Something to look forward to….

I haven’t written a blog entry in a while because there really hasn’t  been much going on.

It’s cold (I think it might have gotten up to 1 degree today) and snowy and more cold and snowy. It’s February in Iowa, so I don’t know what else we expect, but it gets pretty old.  No sun, icky roads, freezing temps. I’m so glad that I can work at home and that I don’t have to drive the nasty roads to work.

We went to a hockey game two weeks ago with Al’s sister, and went bowling last Friday with Carol and Bob, Joel & Katie. We didn’t do anything for the super bowl. (to be fair we did have three invites to parties, but they were all either Steelers or Packers fans, so we  just stayed home. We would have either had to choose one, or go to all three and miss the commercials!). All in all it’s been pretty boring lately.

We had a nice blizzard last week with 10” of snow and 40 mph wind. So much wind that we had to wrap the AC, which we have never done before (it’s a company provided house, how nice is it to have central air? We wouldn’t know). Albeit we should have wrapped it from the outside during the fall when it was nice out, but hind sight is always better, right?

But we do have something to look forward to…..

Only 10 days ‘til vacation!

We have been looking forward to this for several months, and it’s sooooo nice to know that it’s so close.

Al spent his Christmas money from mom and Scott on new waders at Bass Pro Shops.

The dogs didn’t like them much, though. (yes, I was watching A River Runs Through It, I love that movie!)

Al has been working on new blocks for the camper. In addition to these, he also has three that look like Plano tackle boxes. These will go with the “Coleman coolers” that we already have for the back of the camper. He can’t just have normal blocks. I think they do look pretty good. It will make people take a second look and wonder if we are using 12-packs for camping blocks!

It’s close enough now that we can look at the 10 day forecast for where we are going. Instead of the average 0-30 degrees here and snow, we can look forward to 70’s. In only 14 days from now we will be looking at this:

http://www.thedunescondos.com/cam.cfm

(I just thought of this after I posted….you have to wait until it’s daylight to look at the webcam, it’s live…come back tomorrow!)

I can’t wait!!!!

Grandpa teaching Ava

We have Ava overnight tonight. (We have to get all the Grandma and Grandpa time we can get before we leave in a few weeks.)

As I was cooking dinner, I came into the living room and saw Ava and Al sitting all nice and quiet in the chair watching TV.

Then I turn around and see what they are watching:

Pale Rider. Clint Eastwood. From 1985. I don’t quite get that he loves watching these stupid old westerns, but now he’s teaching Ava to like them as well?

Ava and Sarah came to visit a few days ago and Grandpa decided to take Ava sledding on the (very small) hill by the side of the house.

They went up and down two times before this:

This picture was taken 2 seconds before she fell on her side into the snow and then she was done. No more sledding, thank you!

25th Birthday

Our baby turned 25 last week, on 1-11-11. I can’t believe that he’s that old already. Time does fly.

We went to Des Moines on Saturday to celebrate with him. He always has to drive the 1 1/2 hours to come back home to celebrate anything, so we thought we would come to him for once.

He wanted to try Jethro’s BBQ for dinner because he had seen it on an episode of “Man vs. Food”.  We had Kim and Janelle and all the kids, Al’s parents Art & Jan, Sarah & Craig, and friends Matt & Erica all with us. The food was pretty good, I had the catfish po’boy and I liked it. They served the beer in pint or quart Mason jars.  It wasn’t a real big place, but it was packed and they treated our big group of 15 well.

We went to a sports bar for a bit after that which was nice, but the football game was on and you couldn’t hear each other talk, then to another small neighborhood bar that Matt’s friend Erin worked at.  We didn’t do much, but we had fun.

My camera was on the wrong setting so none of the pictures turned out but here you go anyway:

Al messing with the camera. There are actually 4 just like this one! I think that’s Janelle trying to help him figure it out. It is actually this side up, he had the camera upside down (I guess I could have turned it around, but that’s no fun).

I have no idea on this one

Matt & Erica (would have been a nice picture if it wasn’t blurry!)

The other Matt & Erica (this picture wasn’t too bad)

Matt’s friend Erin (this one wasn’t bad either)

We did have a great time, even though I don’t have the pictures to prove it.

The next morning we had breakfast and Bloody Marys at an English Pub, again with everyone. It was a nice weekend, and I’m glad we went.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT!

Christmas 2010

We had a great Christmas this year. Ava is finally old enough to run around and be excited about opening presents. She had the prettiest Christmas dress.  Too bad I didn’t get a good picture of it, I’m sure her mom did (hopefully).

It was nice this year to have my mom and step-dad in Iowa to celebrate with us.  Since the kids are older now, we haven’t been able to spend Christmas day with them for several years. It was great to have them here, and I hope they had fun. Even though they did have to do the driving this year, they didn’t have bad roads, which was a blessing. It was a little strange to not be in Wyoming over the Holidays, though we will be out a couple times this year I’m sure to see everyone else.

None of my pictures turned out great, so here are just some of the day:

Even though the “kids” are all older now, I still make sure they have “toys” in their stocking.  This year Matt also got into doing the same thing, giving something fun to play with. I’m not sure who this was to, but it was fun for a little while at least. It’s like the football game that everyone plays in school. The football even looks like it was made out of lined paper.

(Morgan was playing against Joe. Do you think she was a little worried how hard he would hit it?)

Sarah is due to have another baby (BOY!) in April and Joe & Sarah compared bellies. I think Joe wins!

Nice, Al.

I have no idea…..but it was funny!

On Christmas Eve we had a big storm. Waterloo officially had 9.5” but I swear it was more. It made for a picture perfect morning.

But it also made for some very slick roads, as evidenced by the Big Monster being towed to the body shop after it slid off of the roads (in the park, no less) into a tree. Bumper, hood, fender, both doors and front end totaling around $6,700.

That’s a bummer, Al!

Thanksgiving

Since Joe & Lauren and Sarah & Craig had plans for Thanksgiving, we went to Des Moines to spend the day with Matt.  For those of you that know he’s doing the “no shave November”, here is a picture of the status. The beard looks okay, I’m not sure about the cheesy grin, though.

We decided to have dinner (lunch for those of you who don’t call the noon meal dinner!) at The Machine Shed. They usually have decent food, and we thought it would be a good Thanksgiving meal. When we got there it was packed and they said it would be an hour wait, so we headed to the bar area for a Bloody Mary to wait. They mentioned that we wouldn’t get a bill brought to the table, we would take care of it on the way out. We thought that was a little strange, but whatever. When we were taken to our table, we were informed it was a fund raiser for a local equine ranch that helps dis-advantaged kids and it was a free-will donation for the meal.  It was actually very good food, all served and cooked by volunteers.

There was a light display that I wanted to see that didn’t start until dark, so we decided to go to a movie. We saw “Due Date”. It was very funny.

The light display was sponsored by Hy-Vee for the Make a Wish Foundation and was in a park near downtown Des Moines. It went on and on with lots of neat light displays. I’m a sucker for lights at Christmas, so I enjoyed it.

It was an enjoyable day and I’m glad we went.

Saturday afternoon we went to watch the UNI volleyball team win the MVC championship (yeah!!). Ava just loved the music and the mascot. She was up on Al’s lap dancing to the music and clapping. She even got a quick shot on TV. That mark between her eyes is where they had to glue her forehead back together after she fell last week. I’m sure it will be the first of many. Hopefully it won’t scar, though.  UNI made it to the NCAA tournament and are hosting the first round at UNI, so we will be cheering them on again Friday & Saturday.

On Sunday we had Thanksgiving with all the kids at our house and had the usual (except sweet potatoes!). As always, it was all too good and we were all super stuffed.

So we had to sit around, rest our tummies and watch the Broncos play (although they didn’t play very well, sorry Joe). Joe has always been a huge fan of the Broncos. I think he wants to make Ava one as well. He found his old jersey in a box of stuff I was sending home with him.

I hope you all had a great weekend, we did!

A “traditional” Thanksgiving….

This year will be the first year that we haven’t had Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day. Maybe there were a couple years when I was real young that weren’t on Thursday, but I don’t remember them. But the kids get older, get married and you can’t all get together on the same day, so this year we are having it on Sunday. Which I’m actually fine with. (Although we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with my Christmas trees up….because I ALWAYS put them up on the Friday after Thanksgiving and I’m not going to budge on that one.)

As I sat down today to make a grocery list for dinner, I got to thinking that maybe we don’t have to always have the same thing, does everyone still like what I fix? Or is there something else we should have?

I won’t budge on the stuffing. If we have turkey, we will always have stuffing. I like mine with sage, celery and white or wheat bread and that’s it. There will not be cornbread or apples or anything else in my stuffing. I can remember years and years ago when my aunts or mom would try to change it up and grandpa and I were adamant about the same one. Some things have to stay the same! (I know, I’m being a little hypocritical here, but it’s my privilege, I’m cooking!).

I sent an email to my three kids to see if they were expecting a certain dish or not. In the email I said that we were going to have turkey, gravy, and stuffing, but that the sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, pretzel salad, 7 layer salad and pumpkin pie were going to be made based on their answers. It was funny to see the different responses. 

Joe wants 7 layer salad, stuffing and “that pretzel thingy” and stuffing and cranberries. (Joe was always my human garbage can)

Matt wants green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. (Matt is my meat & potatoes guy)

Sarah wants pumpkin pie, stuffing & pretzel salad.

Lauren wants potatoes, gravy & pie.

So….I guess we are having everything we normally have except sweet potatoes! I’m fine with it really. It’s easy because you don’t have to think about any of it because you have done it so many times.

I’m curious, though….What are your “must haves” for Thanksgiving dinner? Do you always have the same thing? Or do you mix it up?  Is there one thing that you cannot do without?

Whatever you are fixing at your house, I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

Red sky in morning….

It was a beautiful sunrise this morning

Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.

Red sky at night, sailors delight.

We’ve all heard this old saying. But is it true?

Here is a quick link to a weather site that says that this might not just be an old wives tale. It does say that if you have a nice red sky in the morning, that rain may be on the way. And we just happen to have rain in the forecast for today.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/weather-sailor.html

While I was looking for this, I found a Wiki that lists all kinds of weather old wives tales:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_lore

That’s your lesson for today!