July Updates, House Pictures & A Special Event

It's hard to believe that July is almost over, but it's been a pretty good month overall. Ken and I took a trip last weekend to Minneapolis to see the Twins/Rangers game. It was good game and the Twins won. It's always nice to be at a game when the home team is winning, especially when you really don't care which team actually wins. After the game and a late-night trip to bail my nephew's car out of the impound lot in downtown Minneapolis (the short story is that he and his buddy parked in a bad spot and got towed for a grand fine of $280), we spent some more time in and around the city.

We also hit the Mall of America on Saturday followed by a trip to the Como Zoo (which of course included animals, cotton candy and more fabulous summer mini-donuts). Then off to a lovely Italian dinner in a small town outside of the big city. On Sunday, we went to Niagra Cave (picture is of me in the cave though it's hard to actually tell that I'm in a cave. The bad hair is blamed on the 90% humidity and the water dripping from the cave ceiling.) and then made our way back home by way of Burr Oak, IA where we decided to check out the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum (not very impressive I must say). We were going to hit the Beanpod Candle outlet store in New Hampton, IA, but made it there 30 minutes too late and they were closed. We'll have to save that for another time.

Oh, and I finally had a chance to get some pictures taken of our place. Here is the front and side.

We have a 1-stall garage and a driveway that conveniently allows us to park side-by-side. In the other picture, you'll see our garage (note all flowers were planted by a former renter not us). At the very back of the yard, it slopes downward toward a little creek. We even have ducks!

The other pictures are of the inside of the place. As you can see, the living room opens up into the kitchen and is divided by a bookcase/bar. We had wanted to get some bar stools to sit there, but we just haven't done it yet. We really like how open the whole main part of the house is. It's so much easier to see and talk to each other, not to mention it makes the whole place feel bigger. Ken was busy relaxing on the couch.

In other news, this weekend, Ken and I had some guests from Illinois. My friend (and former boss) Lisa from the Heartland TTC and her husband came through with some donations for the Kleins in CR. They brought several boxes of kids' things that I'm sure will be very useful. After a quick lunch at Peppers in Cedar Falls, they were off to head back to IL and enjoy some of the scenery by way of HWY 20 and Galena.

Friday night was a rather special night as well. Ken and I went to dinner at a Japanese Steakhouse up the street from us called Tokyo. This was a major event considering that Ken doesn't eat Chinese food or Japanese food, but he was a trooper and really enjoyed the rice, steak and chicken. He even ate some of the miso soup. I was very proud of him!

Afterwards, Ken really wanted to go mini-golfing, so I said ok and off we went to Airline Highway's mini golf center in Waterloo. There, on the 4th hole, I received my engagement ring, a beautiful 3-stone ring in white gold. For those of you thinking the location was an odd choice, you should know this was the site of our first date (oh so many) years ago in May of 2001. As is our fashion these hot summer days in Iowa, we grabbed ice cream on the way home and had a lovely evening overall!

Work, weeds, and a clogged sink

This will be just a quick update as it's been a long week already and I'm pooped. Things here are fine. The new furnature arrived and is loved by all. We kept it covered for a bit during the days when we weren't home until we could figure out how the cats would react to it, but all is well there. I'll get some pictures up this weekend I hope.

Ken and I are headed to a Minnesota Twins v. Rangers game on Friday night. Our friends Kelly and Jeff gave us 4 free tickets and supposedly they're pretty good seats--about 20 rows up behind home plate...at least that's what the internet tells us where they are. We're going to stay the night at a military base for a whopping $33/night! Wowsa! We gave the other two tickets to my nephew Josh who's bring his buddy up for the game. I think Ken and I will go to the Mall of America on Saturday for a while then home again to complete more house projects. We're planning a little housewarming at the beginning of August and there's still a lot I want to get done around the place. I've been putting landscaping bricks that we got from sister Kathy's place in Parkersburg (the house that fell apart in the tornado), so that looks nice. I can't get any flowers to plant though because, unbeknownst to me, there are only certain times of the year where you can get the cheapo gardening flowers. Oh well. We'll make do. The landscaping still looks nice though with the bricks.

In other news, we bought a lawnmower with our garage sale earnings, which I tried out last Sunday. Works great! We also just finished dealing with a little plumbing issue - the kitchn sink majorly clogged and even after a bottle of draino and me tearing the pipes apart underneath, we couldn't fix it. So we had to call Philly McGilly, the landlady (no that's not her real name - we just liked the sound of it) to get a plumber in here. Surprisingly, one came out today and all is restored. Of course, this would have to happen the week we have a houseguest staying with us! My friend Tina whom I knew from UNI is in town for a youth theatre thing in CF, so she's crashing here in the evenings. That's what spare bedrooms are for, after all!

Work is, well, work. I can't say much right now about my job that I love. So far, I don't have enough to do and am bored much of the day. When I'm writing, I'm good. But I find that I have to find ways to get busy or at least look busy. People keep telling me that it's the "slow season" and that it'll pick up. It's just not very intellectually stimulating at the moment, and I feel sort of out of place right now. It's hard to get to know these people, and it's so different from teaching/academia. I feel a bit like a square peg right now. It's also hard being in a small department -- there are only 3 of us, which if I do my math right, makes me the third wheel. I'm still looking for other jobs (this is a contract position) and have applied for a full-time teaching job at the local community college....fingers majorly crossed. I keep trying not to get my hopes up, but I think it's too late for that. They're up and I'm hoping. I submitted my materials last week and the deadline isn't until this Friday. It'll be ok if I don't get it, but I know I'll be disappointed.

I do plan to adjunct at UNI this fall though in addition to the regular job. They've asked me to teach 2 composition classes, which I'm actually kind of excited about. First, more money, and second, a chance to get back in the classroom after a year off. It will be interesting to teach and not be a student at the same time.

OK - better run. I want to pull some more weeds before the sun goes down.

Sturgis Falls and other things

Llamas for Obama! That says it all, doesn't it? For me, this was the best part of the Sturgis Falls celebration parade that Ken and I went to last weekend. For those of you who don't know what Sturgis Falls is, it's basically the summer town celebration put on my the town of Cedar Falls. It's their way of paying tribute to William Sturgis, the man who founded the town and for whom the town was originally named (hence Sturgis Falls).

We went to the parade in the morning with Ken's sister Linda and family, Lisa and Matt, and his sister Maria and her family. We're definitely back in the swing of being around lots of family now, let me tell you! After the parade, we went down to the bandshell part for some food (MINI DONUTS!!!) and music. Because of all the flooding, the Sturgis Falls activities were greatly slimmed down this year. Normally, we'd have been running all over parts of the town to hear different bands and dine on such select items as the Turkey Leg, a Matt favorite, and grilled sweet corn. Given that there's no corn yet (thank you very much flood of 2008), we settled for, did I mention, mini donuts, tenderloins, strawberry smoothies, and kettle corn. All still very enjoyable. So, back to mini donuts, apparently Illinois does not believe in them. I haven't had mini donuts since I left Iowa in 2003. Man, did they taste good this year!

You may notice from this parade picture that Matt and Lisa are wearing matching NY Giants T-shirts. That's because they were fresh off their most recent trip to NYC. I believe this year they went to a baseball game of sorts at a famous ballpark, but ever the Giants fans, they show their support for this team before any other.

Here's a non-Sturgis Falls picture. A couple of weekends ago, my side of the family all got together at the Farm -- the commonly accepted term for my Grandma and Grandpa's farm out near Dunkerton, where Aunt Sheila and Uncle Roger have lived and farmed for as long as I can remember. In our family, it's just affectionately known as "the Farm." This is a picture of Audra near some flowers. She and I took a little walk around the grounds to look at trees and flowers while the grown ups talked.

To the right is a one of my favorite pictures. This is what we think is the oldest tree on the farm. I don't even know what kind of tree it is, but the cool thing about it is the one branch extending to the left. It's grown so low that it grew into the ground and then came up again. There is actually grass growing over it . Here's a shot of Audra hamming it up near this spot.

So, we're getting in some good family time since we moved back home. This 4th of July finds us enjoying some much needed time at our own place doing some house projects. We'll be meeting friend Jeff and Kelly in Dysart tomorrow morning for a parade and then a grill-out. Tonight we have fireworks in Cedar Falls and then fireworks in downtown Waterloo on Saturday night.

Back to house projects...this morning, I hacked away at a horribly overgrown and deadly rose bush in our front yard. I call it "devil bush" and Ken calls it "vile weed." No kidding on this one folks, I have scars on my hands, arms and legs from the thorns on this thing from trying to mow around it. It was so big that it was hanging over our driveway and Ken had to tie ip up with rope and a stake so that it wouldn't fall sideways. I was done with it, so I chopped it up and we hauled it away. I did leave some new growth though so that maybe we'll get roses in the future. Hopefully the landlady won't be mad. Pictures to come soon.

While I was busy with this, Ken was behind our garage desperately trying to use a pitchfork to load old dead lawn clippings into Mom's truck. Apparently the people who lived here before us liked to just dump their lawn clippings behind the garage. Here they've steadily festered into a pile of stinking grossness. Finally sick of it, I put Ken on the task of using a pitchfork to get rid of it. All had been going fine until he discovered a huge bees nest buried within it. Then, of course, he had to stop until we could purchase a can of RAID to kill them. I've never seen anyone go through an entire can of RAID in less than 5 minutes. Needless to say, the boy doesn't like bees.

In the end, the space behind the garage looks (and smells) much better and the vile weed will taunt us no more. My final words as I hacked the last bit of into smitherines...."I win devil bush." My next house project is to remove the old ugly bricks around the back flower bed and replace them with the lovely ones I got from Kathy's house post-tornado. Should be fun. Will include house pictures soon. Promise. Good news...new furnature's coming next week!!!!