Des Moines Arts Festival

Took LAD for some culture on Sunday. We went to the Des Moines Arts Festival. It's one of the
best in the nation. We didn't buy much more than food and
popsicles/ice cream. But enjoyed looking at all the amazing art. They
always make these giant murals. You can color a square and then they
attach them all. They did two this year. The little box LAD's holding
was free sidewalk chalk!

Swimming like a dolphin!

We went to the pool on Sunday, it was low 80's but windy, so a little chilly when you were out of the water. We started in the kiddy pool, but LAD wasn't too interested so we went into the big pool first. It is zero entry so there is a very shallow end. We swam there for a while then it was pool break time so we all had to get out, so we headed back to the kiddy pool and he was much more adventurous this time. In the video he said he was "swimming like a dolphin". Well, sort of, but he was trying! Do dolphins sputter?!

Saturday, out of the house

Big Creek State Park.

At Roger P.'s hangar. This is LAD's recycled Fire Truck, complete with cute girl!

Just too funny!

That'll learn-ya-dearn'ya. Daddy taught LAD how to fill up the fish squirters!

American Barnstormers

They were in Ames this past week, for a few extra days too, apparently they had to cancel at Iowa City, due to flooding. Imagine that! LAD was very fascinated with watching them take off and land and park. We saw the ones in formation when we were driving to Ames to see them. You could buy a ride, $50. There were some very nice airplanes there and Ma, I think we saw that black #4 at OshKosh. And maybe even some of the others!

RV Day

The Boone airport hosts an annual RV day where everyone shows off their fancy planes.
Randy and LAD attended last Saturday, for a guy's day out! See here for more photos and details about RV airplanes.

Happy Father's Day

The boys spent some time outside this afternoon! Hope everyone had a nice day!

Loves the water

LAD loves to get into the pool, however he's about to out grow it! Maybe we should just put some toys away. Of course, half of them are sand box toys! Could we have any more of those digger rake things! The first pic, he just couldn't stay out of it and ended up in it fully clothed. Oh well, at least he had his sandals on and not his light-up Thomas shoes, which have been dunked but have so far survived. On Saturday, Randy was tossing water at him and LAD just thought it was the funniest thing and would wipe it out of his eyes and sputter a little and laugh and say "Again, Again".

Harvest, well sort of

These are our transplanted strawberries. They survived after being plunked into IA black dirt from MO red clay last fall. We've had a couple other ripe berries in the last few days, but I think the squirrels have discovered them, best I can tell, and they got the better of them. Could be birds I guess, but this last one had a bite that looked suspiciously squirrel size.

















So today we had this tiny berry, on the left, that wasn't quite ripe but I thought we better pick it, so we can at least get to eat one. Shared between the 3 of us, it's not going to go very far...The second one in this pic is half eaten by some unknown creature. Maybe I can slice off the munched part...hmm. Well LAD can at least have one strawberry with his cherrios in the morning!

Out with the (G)old in with the New(er)

Farewell to the Chrysler Concorde LXI-1999. It was a good car, for the most part. And you could never beat the trunk space. It was ginormous!





So here's the new ride-Honda CRV-2006.
It was not my first color of choice, but was the first price tag of choice! I think it's technically called a dark green metallic of some sort, but it's basically dark gray with a greenish tint, when the light's just right! On this particular year model the back door swings like a gate and the back glass pops up. There was a redesign in '07 and they changed the back end design a little, and besides taking away interior space, made the back gate a hatch type. So I like these '06 features better. It's pretty roomy inside and get's the same gas mileage back and forth to work as the car did, 25. Only on the 2nd tank of gas and haven't gone on any long trips yet, will be curious to see how it does on a long trip. LAD likes to get in the back, back, it's like a giant play pen back there!

Ames area flooding

This was May 30, a week and half ago. Ames has several small rivers that run thru and around it. This was on I-35 on the east side of Ames. We had to go north to get out of Ames to go south to daycare and home. There are corn fields under these lakes! Here are a few more pictures and here and here from the Ames Tribune.

How Does YOUR Garden Grow???

Ours grows, after the weeds and volunteers where tilled under, mostly under water right now! The gardening pictures were from a week ago from yesterday, and the water in the backyard/garden picture was from yesterday. Hopefully everything won't drown. LAD was very helpful getting everything planted and we even found a worm! We planted tomatoes, jalapeno and bell peppers, cukes, squash-acorn and yellow, radishes and carrots. And accidentally, cabbage. I went back to the store Saturday for broccolli, which was what I thought I was getting when I got the cabbage! So we'll see how it goes! The radishes have popped up but no sign of the carrots yet...maybe never!