Jogasaurus - I think I qualify

And the Renovations Continue

Dan's made major progress on the attic this weekend:

• Finished electrical outlets, switches - including moving a switch
• Finished plumbing - the laundry room is another step closer to being finished!
• Mud & tape
• Brought up some scaffolding & installed casters so he can slide the contraption around - In case you're wondering why he needs scaffolding in an attic...well, the ceiling is pretty high, so he's able to mud and tape those drywall joints over his head without climbing a ladder
• Moved a bunch of stuff and cleaned the area

While he's been up on the third level, I got inspired to do something about our master bath. We've lived here for five years now. Way back on week 2 after we moved in, I pulled off all the ugly wallpaper in the bathroom. And that was where I left that project. There was mold under that wallpaper and the mold didn't go away in five years! So, I tackled the walls. Primed, skimmed, sanded, primed again. I still have a few places to sand and skim again, prime again, etc. Hopefully, I'll be able to apply paint sometime this week! Also, I have to sand down the trim, which has a bunch of layers of alligator-like paint. I'll repaint the trim, too. This project is more time consuming than I ever thought it would be.

Mountain Dew

I thought this was kinda funny. This is probably only a month's worth (or less?) of the Mountain Dew that Dan's brother's family consumes. These are empties, of course.

Dan made the switch to Diet Mountain Dew a few years ago. I admit that it's an acquired taste. Do I see a case of Diet Dew in that stack?

I'm guessing the Root Beer may have been contributed by Dan's dad.

Not exactly sure what the hula-hoop is on the pile for.

Children of the Corn

Yesterday was a day devoted to corn. You cannot live in Iowa and not appreciate good corn! I'm just lucky enough to have a brother-in-law & sister-in-law who planted the best variety of sweetcorn ("Coon's Delight") in the state, not to mention, an enormous patch of corn... with sharing in mind! How generous!!!

The timing worked out well, because I had to bring neice Lydia back to the grandparents yesterday, and the girls all wanted to spend time with their other cousin, Rebekah, who was already at grandma's and grandpa's.

So, we headed up the truck and we mozied on over to Washington...Iowa, that is. Tall corn. Rolling hills.

"We're ready!"

Corn Picking 101

Aunt Carmen gives a lesson in finding ripe ears of corn and how to pick them.

I didn't take any pictures of us shucking the corn. It went really fast, because all five girls helped Carmen, Grandpa, Ryan and me. We sang "Happy Birthday" to Grandpa during that time. He asked a good question..."What will you be doing 10 years from now?"

From field to mouth! Mmmm!

Monday, Monday...sha la sha la la la

More tree limbs went down with this morning's huge storm that went through.




The girls and their cousin, Lydia, getting warmed up to go into the pool.

A Quick Recap of this Week

So this week has flown by again. Where DOES the time go?

Here is a recap of this week's activities...

On Wednesday, we had a homeschool picnic at Fuller Park. Here the girls with their friend, Erin, and no...that's not Case! That's Samuel, who is one year older than Case and just as cute.



Earlier this week, Monday I think, I officially called off school and announced, "It's Summer Vacation!"

Of course, the girls didn't know they were still learning from Dad. He was experimenting with a way to split hydrogen from H2O. It takes a bit of energy - a few drained batteries later - but the experiment was successful. Moriah and Brooke were very into it. Haley...not so much.



And probably the best result of calling off school was a very cool school-type activity that sort of just happened as a result of the girls' imagination and their constant reading of American Girl magazines. Below is a cover for their own American Girl magazine they hope to publish in November/December. As you can tell, they've set up the photo shoots quite well. They're writing articles for their edition, and working on photoshopping the cover. Quite funny. If I had suggested something like this for a school project, I'm sure I would have heard whining. Guess I need to call off school a little more often!


Finally, today, I made a successful attempt to "culture" the kids by taking them to a free family day at the Figge Art Museum in the Quad Cities. It was awesome. The best part for me came when we were walking back to the car. Brooke said, "Thank you, Mommy, for taking us here." That was followed by two more thank yous.

Too Much Stuff

I've come to this conclusion before, but I've made it again recently...We have way too much STUFF. And by stuff, I mean impractical belongings that get in the way of enjoying life. I'm almost ready to live a minimalist lifestyle.

See the word almost there? Yes, I admit. I am somewhat attached to some of that stuff. How do you get unattached? How do you just get out a couple 30 gallon trash cans and start pitching?

Kids are a reflection of their parents, so as we cleaned the pig-stye (or should I say hamster-stye) of a room last night, it occurred to me that I have not been a very good example to my kids.

I've rejoined the Fly Lady yahoo group, and I'm taking my first Baby Steps in decluttering and cleaning our house. It didn't get this way in a day or a week or even one month, so it certainly won't get magically clean overnight, but I've resolved to start. One baby step at a time.

Step 1: Bathroom sink is now clean! (Actually, the other sink and both upstairs toilets are, too, but why bore you more?)

Weekend Fun

Since the painting is done, we headed to Lake Geode for some fun!

One of These is Not Like the Other

Who in this picture has a broken arm?



The girl on the left, aka Brooke, has the broken radius bone at the elbow cap. The doctor decided not to cast her, because that would limit her mobility, and she has quite a good amount of mobility for the injury she has. He also confirmed that she sprained the ligaments that basically hold her elbow together, which prevented her from dislocating it.

So, no fun stuff for about the next 5-6 weeks. :(

You've Come a Long Way, Baby

I was just going back through a FEW pictures and found a few you might enjoy....

Before....

During...

And just to prove that I actually helped a little...

After the tornado in June 2007...

And now...

From the Weekend

While most of you were tilting your head back to see the fireworks in the sky, I was too, only I was looking at the guy WAY UP THERE finishing the paint job on this monster of a house! Thank the Lord he didn't fall!

I will post some before and after pics in days to come...hopefully.

On another totally different note, Brooke will see the doctor tomorrow about her broken arm....any suggestions for colors for the cast?

Case knew it...

...but we (the parents) weren't so sure.



Until Monday or Tuesday, Brooke will have to have her arm immobilized in this sling until an orthopedic doctor determines what to do about her broken radius bone. Yes! Broken!

Our first experience with a broken bone in one of our children.

I have to admit that we really didn't think she was too hurt. Yesterday, she was playing volleyball (now known forever more as, "stupid volleyball" by Brooke), and we weren't there when she dove for the ball, scraping her knees, and as she said, "twisting" her arm. She took a long break from all the action, but by dark was riding a bike.

So, this morning, with the Urgent Care facility literally next door, we headed to see our neighbor-doctor. Got x-rayed. And the X-Ray Technician says to her, "Wow. When did this happen? Yesterday? Wow. You are a tough girl."

That's when I knew there was a broken bone involved.

Olympic Trials

I thought the Olympic Trials for swimming were held in Omaha this year. Apparently, the girls did not get the memo. (Above) They were holding the IM (Individual Medley) here in the backyard.

(Below) Do they have Syncronized Swimming in the Olympics or was that just a SNL joke? Here they are with their own version...

Our History Lesson for the Day

Today in our history "class" we read through Martin Luther King, Jr's famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Wow. I'd only heard the "dream" part. Put into context - 250,000 people marching peacefully on Washington during the height of the civil rights conflicts - the speech is truly amazing, inspiring, and brought tears to my eyes. We all applauded at the end.

We finished reading Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry a few days ago. Set in the 30's in the deep South, the injustices of racism were brought to life in this historical fiction book that was based on a true story. The story was handed down orally to the author by her father.

To read the entire speech and/or watch the UTube video (17 minutes long): click here: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Deep thoughts

For those of you viewers who like to come and see pictures of the kids, first off, thank you. It's pretty amazing to see how they change ever so slightly over the course of just one day, but even more so when days and weeks go by like a flash right under my eyes!

However, if you're looking for info on the kids today, you can probably go ahead and stop reading. Today I'm going off on one of my ramblings again...mainly so I can make sense of what I've been thinking, but also to share my thoughts. So read on if you want to take the risk of entering my mind!

As I've previously mentioned, I've been reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I'm surprised it wasn't required reading in my philosophy classes or econ classes at ISU, but then again, it'd take most of us more than 1 semester to actually read!

Anyways, Rand is basically a philosopher and has come up with a way to contexualize certain phiolosophical theories into a fictional book, which is quite good! A little wordy, but good!

So, I've been led down the philosophical path for a while, and picked up a few more books, mainly by Ravi Zacarias. Now, he's a philosopher, yes, but he'd catergorize himself more as a Christian Apologetic. I never quite understood that word, apologetic. What are you apologizing for? No, it's not that meaning at all....:)

So, I read his fictional book, The Lamb and the Fueher: Jesus Talks with Hitler. This was also a book in which certain theological questions were brought up along with certain philosophical questions that have been around for eternity:

• How can there be a God when evil exists in the world?
• Could Hitler actually go to heaven if at the last moment he repents, asks forgiveness?
• Is there heaven, is there hell?
• Why does a "good" god allow such "bad" things...i.e. the Holocaust?

So, it was a good book...fictional in nature, like I said. It leads you through a dialogue between Jesus and Hitler, and then one other character comes in about half way through, Bonhoffer - a German minister who was persecuted and killed for publicly denouncing Hitler and his ways.

The next book, Cries of the heart: bringing God near when He feels so far was also a good look at different questions most of us pose at one time or other during our lives here.

So, I'm working out certain ideas. The good vs evil argument. Nietzche is the one credited for the famous saying that God is Dead, and his argument was that there are no moral absolutes, that evil and good do not truly exist, they have only been created by man. I worked through that one. There have to be certain absolutes or there would be no order, no logic.

So, this is becoming a very long post....I've mainly brought up these ideas to work through on my own, but I truly would like to hear what others think. Or, am I the only one who ponders deep thoughts? I wonder things like, how do these philosophical arguments (good vs evil, for example) influence society? How are certain economic policies, for example, effected by what people think about people? About absolute rights and absolute wrongs? Or is everything just relative, depending on the course of cultural influences (or feelings)? If that's the case, look out.

.....deep thoughts.