7 days and counting.....

In 7 days we will be leaving this:

and this:

 

to go see this:

and this:

and this:

and watch Al do this:

and this:

but HOPEFULLY will not see any of this:

we will miss this:

In 7 days we will finally be out of this lovely winter wonderland and head south. Al has been looking forward to this for months (I have too, but he's crazy ready to go!). He checks EVERYDAY to see what the weather looks like and to see if anyone is fishing on this webcam: Port A webcam. 

We have the trailer at the house now so that we can get everything packed and will be out of here next Saturday. There is so much to do to get ready, but we can't wait!

Ava Marie

Craig had to go to Des Moines tonight, and Sarah had to work at 7:00, so we got to watch Ava tonight until tomorrow morning.  I will let you know how the overnight goes. It's been way too many years since we have had to get up in the middle of the night with a little one. But her mom says that she will sleep all night. We will see!

We love her to death, and are glad we get to watch her, but we also now remember why you have babies when you are young. You really get used to just doing your own thing every night, especially when the kids are all out of the house, but with a little one visiting that does not happen! As I'm writing this at 10:00, she's finally asleep, but she was a bit grumpy tonight. She had an ear infection this week, and now has a bit of a cough and a snotty nose, so she's not the normal happy baby. You really do forget what all that is like after your kids are grown.  But the best part of the night was that we had to call a friend to figure out how to set the stupid  pack-n-play up! I tried it first, then when I couldn't do it, Al decided that I just didn't know what I was doing. After 10 minutes I could hear him talking in the other room, he had called for help!

She's sitting on her own now, and grabbing everything she can. She grabbed a big handful of Tai's hair (ok, maybe not much hair because he's mostly hairless, but you get the idea) and he wasn't too happy. He doesn't like her much anyway, because she takes my attention from him. He's my baby and maybe just a tad bit spoiled you think? Ava really likes both of the dogs. She just giggles when she sees them.

Grandpa is teaching her early to love VW's and fishing. Hopefully we will still have the same VW that all our kids first learned to drive when she is ready, you think?  Her mom really really liked her experience learning to drive in that lovely yellow bug! (right Sarah?)

I think she liked the fish better than the bugs! (Al's getting ready to go to Texas and she was helping him to identify all the fun fish he's going to catch in a few weeks!)

Another Wedding!

It's finally official! Joe and Lauren are getting married. For the last 6 years Lauren has been part of the family, and we love her whether they are married or not, but now it's going to be official.

We are so happy guys! Love ya.....

Happy Bday Matty!

I know, it's only 2 weeks late. Sorry 'bout that one. Although we would have celebrated closer to his birthday, but he had something else more important to do. Fine! My baby turned 24 a couple weeks ago. That's pretty weird to say. Definitely makes me feel a bit old (along with everything else lately, but whatever).

We went to Jack & Arnie's, a local grill your own steakhouse, then out on the town in CF. It was fun. Nice to get everyone together, which doesn't happen as much as it used to. (Nice smiles guys!)

Al did most of the cooking.

Joe & Morgan were in charge of the bread. They didn't burn too many pieces, so it was all fine.

The birthday boy took care of his niece all night.

Happy birthday Baby!

Hoar Frost

It was so foggy here all week. That's the part of winter in Iowa that I hate. January is so dreary. You don't see the sun forever and spring seem so very far away.  As I headed for Waterloo yesterday morning, I just had to take a drive around the park, though.  It was gorgeous!  Schnack on KWWL said it was "hoar frost".  From Wikipedia: Radiation frost (also called hoar frost or hoarfrost) refers to the white ice crystals, loosely deposited on the ground or exposed objects, that form on cold clear nights when heat losses into the open skies cause objects to become colder than the surrounding air.

Whatever....I just thought it was very pretty. Almost surreal.

This picnic table at the end of one of the jetty's looks very lonely.

 

The campground is patiently waiting for campers to come back. (although I do like this time of year when we have the park all to ourselves and it is so quiet!)

The animals didn't seem to mind the quiet too much. They were just waiting for their breakfast. (Al did you remember to feed today?)

I think this buffalo already found his. He just kept putting his head in the hay and throwing it around with his horns. He was covered with it.

Al is ready as well for something warmer. He has been getting ready for spring and for camping (although if you ask him in the middle of summer, he will say he can't wait for winter until everyone leaves!).  He made this cool tabletop for outside to hold your beer or whatever. And of course, he included the dogs on it!   I'm sure the guy and slogan are copyrighted, but I don't think they are going to care about this copy. I thought it was very cool.

TTFN!

The entertainer.....

I was in Target not too long ago looking at the tons and tons of baby stuff thinking of what to give Ava for Christmas. Not having had kids for a long long time, we are pretty much out of the loop when it comes to what might be fun for them, especially for a 5 month old! Ava likes to be held, she doesn't like to lay on the floor much. But I really think what she wants is to be able to be up so she can look around, not just get held. Mom had said something about a contraption that Mandy had for McCoy that he really liked, so I started looking around for something like that. If you look online for this type of thing at Target they are called "entertainers". I guess it's a good name, it entertains the baby, but who would think to look for that name? Certainly not a new grandmother. They didn't have entertainers when our kids were little, they had walkers (one such walker went down the stairs with Joe in it when he was a baby) or the old bouncers that hung from the doorway or just the old windup flimsy swing (Loved the swings!).

Sarah and Ava have been coming down on some Wednesdays when I work at home to visit, so before she came this last week Al ran up and got one, thinking you just take it out of the box, pop it up and it's done. NOT!  He even had to look at the directions. What man actually looks at directions? Not this one usually.

An hour later however, we (he!) had it set up. And she actually liked it. We had to prop her up, and her feet don't reach the floor, but I think when she gets a bit bigger, we will be glad we have it.

Good job grandpa!

Going to see the Broncos....

Joe has been a Broncos fan since he was little. You really don't want to watch a close game with him, he gets a little crazy. And since we don't live close to Denver, it's nice to be able to drive a few hours and get to see them play. We went down a few years ago and it was absolutely freezing. This year it was much nicer.

Joe and Lauren were all decked out in their gear and ready to go!

Lauren bought the tickets on eBay and got a great deal on them. They were for a VIP box, and this box had a special deal on this game day with free food and drink for the game. It was a private suite that had "better" food than normal for this day evidentially for a special promotion or something.  They had fajitas and brats and all kinds of stuff. We kind of felt a bit weird since we really weren't part of the client group, but we had great seats and we just pretty much stayed on our own. But it was weird when a guy came up and asked to see our tickets. I think they thought we just decided to crash their box or something, but they said we were fine. The guy that sold the tickets evidentially wasn't supposed to sell them.  It wasn't real cold, but it was nice to have the heat, too.  And it beats the heck out of $10 beer!

Casey Wiegmann of the Broncos is from Parkersburg, Iowa, and his parents are friends of a friend of ours, so we went with them to where the players came out. Here's Joe getting to meet Casey.

It was a great day (of course, especially since the Broncos won!), and Joe was happy. The drive home was not great, but I guess that's winter for ya!  It would be really nice if they played the Chiefs in October instead of December!