Open House for School

The girls are way excited! The back packs are ready and they are waiting for me to get home from work. I thought it was from 6-8, we were early. It was 7-8 and we had the best parking space(front and center). We have some new rooms this year and I forgot to take time to check them out. I got Tara an activity ticket to watch Tia's sport events. I forgot to give them lunch money though. We delivered Tara's stuff first and visited Mr. Van. Then onto Tia's locker. That was easy. Figuring out how her schedule goes wasn't easy for me, glad she's the one doing it. Tara has a friend from last year that moved to Florida and she is back. They were glued to each other. I forgot to get a phone number. They will have to have a sleepover.

I had went expecting them to drag me out after unloading the book bags. It was the opposite. They would have stayed all night, I was the one dragging them out. None of us had had supper and I was starving. I'm glad they are excited :)

Cassie Comes to Visit

Cassie is a nanny in Norwalk and staying with her grandparents in Grandriver until she and Jeff get an apartment in Des Moines. Jeff found out he got on full time in the Pleasanthill Hy-Vee. They are pretty excited. I'm finding out she is a picky eater and this maybe a challenge to have things around she likes. Cassie has such a long drive and we are storing her bed until she needs it. She ended up spending the night. Wonder what she thought waking up and having four cats staring at her. Since the weather decided to give us some heavy rains I am glad she decided to stay.

The Final Leg of a Journey

I was hoping to have a picture of a guy who helped make this journey possible. I totally forgot and didn't get a snapshot. We had our last post placement visit with Bill. It was painless and enjoyable. We got to reminisce about our past year... I don't think Tara quite knew what to think. Now to pick out 4 pictures of Tara to send to China.
I had a half day off, so we celebrated with Chinese buffet and school shopping. We still haven't found Tara a new book bag. But they both have a couple of cute shirts.
Thanks Bill for being part of the delivery team to bring me a beautiful baby girl :) even though I wasn't there when she was a baby, she will always be my baby.

Table Rock Lake

 
 
 
 
The best time of the year...VACATION. Best yet is vacation at Tablerock. The most relaxing time. Friends and family we go with enjoy shopping and shows, we love the lake. Amazingly this year I am not still floating as I have in the past. Since Gene's folks are getting older he didn't want to leave them for the whole week, so he came down Monday. I drove Jeff and the girls down bright and early on Saturday. I got alot of moaning from them, but it was a great drive. We got there first and was able to unwind before everyone else arrived. Weather was beautiful, we had a couple of overcast days, a couple of humid days and a couple of perfect days! Our good friends had a new boat and we got to break it in. The old one has a special place in our hearts, but wow. The new ones ride is amazing. There were a few bumps, but most rough water was smooth. We visited most of the marina's and ate lunch on a floating restaurant. We all skied on 2 and some of us on one. The wake board was used and the tubes abused. It was all good...well almost. While the jet ski ran it was good, right up until Tuesday. The 3rd cylinder went bad again.(time for another overhaul, Gene is learning to do it himself this time). We had minnow races Thursday evening, what fun. white rain gutters, ice water and minnows. Contestants were given a cup, the cup was given a minnow with a name. The winner was Kristi with her minnow Jaws. Second runner up was Mike with Holy Crap. Tara got to name her minnow first (she wasn't sure) so hers was "I don't know". Thank you Sue and Carl for a fun evening!

Green Beans, Green Beans and More Green Beans

The girls may be changing their opinions of green beans. When we got home from vacation we picked green beans, stemmed them, then cut them and canned them. We have 27 qts and 18 pints. I am excited! We should be eating good this winter. I hope to have more, but this is a good start. Thanks girls for the great team work!!
Oh I forgot to mention this was the most humid day of the year :-(

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Today is my Mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom!!
Love You!

A Day at Adventureland

 
 
 
 
Genes company picnic this year was tickets to Adventureland amusement park. I'm not much for amusement parks and neither is Gene. I worked a half day and came home to get the girls. They each invited a friend and off we went. It was probably close to 2pm when we got there. We grabbed a map and started walking. Tara's friend had her heart set on riding the Dragon roller coaster first. This was at the back of the park and off we went. To her disappointment it was closed, so Josie, Hailey and Tia rode the Outlaw. Tara didn't want anything to do with it. I suspected this might be the case and she really was a trooper watching the other girls ride the ride. She had me buy a blooming onion. I wanted it as much as she did. It was huge and it was good. After Hailey and Tia had rode several rides they took a break and finished the onion. Josie is a little gambler, she liked to spend her time at the arcade. It would have made me sick, but the girls rode the silly silo over and over. It was a beautiful day. The girls were able to ride the log ride 3 or 4 times straight at the end. The park closed at 9 and we were there to the end. We ran thru Burger King and were home by 10:30 after dropping the friends at their homes. Today is Tim's birthday, we had ice cream for your day Tim. We talked to him on the phone, he took the afternoon off and floated down a river in Oregon.