24 hours of...

...to be family friendly it was 24 hours of fun for kids of all ages! HA that's a lie!! No it really was a nice weekend, excellent weather, great location, good food and lots of great people. But it was SO hard on the bodies! Heck, I'm exhausted and I didn't race! The guys are like zombies today, well atleast Keith was and I'm sure the other guys were as well. Not much sleep. You can read on Keith's blog about the race and it's happenings.

Our campsite was at a great site. We were facing the ski hill and when they came down one section it had a ton of switchbacks. I don't know how many, but I believe it was close to a mile, which was nice we could see them for so long! We could sit under our canopies and cheer them on. Or run out in the fields to get pics and cheer. At night we put glow sticks on the guys so we could tell our teammates and be ready to make the switch. Good idea I had!! I also put a bunch of glow sticks all over our canopy. Like I said, not much sleeping. The boys went to bed around 9 and were up 6ish. I finally hit the sack around 1:30 when Keith was on the course and was up at 7am. It seems like alot of sleep, but I wasn't asleep the whole time. And the guys didn't get much at all!!

Oh the food was good. Spaghetti didn't go as well as I hoped, I premade it all so it was a bit dry. But I had lots of other foods to keep them going and the guys brought their own special treats too.

The pics above are Keith, Tom, Carson and Chris. This was Carson's first MTB race and 1st time ever racing at night, he did great! I think he came away with the most cuts and such, but that's ok. Keith wasn't too bashed up at all, just muddy and smelly. But they all were that!

At night it cooled down quite a bit, which was okay, but it got SO dewy! Everything was soaking wet!! It might as well have rained!

They are talking about doing it again next year, it was a great team, well matched up! Oh the results if you don't want to read Keith's blog. We finished 4th place in the team 24 hour category. Just shy of 3rd place :( We were hoping for 3rd so we'd get prize money...ah next year!

Dropping like flies!

Salem lost ANOTHER tooth tonight! He just lost one 10 days ago! It's crazy! He lost his 1st molar though today!! He was eating grapes and out it pops! You know our kids don't lose teeth the normal way, like by eating apples or taffy or hard candy. Nope they loose them by eating rice and grapes. Silly kids!! He now has 2 missing teeth on his right side. The top eye tooth and the bottom molar.

Kaden...what a handful he is!

Is there anything Kaden hates more than going shopping?? Maybe when I don't let him push the cart! If he pushes the cart he's happy, but I'm stressed because he's so careless with it. I give him 3 warnings before I take it away, and then he gets mad and kicks the cart! It's kinda funny when he does that, the one time he hurt his toe. Good he deserves it! If I don't even let him push the cart, he's angry boy the whole time! Take tonight, we ran to Walmart to pick some stuff up for the race this weekend. I let him push the cart since it was kinda empty, but as Keith and I were trying to find the best pasta for the guys (carbs and fiber and low sodium, ugg!) Salem and Kaden got a little crazy with the cart. Nothing too serious, but enough to get a warning. I don't remember what else he did, but it was shortly after that he lost the cart pushing. He wasn't happy and started to fit. Oh well, life sucks kid, learn from it! And then he got upset WM doesn't carry saturn peaches, not my fault! We got enough other fruits! And then he wanted a thing of chocolate milk, nope, we've got mix at home. Can't recall what else, I kind of tune him out. When we got to the register he gave me a big hug and told me he was sorry for getting so upset! Thank you Kaden, but don't get so angry in the first place! It was sweet, but I know it won't change anything next time.

Salem on the other hand was fine for the most part. He was messing around with Kaden and the cart, which had caused Kaden to lose one warning. Salem would lose his electronics. He didn't though.

Shock to me, neither of them mentioned the toy isle! I was going to let them pick out a hot wheel car to take to the races, but oh well, they're fine!

We had a parent/teacher meeting with Salem's tonight. It was all the 5th grade parents meeting with the principal and then with the teachers. We let the kids play on the playground during it. Finally got to meet Salem's teacher. I warned her about Salem's mesing desk habits and she really didn't seem fazed by it. I said last year he stayed afterschool every friday to clean it, but she said they sometimes get time during class. Ha, he did last year too and didn't do it. She said she'd have the girls help him out. There's not enough girls for that, plus it doesn't give him the right view on it. HE needs to clean it and keep it that way! She said they have colored folders to put the stuff in. I saw plenty of papers not in those folders tonight! And she said they are to put their papers in their planners. Yeah supposed to is the key word. Salem does not! Plus he had 4 broken pencils and numerous broken paper clips. And that was just from a quick look. But we do have a solution for the pencils, so hope that helps. But I'm sure the teacher will learn quickly how he is. Oh and she is okay with wiggly kids, good, cause I said he sure is wiggly!!!

We've got most of the food ready for this weekend. LOTS of fruit, making spaghetti for dinner saturday and pancakes and bacon and eggs for sunday breakfast. I'm making that for the whole team. I guess last count was 8 people! Hope I bought enough! We'll see.

Alright, gotta go to bed. Bust day tomorrow cooking stuff and packing! Gotta get stuff ready to keep the kids...aka Kaden busy!

And the answer is...

It's a Boston Cooler!! Made with VERNORS and ice cream!! SO yummy!!! Vernors is a ginger ale type drink not commonly found in Iowa, but I grew up with it in Michigan! Our local HyVee store had it on their bottom shelf the other day. $3.50 plus deposit for a 6 pack, but man well worth it!!! Speaking on which, I'm going to go make another one!

Guess the drink??

Come on any guesses as to what drink this is?? All I'm going to say it's VERY yummy!!! And it's been a LONG time since I had one! And I didn't share with the kids!

Back to shool again

It's the boys first FULL week of school. Started off not too bad. Kids have gotten back into the hang of things right away. Kaden had his first homework assignment today. It's an easy math worksheet and they have until Friday to bring it back. He did it today after school so he wouldn't have to worry about it later. Smart kid! I'm surprised at how little homework the kids have. Even Salem last year only had 2 sheets a week and they could do it during free time in school. Maybe his will change this year, not sure. Salem did get his first group of spelling words this week. It's 25 words and he is in the Level 2 group. Level one is the hardest group and it's out of six. So he's doing pretty well! Some of the words are proceedings, inhabitant, democratic, accounting and entitle. Seems like we might have to study each week on these although he says he knows them already. Kaden is starting to grow beans in his class. Last year the 3rd graders grew them towards the end of the year, guess they thought it didn't go too well so close to the end. They both have assignment books in which at the end of each day they list what they covered in class. It's nice having that and not having to drag out of them what they did, or them saying "they forgot".

We went out geocaching yesterday. Did 5 of them, nothing too hard. The last one was a did not find, growl! Searched all over the woods, lots of hiding spots, but none of them hiding the cache. I got sick of all the spider webs so we decided to quit. Ran into fellow cachers at a cache. They ended up finding it before us, but it wasn't a hard one. This cache was at the parking lot at the Sac and Fox bike trail which has been closed since the floods. We walked the trail a little bit and it wasn't too bad. Lots of trees down and branches all over, but alot had been cleared off the trails. We didn't go too far though, I'm sure it's bad in other spots! There is a house across the parking lot and they were working on it. Keith said the house was up to the roof in water! It's really hard to imagine THAT much water! I've seen stuff like that first hand and still it's hard to believe!

Down on Hwy 13 is a guy who has a farm on both sides of the highway. His property was under 8+ feet of water! We know it was 8 feet covering the road, so very well might have been more in the farm lands. In a previous blog I had posted a picture of Salem pointing to a snake in the road while he was biking. That pic was taken on that road by the farms. Anyway...the farmer has already gotten his fields back to normal and he is growing stuff!! Drove by it the other day and saw little green rows. I'll be interested to see what he ends up growing so late in the season. It gives me little goosebumps to see them recovering so quickly and well from such horror! But yet, going to Iowa City all the time and seeing the Taco Bell and Hardees and a few other places that have not had anything done with the buildings strikes me as weird. The hotel on the strip is back up and running as well as a few other smaller places. A few restaurants look very close to opening. I haven't driven down and around Cedar Rapids to see what progress...or lack of is taking place.

This bridge was covered in water! Sorry for the sun spots, quite bright out!

We headed down to FMI tonight for the kids to play. Saw a couple cops cars driving slowly around. Figured they were looking for someone, or thing. While we were playing one cop pulled in a talked to the janitor who was outside. The janitor then came over to talk to me. He said the cops were looking for a 9 year old boy and to keep an eye out. Ah man, that's not good! Little while later a cop pulls into the playground and pulls up to us. He asks if I know Chris (last name can't say), and sure enough I know him! He used to be in cub scouts and I knew him from working at Starry. He's the missing kid! Hits home a bit more. We hadn't seen him around, but told the cops we would keep an eye out. Not sure if they ever found him, I'm assuming so since the cop presence died down. Just another reason to stress to our kids to let us know where they are at, at all times!

Summer's not over!

We got to sleep in a little bit this morning before heading off to Keith's race in Pella. HBA had a good team showing so we wanted to check out a few of the races. Before we left I asked if we should take sunscreen. Naw said Keith it's supposed to be not so sunny and hot. Ha, weather man lied as we all got nice and red today! We also did not take our pop up tent thinking it wouldn't be bright sun. New rule is sunscreen and tent are must haves!

Race went well...okay that's a lie partly. Race was good and exciting...Keith's racing not so well. But you have to remember this was his 1st Cat 4 race, and alot of the guys are good 4's, not beginner 4's. Main thing is Keith finished the race!! Not sure what place he got as he was 3 laps down. You can check out his blog to get more details. We think he did great and hung in there trying to keep up and working hard and not giving up! He learned some stuff about racing of this type, so that will help him!

But again, he finished! In the Master 40+ race we had 2 HBA guys and 2 dropped, the other took 3rd place! In the Cat 3 race we had 5 guys! Only 2 finished, but 1 got 3rd! In cat 4 race we had 2, Keith and Mac. Mac raced in the juniors this morning and took 2nd, but in the Cat 4 race he got lapped 4 times.

Kaden was a big butt every since he woke up this morning. I could write a HUGE story on him, but I won't. If he's not complaining he's not happy and if he's complaining it means he's not happy about something. This child is not easily made happy. It makes our head hurt! We are trying to figure him out, but I'm not sure if it's possible.

Salem is fine. He's really starting to grow up...at times. He is wanting to be more grown up and helping us out. Which really is great because Kaden does not. It's kinda tough because Salem is not a good direction follower nor is he a good listener, so it's again trying with him. But by far, he is MUCH easier to deal with than Kaden.

We got home around 7pm today and had stopped to pick up some burgers and buns to grill. Had some fresh corn on the cob too. Ate, watched some Olympics and off to bed went the kids. Didn't even get a chance to wash them tonight. Ah, I'll hose them down tomorrow, lol.

Did I mention Kaden has more poison ivy? Last Saturday while we were at the Cub Scout event they went bike riding. I guess Kaden fell off into the woods and sure enough I guess he found PI. Darn that kid! So he's got little spots all over his legs again. We were not planning on being in the woods so he wore shorts, bad idea!

Fun times I guess.

Slacker!

Sorry for being such a slacker this week in blogging. I've been so nervous and excited and not sleeping well and then tired.

Glad to be back home! I got in yesterday morning. Met Salem coming home from school and picked Kaden up at his school. He thought I wasn't coming home till night so we surprised him I guess. He couldn't stop hugging me :) The boys were sweet and made me a welcome home cake. Very yummy!!!

What else has gone on here? Keith and the boys did a great job of cleaning up the house and my car while I was gone! School has been going just fine for them. Kaden got a great teacher! Not my #1 pick, but not a bad pick! It's a male teacher too. I have worked in his classroom last year and he's good.

Boys have their bunk beds separated now. They are 2 twin bed side by side, so we'll see how that works. Makes their room a lot smaller, but they wanted them apart, so Keith did.

Keith has a bike race tomorrow. It's the Iowa State Crits! Final road race of the year. He has to do 35 laps! Lots of chances to take pics. It's not supposed to be too hot, so that will be nice. He doesn't race until 3pm but we're heading down a bit early to watch some of the other races. The HBA team has a bunch of guys racing, so it'll be nice to cheer them on.

Alright, short blog tonight, again, I'm tired and trying to catch up on sleep!

HI from New Jersey!

Hello all!  I'm here in New Jersey, East Hanover to be exact...I think.  I don't know I just follow Yoda.  Yoda is our GPS unit for the car.  BEST gift EVER!!!  Wow, I needed one of those YEARS ago!!!  I love how I can go anywhere and just push the buttons to get me back to start or wherever I need to be.  I was able to go find all sorts of shopping stores today and not get lost!!  Wonderful invention!!  It's interesting shopping when you only have 1 suitcase.  I found a killer deal on Leapster carts for my nephew.  A killer deal on some scrapbook punches for myself, only problem is they are heavy and my suitcase is heavy enough as it is!  I might end up buying a cheapy backpack to help lighten the load on the way home.  The laptop is great to have, but it's heavy...along with all my other junk.  

So NJ, it's HOT out!  I had my appt this morning, all is set for tomorrow's transfer.  Afterwards I have time to kill before I went to the new hotel.  (long story)  So I went to the mall but it didn't open until 10am, so I just drove.  It was okay because I had Yoda to get back.  Around noon I went back to the mall to grab some lunch then walked it and left empty handed!! GASP!  What's wrong with me!  I then headed for a zoo I passed earlier.  Oh wait, I stopped at a book store to scan a couple Nj tour books to see if there was anything worthwhile to check out.  Not really.  Off to the zoo!!  It was great!  I was able to take my time and look at the animals, I could even read the signs about them!!  Now my boys love zoos, but they're kinda zoo'd out right now.  One animal looks the same no matter what zoo they are at.  I was able to walk around and chuckle at all the other poor moms and whiny kids.  I took lots of pics to show the boys, even tried getting myself in a couple shots.  Didn't work too well.  I think the animals are too trained!  The leopard, anytime he would see someone with a teal shirt on, his eyes would stare!  The zoo caretakers wore teal shirts, so I'm assuming they see that and associate teal shirt with food?  I don't know, not sure they can tell colors, but 2 zoo workers walked by in the distance and the leopard popped his head up and stared and looked like he was going to almost be active!  Then a lady with a teal shirt (not zoo person) walked by and he did the same thing!  I watched him for a few to see his reactions.  It was interesting!  The otters were similar.  Anytime they heard a golf cart they ran up to the glass and stood on their hind legs looking out!   They did this 3 times for the golf cart, they'd come running from what they were doing and stand at the glass!  One it passed they ran back to playing.  I don't know, just seemed interesting to watch and wonder if they "know".

After the zoo I headed off to the hotel, it wasn't too far away.  made a pit stop at Target, which is right next door almost to pick up a few snacks and lots of drinks!  Oh how I wish I drove here, Poland Spring 24 pack water is on sale for $3.99!!!  I would fill up the car!   Now here I am in my cool room on the 5th floor looking out.

Kaden has his open house this afternoon.  He is going to call me when he gets home to tell me who he gets.  I really hope he doesn't get Mrs. B, but knowing my luck he will.  She's not bad or mean, just very laid back.  Not really what I like.  He's really hoping for Mrs. Miller again, which I would LOVE!!!  But we're probably not that lucky.

Salem had his yesterday, said it was really simple.  They were in and out in like 5 minutes!  Seems to be okay with his teacher so far.  I don't know anything about her except what Keith and Salem have told me from yesterday.  I'll have to set up a time to stop in and say Hi when I get back.  

Keith has his last Night at the Oval race tonight.  Darn I'm missing it!  They're having a pizza party too!  I told the boys to take pictures!  We'll see if they remember!  They're usually having too much fun collecting goodies from the stands.  

Alright, I'm gonna go relax a bit.  I didn't get to sleep until after 2am this morning and had to wake up at 5:30am, so running on LOW power!  Ta ta for now!!

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Wow is it Sunday already?? Holy cow the week went by fast! Doesn't help when I was sick for half of it. Right now I've just got an annoying cough, giving me a headache every time I cough. Kaden is doing much better! Salem still fine and Keith is okay. Those two went bike riding today. Salem hit a new high speed, 33.2! I told Keith not to take my child that fast, lol. Or just not tell me about it. Today we got all their school supplies ready to go. I leave tomorrow morning for NJ for my surrogacy transfer. It's set for Wednesday, but I have to be there Tuesday morning, so I'm flying in tomorrow. Keith has the week off to be with the boys. They start school Wednesday. Salem has his open house Monday and Kaden has his Tuesday. I think everything is all set for them. Should be easy for Keith to handle. I fly in Thursday morning...with Dunkin Donuts from where I have my layover. Yummy!

Have to chuckle, Keith is watching the Olympics and gymnastic is on now and he is sitting on the couch wincing in pain watching them. The one girl was stretching on the floor with her left leg up on a chair and her right leg straight behind her. Then another in her routine was standing on her toes, but her toes were curled up. He kept saying OW! Well stop watching it silly boy! We're hoping Shawn Johnson gets a medal again!

Oh yesterday we were at a Cub Scout event. It was a blast, got to shoot bb's, archery, the climbing wall and good food! I'll have to write all about that one later.

Check out what we have growing by our tree!! Seems the squirrel food wasn't all eaten! The face Salem gave was a Grandpa H face. Speaking of Grandpa, he went home today!! Still in lots of pain I hear, so hope they can get that under control a bit! But he's home and hopefully eating his popsicles again!

It was Kaden's favorite season today...taking out the peonies! I didn't know it was a season, but it is in his mind I guess. We usually leave them up a bit longer, but I was weeding today and noticed a TON of beetles on one of the weeds growing in there. I mean these beetles were horrible and were eating this weed down to the stem. Figured that wasn't good, so we decided to wack the peony plants down today. Everyone was thrilled!! Boys ran and grabbed their golf clubs, Keith got his week wacker thing and off they went! I didn't get any great pics, was trying to stay out of the way and not get hit by the club or flying peony parts.

Dad's surgery

Well today was the day for my dad's gallbladder surgery. Early day, they had to be at the hospital at 5:30 I believe. Not as bad as Keith, he was up at 3am for work due to a special task he has going on. Back to dad...I got email and phone calls throughout the morning updating me on dad. Heather went with mom and dad, so mom had company. One of the two would call one of the siblings and we would pass the info along through emails. Updates were not too exciting as they were basically saying they had no updates, noone is telling mom and Heather anything! Grr frustrating! Finally around 11am our time I got word dad was out of surgery!! Doc said it was a very hard surgery. Hope the recovery is not that hard! They started going in laproscopically and I guess got 90% of the gallbladder removed when the scar tissue came into play. They couldn't go any farther and had to end up cutting him open. Man that stinks!! They got so close. Now he has a 4.5" incision on his belly. Mom says he's almost got a Z shape going on with all his scars. Probably not what dad was hoping for. I talked to mom around 3pm when he was up in a room. Mom says he was popping in and out of sleep. He'd start to say a sentence and wouldn't get it finished before he fell asleep, lol. Heather left for home to try and get some sleep as she has a hockey game tonight. Not sure what moms plans are. I guess dad will be in the hospital for a few days, but they didn't say how long. We're all very relived the surgery is over and they got grandpa fixed up. Salem gave a Woo Hoo when we got word he was out and okay. Now if mom will be able to keep grandpa from over doing things once he gets back home. No more home improvements for a while!! We love you Dad/Grandpa/father-in-law!

part 2

I guess I forgot to write about the stalking of the mail lady. I wish I could say being sick messes with my mind, but that's a noraml everyday occurance.

The boys have been expecting a package from GG Snoop. It was expected to be here Monday, nope. Tuesday then, nope. Wednesday they are outside and see the mail lady. She happens to have a package with her. Oh man, the kids got SO excited!! She drops our mail off and leaves with the package. Such devistation! Kaden comes in and tosses the mail at me :( Hum, package wasn't for us.

But today...the mail arrives and we get a package!!! They're happy again! GGSnoop sent them each a lil kinz bluejay. Salem named his Highflyer and Kaden named his Evil.

Sick as a dog...and stalking the mail lady

Poor mommy woke up with a super sore throat and a sinus infection! Man took me by surprise too. Well, I guess I recall my throat being kinda sore last night, but I had drank some HyVee OJ and that stuff is strong, so I thought it was just that. Nope, sinus infection in full force. The kids were SO good today though! Bless their hearts, they let mommy rest all day. Kaden was coughing and a little runny nose, but he didn't seem to be affected by it, so we'll keep an eye on him. I stayed inside and layed on the couch with the Kleenex by my side. The kids played outside for the most part in their sandbox. The sandbox had been so ignored, but once we put the colored sand, it was the new favorite toy. It's got the green for grass, the blue for water and the purple are the mountains. Although I looked out today and it's pretty much all mixed together now. They took some wood blocks (dad, remember the leftovers from the basement in Iowa?) (best toy ever!) and made some bridges and tunnels using them. They wanted to make a water slide in the sandbox, but I overheard that and nixed it right away! I did let them take the lid of the sandbox and fill that with water. They used some of the blocks to make rafts for their Pokemon and did some dives and such.

Keith was off having fun today! He was chosen to go golfing today, it was some kind of work related event every year. This year he was chosen, so he got breakfast at work, then had to go visit all the cable business type people, like a trade show, then it was off to golfing! He got home around 6pm and I asked if he could put the 1 hour as overtime, lol. I guess not. Oh they feed them lunch too at the golf course, so he was well fed today! After he had dinner he took the kids down to FMI for just a short time. Kaden had been bugging me, but I didn't have any energy to do anything today, so I told him when daddy got home. Than you Keith for taking them! They were only gone for about 20 minutes, but that was enough to satisfy Kaden.

Early bed for them, I sent them up at 8pm to read books for a while. Salem came down just after 8:30 saying they were tired and going to bed. Now it's 9pm and I think that's a great idea for me too! I was hoping to take a nap today, but with the kid being outside, I couldn't sleep.

Hoping tomorrow is a better day! It only figures we go through the summer being very healthy and now a week before school starts we get sick. Man, that stinks!!

Picture time!

Here's some shots from the past few days...

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Ha, I love how you can fudge the date and times when you blog. You can mess with people! Like this post, it says I blogged on Sunday, but really it's Monday night. So no people, you didn't miss this on Sunday, it wasn't there. Back to Sunday...

Great day for a race! Headed out at 7:30am, not too early, but early enough after not sleeping much Saturday night! Got to the race a bit before 11am and got settled in. We brought out pop up tent thing, but it was overcast and we parked under a shade tree, so didn't need it. The boys and I sat in our chairs while Keith got ready and went to pre-ride the course. Our friend Rick from DM was there and he was off with Keith too. Race started at 12pm with the boys and I in the woods ready with the camera. Darn professional photographer was in my way, so I had to move so I didn't get him in my shots. I didn't mind this course too much, I was able to be in a few different spots for pictures. I won't mention missing his first feed zone again and when we got it to him, it was at the bottom of a huge hill where he was going close to 30mph and had to slam on the brakes to grab the bottle from Salem. OOPS! Well, where we were at first wasn't a good spot to hand him the bottle and, yeah well, we got it to him. Didn't miss the next 2! All the classes started only a few minutes apart from one another. Our friend Rick came in 1st place in the beginner category! Keith ended up finishing 5th in his cat! That leaves him still in 1st place in the series, but 2nd place guy is closing the gap, darn it! Oh, the picture below. Final lap, finish line is just after this. The guys fly down the hill and come around the corner and across the road to the grass area where there is a nice little jump they can hit, or just glide over it. I knew Keith would go BIG if he saw me there, so I made sure I was at the end. And yup, he went BIG!!


Nice drive home, nothing exciting. Pulled in around 6:30 after grabbing some Dominos for dinner. Man they raised their prices :( Used to have carryout for $3.99 for a medium 1 topping. Now it's $4.99! Ah heck, it won't stop us from buying them for a last minute dinner.

Boys played baseball with the neighbors before dark while Keith and I cleaned off the work bench. We can see the top again!!! Once it got too dark to see the ball it was up to bed! Busy weekend, but fun!!

Sleepover with the Kernels...not much sleeping!

Last night was our Cub Scout event at the Kernels (minor league b-ball team). We get to march on the field for the Nation Anthem and if we chose, we can sleep out on the field!! Last year we got rained out and was unable to sleep over, but this year it was okay, well until the morning, then it rained. First exciting thing...we got to carry the GIANT flag onto the field! It's good to be late sometimes as we were the 2nd to last group of scouts on the field and one Kernel director guy came and asked if the last group and ours would like to carry their giant flag out. Oh yeah!! I think the adults were more excited than the kids, but I do know Salem and Kaden said it was AWESOME!! I agree, what a special thing to do! Kids did a good job, didn't drop it! After that we got to walk through the back ways of the stadium and go up the elevator, kinda cool. We had dinner before we arrived, but we ended up getting some drinks and 2 pretzels to split between us. I got a deal on it, the guy only charged us for the drinks and when I said something, he said don't worry. Um, okay, he seemed kinda frazzled. Back to the game, we got a good lead and even got a home run and we won 3-1! They had fireworks afterwards too! When we walked in we got 3-d glasses, wow, those things are cool!!! I had fun taking pictures with them on my camera, just wish they had turned off more lights, as I had one right in my way, but oh well. Still cool to watch them with!

After fireworks everyone non scout left and we were able to go grab our tents and stuff from the car. Tent city!!! So many people camping out, the outfield was packed! Got our tents up and was able to have all 5 of our tents together. Salem, Kaden, Tony and Connor slept in one tent. Jenni, Ted, Keith and myself slept in another. Connor's dad wasn't able to come, so we put all the boys together to comply with BSA rules. Then we had another tent of Ben and his dad, Jacob and his and Jonathon and his dad. Once the tens were up we were able to go grab food they had for us. That was just before 11pm! It was decent food, hot dogs, chips, ice cream sandwiches and red or yellow drink. We even got 2nds! Then we still had to stay up! They show a movie for the scouts before bed. Tonight was Alvin and the Chipmunks. We've seen it plenty of times, but it's a funny movie! We stuck it out until almost the end when I could see Salem and Kaden both fading quick. Not wanting to carry them down to the tent (we were sitting in the stands) we called it a night. Everyone else followed suit soon after as well. Our boys fell asleep right away, but Keith and I were up for a while. We were just to the right of the screen, so it was bright and loud! Didn't get much sleep last night as expected. Jenni and Ted had their 10 month old in the tent with us and he wanted nothing to do with sleep, poor kid was crying, but he sounded asleep as he was doing it. Funny boy! The ground was nice, no sticks or rocks sticking in our backs. We did get a few hours of sleep then was rudely woken up by the loud speaker blasting the trumpet call at 6am! Man, they lied, they said they would play some nice soothing music to wake us up! They also said if we were not off the field by 8am, the sprinklers would go off, didn't stick around to find that out though. It did start raining before we woke up, thankfully it stopped long enough for us to get breakfast they had for us. Just some multi grain cheerios and juice. Kaden had 3 bowls!! Broke down the tents and packed up the car. Keith went to start the car and the battery was dead!!! He had tossed the jumper cables back in my trunk last week, good thing! Our friends were still there and they jumped us.

We stopped at the farmers market on the way home. Kaden was loving it! Keith and Salem stayed in the car. We didn't want to turn it off in case it didn't start again. We got a HUGE watermelon!! Some raspberries, carrots and corn! Kaden loved that the carrots still had their huge tops with leaves still attached!

Back home we had to set up the wet tent...except it continued to rain on and off. We ended up setting the thing up in our garage, very surprised it fit! Rain fly and floor mat had to be hung outside and those got drenched again, but finally dried out tonight.

The kids had a GREAT time last night!! We did too, it was fun, exhausting, but fun! Too bad the battery decided to die, but we went to the parts store and got a new one. Off to a bike race again tomorrow!! Until then...need sleep!!

Who stole my corn??

Not the squirrles this time, I'm talking about the fresh stuff! The boys and I went out today to pick up some Knight's corn. Found the Muscatine corn, but no Knight's! We drove up and down the strip in Marion trying to find their green and yellow striped tent. They weren't at DrugTown, not at Salvation Army, not at the farm store. Where did they go??? I ended up not buying any corn as when I decided to give up we were at the other end from the Muscatine spot and didn't feel like driving back across town to get it. Tomorrow we'll go out and find some! We saw them at CVS last week, I wonder if they are still there? Hope the corn season is not done already, I know we're lucky enough to get it this year, but I want more!!!

GROWL, poison ivy again!

Man that Kaden!! I guess we were asking for it walking through weeds at the bike race last weekend. This morning, when Keith was getting the boy dressed becuase he was still half asleep and I had an appointment to get to, I noticed the tell tale signs of the PI on the back of his leg! Man oh man, didn't we learn the first time. I really was looking where we were walking in the woods, and did not see any of it, but it was hiding there somewhere I guess! And again, Kaden is the only one who got it. Right now it is only on the back of his right leg and a little on the back of his left knee. Possibly a couple other tiny spots on his ankle, but I'm thinking they might just be bug bites. We've got the cream going and we'll see how far it spreads this time! We're going to head to the store tomorrow and find a really lightweight pair of pants for him to wear. We've got a race Sunday and it's either pants of long socks...I think the pants will look better.

Tuesday, bike night

Boring kind of day. Kids played outside, rode their bike, launched lego cars off the front stairs. Normal stuff. Really didn't do anything special.

Keith had his bike racing tonight. He raced with the fast guys and didn't do too bad considering he's still got a wounded calf muscle from Sunday. Had a HUGE turnout for the racing. I don't recall a final count, but close to 30 for the 2 groups!

Salem and Kaden had fun collecting stuff in the stands. There was a car race on Friday and the stands were a giant mess. I was freaking about all the yucky germs! The boys collect coke codes from soda bottles and they collect the pop tabs. Just for fun something to keep them busy. They got another racers daughter in on it too. So they scour the stands for hours on end picking up trash and empyt soda bottles to get these things. Gross me out!!! Kaden brings a tin to put them all in. I made them go wash their hands a few times tonight! I'm not a big germ freak, I let them get plenty dirty and gross. But it was very yucky in the stands tonight!!

Stopped to get some McDonalds for dinner tonight and off to bed they went! Tomorrow will be another fun outside day. Not sure what we have planned. If I wake up early enough we'll hit the free kids movie. It's Horton Hears a Who this week!

I don't have any pictures up becuase my monitor is screwed up. It has turned yellow (instead of white) so I can't tell the quality of my pictures. I used to be able to smack the side and it would turn back to white. Well tonight I was doing that and it didn't work, so I really smacked it. I ended up knocking a candle off the computer desk and it broke, growl!!! I loved that candle too, smelled so good. So I think we're gonna be tossing this monitor out of Keith's bucket someday soon!!

Hot, hot and even Hotter!!

Holy cow was it hot Monday!!! Stayed inside with the AC on!!!

Saturday in a nutshell

Alright, let's see Saturday...we got up early and headed out of the house around 8am. Wanted to get there at opening, 10am. Got there 10:30, close enough! Oh, we went to Adventureland because it was for Keith's work company picnic...but he was on call during the official time, so they gave us tickets to use anytime we wanted. Free parking, free tickets and some "fun money" to use for food, or whatever. Fun money wasn't enough considering how hot it was and needed lots to drink, but that's okay, won't complain too much!

Kids wanted to hit the Dragon first. It's a steel coaster with 2 loops and a double helix! Kaden loves his Roller Coaster Tycoon game for the PC and knows all the correct names for coaster parts. It's towards the back of the park and I notice Salem dragging behind a bit...hum, still tired or what?? Nope, he's already freaking out about going on the ride, ugh! He promised me he would ride this ride with NO freaking out! He was excited about keeping his eyes open during the loops! Darn that kid! I decide not to deal with all of his issues today and not force him on the ride. Keith and I did let him know how unhappy we were with his decision. And we would rethink going to any more amusement parks. Sadly that hurts Kaden as he likes the coasters. Anyway, we decide to do a child swap at this one. Kaden and daddy would go first while Salem and I waited in line, then Kaden and I would ride it while Salem and daddy waited for us at the exit. Well, Kaden didn't want to re-ride it right away, so that plan failed and I ended up riding it solo. We all went on the Outlaw, another roller coaster which isn't so bad, but still has a good height to it. Salem doesn't mind that one.

I brought my junky camera with us. Didn't want to carry my big expensive one and risk it getting broken. Although I did not realize my junky one was SO junky! It ate batteries like non-other, didn't turn on half the time, didn't take good pics, ug, I was ready to throw it in the trash! I still plan on doing that! We've had it for over 5 years now and replaced it with a few cameras, why I kept it I don't know. Usually when a camera sparks and has smoke come out it means it's shot! I've been looking to get a nice small pocket camera, but haven't been able to make myself buy one. I think I need to know.

Okay back to Adventureland! The boys hit SO many rides there!! Salem LOVES the spin rides! While Daddy and Kaden went on the Tornado with our friends from DM, Salem and I went on a few spin rides. Then Kaden and us went on them! Daddy doesn't do the spin ones makes him sick, so he takes the pics and sits out. No prob. We all hit the raging rapids water ride. I think we all got pretty wet. Mommy got the big waterfall at the end though, soaked to the bone! Took quite a few hours to dry! Made the 1.5 hour wait worth it!

Got Salem on the ferris wheel...sorry it's called the Giant Skywheel! He still was scared to death in it! We didn't get a good ride though. The guy loading did not evenly space the riders and did not weight it right, so the wheel woudln't spin correctly. We only made it over the top once. We got booted off and they ended up having to unloaded it all and start over again. We decided it wasn't worth the wait and went on to other rides.

The boys were devastated when we saw their favorite ride G-Force was broken! It whips you around so fast! It is fun and they would ride it time and time again. Darn that ride for not working today! But they found a new favorite ride! The Pirate ship!! It doesn't go all the way over, but you go quite vertical! They have been scared of it and refused to go on. But this time we were able to get them on it and they had a blast!!! We only went on it 2 times since the line was so long. Salem wanted to get the very back row, but we got stuck with the front seat, darn the last for not letting us wait for the next time. Ah, oh well. This is a pic of them on the Pirate ship. Sun got in the way, but you can still see the fun in their faces!!

The circus had new acts this year. Had a similar act of the changing clothes people. Except this people need to work on their disguise. The lady came out and she was fat!! You could see the Velcro on the sides of her dresses, the rolled up lumps of clothes. Kinda lame, but the kids liked it which is all that mattered I guess. They had a guy with his 2 dogs that caught Frisbees. Kinda fun to watch! Also the clothes changing people were jugglers, not too bad! The highlight was a guy being shot out of a canon!! Very cool to see! They still had the trapeze lady, I think she was the only same act. They got rid of the people riding the motorcycles in the ball and the human hamster ball in the air walker thing.

Mommy went on one called the Sidewinder. I have always wanted to, but never brave enough. Oh man, it's FUN!! It spins you in a circle up in the air, but also swings you from side to side. What a rush!!

Lots of rides, lots of fun! We didn't get to visit the new little water park, it closes early and we did not realize that. Left the park around 9pm totally exhausted!! Our friends let us stay at their place in DM overnight. We had a bike race Sunday morning in Boone, not too far from them. Also Rick (our friend) was doing the race as well. So yeah we fell asleep really quick and ended up waking up about 6 ish. Too early after a day of walking so much! But poor Keith had to ride still!

Alright, it's bed for us now. I'll write about the bike race tomorrow. Hopefully I'll catch up then! I sent pictures out through kodak gallery for those on my list, so you can see more Adventureland ones through that!

What a weekend!!

WOW! What a crazy and amazing weekend we had! Going to leave you in suspense though as I am so exhausted!! You can get a glimpse of the weekend on Keith's bike blog. That will cover today's excitement. Saturday's was at Adventureland and fun fun fun!!

Until tomorrow...

MIA, sorry!

I've been crashing pretty hard at night, before I've been able to blog. Sorry!

Today was a good day. Chilled out a bit in the morning, finally getting up and ready to go at 11am. We headed over to The Playstation. It's a HUGE indoor place place with tunnels and slides and a ball pit and lots of fun stuff for the kids to play in. It's also nicely air conditioned! Played there for a few hours. Had to head to CVS to finish up the candy deal. I let the boys pick out $2 in candy. It was interesting watching them snatch up their favorites right away and then try to decide what else they wanted to get. Kaden wanted to get a ton, but had to pick and choose. Good learning experience for them. I've got plenty stuck away that will last a while for us all. Then we headed to WM to pick up some more gauze for Kaden's elbow and some fruit.

Back at home the kids hit the pool. It was nice the neighbor kid wasn't home, so they actually payed in it for well over an hour. usually if the kid is home and out, Salem and Kaden go and do what he wants to do. So it's nice the boys played what they wanted to. Keith finally came home, well he was right on time, but he didn't get a lunch today, so he was starving. Dinner followed shortly, some yummy chicken and rice! Oriental style for mom and dad which involves putting some oriental type sauce on it. It's a yummy kit we pick up from Sam's Club.

Then Keith mowed the lawn while I ran off to return some stuff I had sitting around waiting for me to be able to go without the kids. I was planning on hitting WM again to use some of my coupons, but didn't feel up for it. I hit a bunch of stores returning and window shopping and I only came home with 3 packs of candy, hand sanitizer and some neosporin. Kinda pathetic for me, but good on the wallet!

Tomorrow we head to Adventureland over in Des Moines! We're meeting our friends there too. The boys are planning on going on Dragon (the upside one) and The Outlaw (the old wooden one). Kaden wants to go on Tornado as well, but not Salem. Salem says he LOVES the downhill part, it's fast and fun, but he hates going up the hill! That's fine he did it last time we were there. Still can't convince Kaden to go on the Space Shot, darn it!

Sunday we have a MTB race in Boone. We'll be staying at our friend's house since the race is close to their house...well closer than our house is. The weather should be nice, the course seems nice, we'll see how Keith does. Hopefully very well!!!

Not sure if I'll update tomorrow. If not, I'll be back on Sunday with all sorts of fun stuff I'm sure!