Ava is Two!

We had Ava’s birthday party the same day as the baptism last weekend.  She received all kinds of fun gifts. I may be biased, but I think one of the best ones was the $7.00 card Al picked out for her to go along with our gift. It was a frog pop-up card that “sang” happy birthday in a frog’s voice. She loved it.

And what little girl can’t do without an AC/DC shirt? Thanks, Aunt Amy!

Although her mom says she’s going to be a cross county runner, she received a volleyball from the Thompson’s. Now Joe & I, Emily & Hailey will have to work to make sure she’s a volleyball player don’t you think?

She also really liked the baby stroller from Aunt Lauren & Uncle Joe.

And the tricycle and REALLY LOUD horn that Uncle Matt gave her

Aunt Jacque gave her a princess tent. After Craig got it put together, it was a hit with the girls…….

and with Joe…..

Joe also decided that the tractor was pretty fun

Ryleigh gave Ava a Bug Sprinkler with arms that sprayed water. Matt helped get it set up and we put both girls in their suits.  For some reason Matt had a hard time getting it set up because the sprinkler kept turning on and off.

And on and off…(sorry, baby). It was hot, you needed cooled off!

When it was finally set up, neither of the girls wanted to go into it. It was a super hot day, but they hadn’t really done the “sprinkler thing” before. Ryleigh REALLY didn’t like it after Matt sprinkled her!

They wanted to go into the water in the pond instead. They will get it figured out eventually I’m sure, but today wasn’t the day. 

It was a nice day for a birthday party.

TTFN

A Beautiful Day for a Baptism

Sarah and Craig had Ava and Trevor’s baptism yesterday.

I loved the idea that they wanted to have it by the lake. It was an especially appropriate place I thought. We’ve lived in the park for almost 20 years now, moving here when Sarah was only 8. It was her backyard growing up.

Sarah and Craig were married here in 2006.

Last year they helped celebrate Joe & Lauren’s wedding here.

And as the Reverend said……what better place to celebrate their baptism surrounded by the beauty of God’s creation? It was a hot & sunny day, but thankfully the clouds showed up just in time to shade us for a little while.

Sarah was given a pretty bead bracelet from her co-workers that Ava was going to wear, but it broke right away.  I remembered some keepsakes of mine that mom had recently given me, and gave Ava a bracelet that was given to me when I was a baby for her to wear.  It even matched her dress. :)

We went back to the house and had a great lunch that Sarah prepared. It was a great day.

We also celebrated Ava’s birthday, but there are too many pics & stories to add here….I will make that another installment for tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Biology 103: Evapotranspiration (or Why It’s So Miserable in Iowa Right Now)

We are in the middle of a crazy heat/humidity wave this week. Right now at 6:30 pm the heat index is 113°. It’s one of those days when you open the door and can’t breathe because of the humidity in the air. You stand outside for 2 minutes and are completely covered with sweat. (Especially those of us who already “sweat like a …..”).

In Iowa we seldom get much over 90° and 100° would be a record on just about any given day so why does it feel so miserable here? You can have 95° in Wyoming and it’s hot, but it’s bearable. You have 95° here and it’s completely unbearable.

The main reason is the Dew Point, which basically is a measure of how saturated the atmosphere is with moisture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew_point) . Here is a map of the forecasted dew points for Tuesday (from www.weather.com). A dew point of 75-80° is considered “oppressive” and dew points over 80° are rare in this area, although it looks like it’s going to be that high tomorrow.

The Dew Point gives the best calculation of the Heat Index. The Heat Index is the “feel like” temperature, or how hot it feels outside (much like wind in the winter gives you a Wind Chill that makes it feel colder than the actual temperature). I found a Heat Index Calculator here: http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/heatindex.shtml, then looked up Wyoming & Iowa to compare since today we had comparable temps.

Wyo: temp 97°, humidity: 21%, dew point: 52°, Heat Index 94°

Iowa: temp 95°, humidity: 60%, dew point: 79°, Heat Index: 113°

How can that be? The temperature in Wyoming is higher, but it’s unbearable in Iowa.

I found an article today that explains it. Basically when you have low humidity and high temps you sweat but it evaporates and cools you down. Your body temp doesn’t raise that much. With high heat & high humidity you sweat and sweat but since the air is also wet, your body can’t evaporate the sweat, and subsequently can’t cool down which can lead to heat stroke or heat exhaustion very quickly.

But why is it more humid here? You expect it to be humid on the Gulf Coast, Florida and the southern East Coast, but why in the Midwest? Simply put: it’s all the corn! The corn (along with all the other plants) release water vapor into the air.  We don’t have the ocean, but we do have PLENTY of corn.

From www.weather.com: “Evapotranspiration is the total amount of water that is transferred from the earth's surface to the atmosphere. It is made up of the evaporation of free water surfaces (lakes, rivers, soil moisture, etc.) plus the transpiration from plants. Evaporation of water from soil with high moisture content (due to passing thunderstorm complexes) and the transpiration of water from tens of thousands of acres of a mature corn crop contribute to an atmosphere that is sopping wet “

If you are interested, here is the full article: http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/evapotranspiration-corn-belt-humidity_2011-07-13

Did you learn anything new?

Biology 102

Geometrid Caterpillar or “geometer, earth-measurer”.

I was out on the deck the other night and saw a cool bug, thought you might enjoy him as well. From my research I THINK he is a Geometrid Stick Caterpillar. He was larger than the normal (around 2” long) inch worms we see around here, and looked just like a stick. He was pretty cool to watch.  I couldn’t find out exactly which one he was, but I think I at least have the right family.

They get their name from their locomotion, or the way they move along like this:

They mostly eat leaves and thankfully do not like tomatoes! (ok….I just made that up, but I HOPE they don’t like them, we have enough trouble with the tomato horn worms. We don’t need anything else eating them)

They turn into a very non-descript moth, which we have plenty of around our house.

In case you are interested in more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometridae

and http://bugguide.net/node/view/43986/bgimage

I got a quick video of him doing his “locomotion”.

4th of July

I’m behind, and I don’t have anything to say……so here are photos of our 4th of July festivities. We didn’t make it to see any actual “fireworks” this year (come to think of it we didn’t last year either). But we did all make it to Joe & Lauren’s for grilling and feeding the mosquitos. :)

It was hot and buggy and humid, but it was nice to just sit and enjoy everyone’s company.

Ava and Ryleigh are new best friends. Although Ryleigh kind of just goes along with it when Ava grabs her hand. It’s very cute. They aren’t quite at the sharing age yet so there are a few issues and a few “mine” and “mine”, but for the most part they get along great.

Matty brought sidewalk chalk as well as pinwheels for the girls which they loved. Joe, however, was a bit worried when Ava started to draw on the side of the freshly painted house. Luckily Lauren didn’t see (although now she knows!).

Matt tried to get them to stop, and he did a pretty good job….just one small mark got on the wall

Of course, since we live in Iowa, we can’t legally have anything more than snakes and sparklers. And since Al is a peace officer, we really can’t have anything but snakes and sparklers. Darn it! The little ones liked them anyway….and the big ones, too. Ava and Ryleigh liked the 'nakes. Goofy girls….we don’t like snakes, don’t you know that?

We had wonderful red, white & blue popsicles that Sarah made. Ava (as well as everyone else) loved them.

Lauren’s mom and dad and sisters were there, including Emily all the way from London. They were practicing holding a brand new baby with Trevor.

And what would the night be without a little 3 on 1 basketball?

It was a good night