we were walking along the path, we noticed a very tall thistle. Upon closer inspection, we saw a bumblebee enjoying the flowers. Thank goodness for zoom...I wasn't in the mood to get stung trying to get a close-up.

We had the most fun and the best view from the bridge on the hiking trail.

They were releasing considerably more water today than yesterday. Sounds like it going to increase more over the next few days. It's hard to see in this photo, but crews from Musco Lighting were installing lights on the dam. I guess they want to keep tabs on the dam overnight. That would be a cool sight.
The girls enjoyed playing on the playground equipment in the campground area near the spillway. It was a major challenge getting them away from it, but they persevered and managed to get back to the car on their own 4 feet. I surprised them with a stop at Smokey Row in Pella.

Then we made our way home where we met up with Cool Daddy-O to attend a reception for an art show. Big Sis has a picture on a traveling display in our town this summer.

ROAD TRIP...turbulent waters

Parts of Iowa are experiencing significant flooding this week. Since we have nothing close to look at, we took a road trip tonight to check out a dam. A lot of other people had the same idea. There must not have been anything good on TV tonight.

Here is the view as we were leaving the parking lot, walking toward the spillway. Followed by a close-up of the rushing water.
Here is Cool Daddy-O pointing out the height of the flood waters in 1993. Cool Daddy-O is 6 feet tall. Something tells me, we won't be back to this spot for awhile. They're going to greatly increase the outflow of the dam in the next 2 days. Once the water from Des Moines /Saylorville Dam gets to Lake Red Rock, things could change here.
The sign on the right draws attention to the possibility that the sidewalk ahead can be slippery when wet due to algae growth. Children should be closely supervised. Don't worry, Cool Daddy-O is out of view to the left about 2 feet. Also, they didn't cross the line between the black top and concrete until I was walking beside them. We stayed on the dry areas only. Thus, we were safe!

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We hope we can go back in a couple days and see how things will change...that's if we can still get to this spot. If not, perhaps, we can get a view from a higher point.

Little Pizza Chef

Here is lil sis helping make pizza the other night. She has greater interest at helping in the kitchen. For the first time ever, I actually made a double batch of dough and made 2 full size pizzas for our family of four. One cheese pizza, one Canadian bacon plus mushrooms and basil on half. They tasted delicious. So far, we've enjoyed 2 meals, and it looks like there's at least enough for one more family meal and a lunch or two for the girls.

Splashing and Skating

On Saturday, it was hot, so hot, in fact, that we surprised the girls by setting up our little pool on the deck. Last year, we determined we needed a level surface and the only level surface we could find was the end of the driveway. Thanks to our 6 year-old's brilliant idea, we tried it on the deck. Whoo-Hoo! It was awesome! We sprayed the girls with sunscreen (best invention in recent Years) and Cool Daddy-O and I sat in the shade near the house and watched them.

Today, Big Sis was invited to a birthday party at the skating rink. She had never skated before. To prepare her, we watched a couple skating instructional videos on You Tube. I think it actually helped. There were tears, frustration, a painful wrist following a few nasty falls. Then there was snuggling time, followed by time spent getting comfortable staying balanced and taking small steps on the carpet. Soon, she ventured off on her own again. She seemed to gain confidence with each lap. She didn't win any awards for speed...she couldn't keep up with her friends, who were skating at a snail's pace, but that didn't seem to bother her. She would become frustrated, and we'd snuggle again and chat. And before long, she was off on her own to try another lap or two. She even made two attempts at the limbo competition. Her subsequent falls were more controlled and less painful. She wants to go again sometime. In fact, the owner / manager of the rink came up to her and gave her a coupon for free admission the next time she comes. He commended her on her progress today.

We think she'll be able to hula hoop on roller skates before the end of the summer. Well, we were joking about it anyway :)

A Maple Tree...

is under the pillow. Lil Sis pulled a "baby Maple tree" out of the ground this morning. Big Sis found it under Lil Sis's pillow. Perhaps that's just her hiding place for all of her treasures.

We're enjoying a sunny and breezy morning. Snickers and Lil Sis are having fun hanging out by the window enjoying the breeze.

There seem to be baby Maple trees popping up everywhere, especially in our garden. In fact, Maple trees seem to be the ONLY thing growing in our garden. I think we're going to need to replant some stuff.....when it finally dries out.

There's a rock under her pillow...

As I was making Lil Sis's bed this morning (rare event), I noticed a rock under her pillow. The other day I found the same rock under her pillow and placed it on top of her headboard.

Me: Why is their a rock under your pillow?

Lil Sis: It's for hopscotch.

Hmmm....I'm still wondering why it's under her pillow. Do little girls wake up in the middle of the night and go play hopscotch on the sidewalk?

The Beginning of All Things Sisterly

Yesterday was the last day of school. It should have been a good day, right? Lil Sis wasn't impressed. AT. ALL!!! After screaming at the top of her lungs at WalMart, "You Bad Word, I don't like you anymore!" And hitting her sister if she got close to the cart. Yes, Lil Sis was stuck in the cart alone. They started out sharing the cart, but that's when the screaming and hitting began. We had a couple things we needed to buy and then a thing or two from our "want" list, including a ball to kick around (because they've managed to break 2 recently). Needless to say, we did not purchase anything fun. At the end of the trip, Big Sis received a smiley face sticker. Lil Sis did not. She almost always gets one.

Before our haircut, we stopped briefly at home to pick up a few things, including a peanut butter sandwich for each girl...that's another long story (I won't go there now). Then on to our neighbor's house for hair cuts. They did nicely during the last half of the appointment. The first half was rather tumultuous with more screaming and hitting. Mostly Lil Sis beating on Big Sis.

In the evening, after some private discussions, we came to the conclusion that Lil Sis wants Big Sis to keep going to school everyday. Despite loving each other and loving to play together, the thought of having to share mommy time has put Lil Sis over the edge.

To celebrate the end of the school year, I took Big Sis to the library to pick out some chapter books we can read together. One of our choices was "Alice In Wonderland". Believe it or not, I've never read it and I'm getting curious. Fortunately, I have someone I can read it to, so I don't feel so silly checking it out. We finished our outing with a trip to our favorite coffeehouse for a celebratory cookie. Then home for a bath and bed.

Jump with me now, to this morning...

We eventually managed to mix up waffle batter. That was a challenge. The girls got in a bit of a tiff over who got to add each ingredient....I lost my cool and sent them to a different room. Big Sis did manage to successfully break an egg into a bowl, which sent Lil Sis into a tantrum, because she's not yet allowed to do that task.

Big Sis opened her present from her Godfather this morning (instead of a Christmas or Birthday present, she gets a baptism anniversary present from him). She received Magic Tree House books, Magic School Bus books, and a geometric coloring book. We're looking forward to reading some good books.

Since breakfast they've been playing fairly nicely. Then Lil Squirt appeared declaring, "Big Sis hit me right here on purpose." She was pointing at her wrist. My response, "What do you think we should do with her?" She got a huge grin and retorted, "Throw her in the garbage can!" I think she feels all better now. Sometimes you just have to vent frustrations a bit.

I think we're going to have a good summer.....we just have to get through this nasty transitional period and re-establish every one's roles in the house.

All will be well, trust me :)

Note: Lil Sis really was calling Big Sis "BAD WORD". At least she used restraint and didn't say any bad words. Big Sis and I just looked at each other and chuckled that she was yelling "BAD WORD" rather than actually saying one of the bad words she knows.

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".