Just A Little Goofiness...

Caleb hamming it up with swim googles on  in the house.

Dad and Robby on a rare Wednesday night, home alone, and getting ready to resume our roles as Chef Chef and Chef Jeff.

Iowa City for the 197th Time.

Caleb had his annual cleft clinic check-up in Iowa City a week ago.  He does SOOOOOO much better with these appointments now than he did 4 - 5 years ago, but he still gets crazy nervous about them.

This time was no different.  Crazy nervous boy!

This was in the waiting room after getting checked in.  That is his get-yer-freakin-phone-out-of-my-nervous-face look and semi-smile.

No relaxing to be seen here!  We're waiting for the doctor who did a few of his surgeries to come in and talk with us.

Milk Chocolate Swim Hole

The boys are at a sleepover with some friends. 

When this happens, they typically end up in the creek.  LOL.  Last night was no different.

The hound wants in on this action!

How High's the Water, Mama? Part II

Back on June 28th, I published a post titled, How High's the Water, Mama, obviously a take on the old Johnny Cash song.  We had had some wicked rains at that point with some flooding, but it had been somewhat dry before that, so nothing too bad.

Later in that same week, we had some more heavy rains but this time, we got more rain than the first go-around and it happened over a slightly longer period of time.  However, the ground was already saturated from previous rains, so the flooding was much worse.

This is our creek that goes thru the front yard.   It's hard to tell in the photo, but the grasses and weeds are laid nearly flat from the impact of the water.

That clump of "crap" in the lower left of the picture is where the water level was at, so it clearly was high enough to go over the driveway!  That has only happened once before in the 13 years we've lived here.

A slightly better shot of the weeds and grass being laid over.

And worst of all, this is a road that I used to take to work!  It's back open now, but it smells crazy bad driving thru there!  And, there's still water that's standing and can't soak in.  So if we were to get another round of heavier rain, it would be flooded again.

Mad Max Beyond Birthdaydome!

Another birthday party has come and gone! 

This time it was the Max of the Max and Jack fame!

The kiddos and someone else...  I think...

Robby, Birthday Boy Max and Caleb!

Summer Games 2018

So the older lad went off to another camp this week. It was called Summer Games and held on the Grinnell College campus. He returned yesterday and we were happy to have him home.

Just like after Riverside Lutheran Bible Camp, it's exciting to see them come home, telling their crazy stories from the week away and best of all, ON FIRE FOR JESUS CHRIST!!

To celebrate, we played the longest game of P.I.G. (basketball) ever and he had a song he wanted to help him learn on guitar.  

I smile!

Robby and his huddle 15 mates!  It took me a minute to find the lad.  He's in the upper-left quadrant with a big smile on his face as it appears that him and young man in the blue shirt may have been jacking around.

Road Trip, Part 4: Rockford Fossil and Prairie Park Reserve

I have posted about this place before as we seem to like to visit it about every other year.  It is just West of Rockford Iowa which is about a 2 hour trek from Des Moines.

We figured with all of the recent heavy rains that Iowa has experienced, it would wash away some of the "fill" and reveal some excellent fossils.

I don't know that it revealed more than it ever had in the past, but we found quite a few on a visit that was a bit more hasty than some others when we were there.

And truly, it didn't matter as we all had fun, got stoopid sweaty and did some good hiking/crawling/climbing.

This is the parking lot, looking South.  That's our fancy 2005 mini-van at the right with Rob, Caleb and the ghastly beast, Juno just to the right of the center of the picture.  I made the comment that the boys don't understand time and they're going to be hungry and wanting to stop on the way home to have supper, but that AIN'T going to happen.  Everything happened including stopping at a rest stop that had Arby's and Godfathers so I was more right that I wanted to be...

This is at the top of the old quarry where we are  now preparing to hike down any one of the ravines.

I chose this ravine after taking a few pictures.  It was tranquil, peaceful, rocky,  and mostly un-ankle-breaking.

Mama, Robby, Caleb and Juno chose this ravine.  I won!

Once everybody is at the bottom and has most of the skin they started out with,  you can really take your time and focus in on specific areas.  That's not what we're doing here... 

That's Caleb in the yellow shirt 3/4 the way up that slope.

A cool picture of a dragonfly that almost looks like a fossil because of the transparency of the wings.

A couple of wide shots of the main basin.

 

Mom getting ready to climb up to where the boys are.  I think she's displaying some serious confidence!

Everybody is back at the top and headed for the trail to the old brick kilns.

Finally, the old kilns.  They've cleaned this up a bit since the last time we were here and they're tying the park in with a bike path and a new parking area at the bottom where you can start here and hike you way backwards from where we just came.

Caleb has been washing/rinsing the fossils. 

A shot of a few of the "things" we caught.

If you have younger kiddos, I would recommend spending a day driving and exploring this!  It's been something the kids have enjoyed every time we've gone there and I'm pretty sure that we'll get at least one more enthusiastic visit before they get "too old".

Holy Guacomole!

I believe this photo is from 2015 when Shauna and Dan Whitaker (sp???  sorry) came over to visit friends in the Des Moines area, with Ms. Molly Bushman included, and they took the kiddos to Adventureland.  Look at the tiny sizes of these little critters!!!

Road Trip, Part 3: Malanaphy Springs (& Vesterheim)

As with any adventure, a person needs some sustenance, especially if you would happen to be one of the critters who seems to grow a little bit every time you turn around.

So we've heard of a pizza place called Mabe's Pizza and decided to have our lunch there.  We ordered, the kids played Tic Tac Toe, which is customary for us in restaurants, and we waited.  The pizza finally comes out and as the waitress is about to set it on the table, she realizes that the chef has made it wrong.  She said this one is free and asked if we'd like another pizza, but the correct one this time.  So we got a small of the correct pizza and they made things right.

The good news is that we had enough leftovers for a few snacks that night and another few pieces left over for the next days lunch as well.  Very good pizza!!

On our way to Mabe's, we drove by the Vesterheim Museum and Caleb got excited, so we figured we were less than a mile away, lets hit it up before we move on to other stuff.

It's a cool little place to visit and to see how people lived in the not-so-distant-past.

We took virtually no pictures except in the "boat room" where they had the real boat that two brothers came to the U.S. in from Norway and they had sample bunks to see how tight the quarters were on the boat.  Those pictures are our only proof that we were there.

Robby crawling into the bunk to give it a try.

Families had to share these things!!!  Rob got stuck trying to crawl back out of it, which was humorous...

After the Vesterheim, we drove out to the outskirts of Decorah to visit Toppling Goliath Brewery.  I wanted to see the place and had hoped that they would have taproom only beers that we couldn't get in Des Moines.  They had only one, Dragon Fandango, which was a sour beer.  It was decent and we just had a little sample that Mama and I split.  They didn't have them canned or even bombers of it, so you would have had to get a Growler...   So a bit of a bust.

Then we drove to Pulpit Rock Brewing Co. and there was no parking to be had.  I work for money to buy beer and I do not want to have to work for the beer once I get there, so we didn't even stop.  Big bust as I was really looking forward to bringing some of their stuff home.

So on we went to our final destination; Malanaphy Springs. We drove by Luther College so the kids could see it and eventually made it to the springs after a google maps error.

Caleb on the rocks.

Not one to be outdone, Robby staking his claim to the Springs.

Caleb is generally a pretty happy boy, but put him out hiking and the kid is in heaven!  His only problem is that he gets going a bit too fast occasionally.

They must have had recent storms come thru the area because the ground was still wet and there were many trees that had fallen, with a good number of them blocking the trails.  Between muddy ground and makeshift trails, it got really dicey at times.  It's hard to see, but Mom is crawling over a tree trunk directly behind Rob.

Exhibit B.

But we made it and it was worth it, even if we had seen waterfalls just a few hours earlier.

A non-confirmed Sasquatch sighting!

Can you spot the critters?  They're on the right side of the pic crawling out into the falls.

And they made it successfully!

That's momma down where a false step can send you on the fast track down to the river!  Don't believe me?  See the next pic...

Told ya...

I hiked up a bit further to see the origin of the falls.  There wasn't much of a path left due to recent rains, so I didn't go any further even tho there was evidence that other folks had.

Proof of the dicey-ness we found ourselves in.  Mom's hind-quarters after a nasty spill.  Notice the mud on her jeans and on her right arm.  Dang fallen trees and corresponding paths were tricky...

I left this pic small because it's disgusting.  The day before we left home, I was out playing with the hound-dog, Juno and mis-stepped on a landscaping stone and peeled skin back (and off!) of the bottom of my foot.  I had dressed it with a band-aid and wrapped it so it couldn't come off, but that sucker was SORE by the time we were finished!!

So back on the road we were, heading back to Crystal Lake and driving into the sun.  It was a great day and I think we all enjoyed ourselves!