Washington School Field Day

Every year, Washington Elementary has what they call "Field Day". Most elementary schools in Sioux City don't have access to a track without transporting kids by bus, etc. so they make up their own version of a track and field day! I had the day off, so I was able to go up and watch and enjoy the events! They started off with "volleyball". The classes were split into two teams and given blankets. Instead of a volleyball, they were given water balloons! The object was for one team to place the water balloon in the blanket then "flip" it over the net and the other team needed to catch it -- if not, then they were getting wet!! Next was "hockey" -- with a potato! The kids had to hit a potato across the playground, around a cone, and back to the starting line. There was not much left of the potato after this round! Then came soccer -- each child got one kick to try to score the soccer ball in the goal... way harder than it sounded! After this was the "torch relay races" where each team was given a toilet plunger and a small ball. They had to put the ball in the plunger and carry it like a torch while racing against three other teams! The first team to get all their players through the race was the winner! If your ball fell out of your torch, you had to go back to the line and start over!! They also tossed water balloons back and forth to each other, raced through an obstacle course with and egg on a spoon, and then finished off with races and tug-of-war!! Pictures of some of these events are posted below:

The Water Race:

The Water Race (again!):

The Egg on a Spoon Race:

The Water Balloon Toss:

The 3rd Grade girls racing:

3rd Grade girls Tug-of-War (they won, too!!):

Track and Field 2009

Zach decided to join the track team for the first time this year! He mostly did field events (shotput) and towards the end of the season, they had him doing shotput, discus, and even running races once in a while! He's not very good at the discus thing, but his best shotput throw is 39'7"... most of the other freshman are throwing under 30', so Zach is doing quite well. East High had a track invite two days before the Drake Relays in Des Moines. To let their runners "rest up" before going there, the coaches decided to let the other kids run these races! Zach and three other boys from the shotput team got to run the 4X100 relay -- and they came in third!! Not bad for four boys with no training! I posted a couple pics of Zach from a track meet:

One More Cat...

Came to work on Monday and there was a note from the ServiceMaster cleaning people. Apparently there was a baby kitten running around the place when they got there to clean!! One of the cleaning people took the kitten home with them, so we didn't get any more details than that! That brings the kitten total to four!! (and Mommy makes five!)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers everywhere! Hope your day was a grand one!!

For Mother's Day, I got to wake up at 6:00am and be on the road to Ames by 7:00am! Mom, Jenny, and I didn't have any "definite" plans for this day, so Derek wanted us to come to Ames and eat at his restaurant. I was up for this idea since I have never eaten there before -- drank there before, but have not eaten there! The name of the restaurant is Aunt Maude's and it is located on Main Street. Derek has worked there for almost as long as he has been living in Ames. Aunt Maude's usually isn't open on Sundays, but they do have a brunch menu for some holidays. The Mother's Day Brunch menu did not disappoint... omelettes, french toast, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, steak burgers... I had the Denver omelette with hashbrowns and it was out of this world! I couldn't even eat it all!! After eating, the nine of us piled into two cars and went to check out the mall -- pretty much has a lot of the same stores that Sioux City has in their mall. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing at Derek's just watching TV, visiting, and playing cards. Since most of us had a 3+ hour drive home, we decided to leave just before 5:00pm to get home at a decent time since it was a "school night". Oh, I almost forgot... Mom drove herself to Ames today!!! This was her first time driving on an interstate in 70 mph traffic! She did just fine! We are very proud of her!!! Mom followed us home and we stopped in Webster City at McDonald's for supper. Brianna was riding in Mom's car with her so she could have some company on the drive, so Mom had to stop again in Rockwell City so Brianna could get back in our car, since Mom was turning north and we were going to continue heading west. We got home about 8:30pm -- Brianna and I went straight to bed! The long drive there and back in one day must have worn us out!! All in all, it was a great Mother's Day!

Outside Yard Work

Finally... a free weekend with no games and some sunshine and warm air! No better way to get in the mood to do a little yard cleaning! CJ mowed and cut down weeds and planted some grass seed on some bare spots in the yard. Brianna and I sprayed the deck down with some deck wash and rinsed it off with water -- looks brand new!! After this, CJ and Brianna decided to wash the car, then Zach and Brianna ended up filling water balloons and chasing each other with them! Fun times!! We still need to spray a sealer on the deck, but are waiting for a day when we have time and there is no rain in the forecast. So far, that hasn't happened yet!!

Cats In The Workplace??

For the past few days, we have been going crazy at work! We keep hearing this noise that sounds like a shrill "beeping" or something -- it was hard to determine where it was coming from with all the machines that run and make loud noises. We had maintenance over trying to locate the problem. They checked the defibrillator hanging on the wall -- not that. Checked the batteries in the doorbell -- not that. The only other logical explanation was that maybe some back-up generator or something on the server was going out. Upon checking around the server, maintenance found... a tiny kitten!! Nothing "logical" about that at all! After many conversations, it was determined that since the server is located next to the back door, the kitten must have gotten in when someone had the back door propped open and didn't see it come through. This kitten was a really light orange/tan/white color -- and so cute!! There is a vetinarian next door, so maintenance took the kitten over to be checked out. He came back with a clean bill of health. The vet determined that it was a boy and looked to be about 5-6 weeks old. Sara, one of the girls I work with, decided she would take the kitten home. So we had a nice home for him and all is well that ends well... right?!

The next morning, Sara and I arrive for work and as soon as we walk into the entryway we can hear kitten cries. I asked her if she brought the kitten back to work with her... no such luck. We were hearing another kitten! We searched all over the place back where we were hearing the cries, but couldn't find anything. The only other place we could think was that it had to be in the wall. Sure enough, when you place your ear up to the wall, you could hear it scratching in there. We called maintenance again and they came over. Since we have a "false" ceiling, they decided to lift one of the tiles and see if there were any openings to be able to see in the wall. Once they got into the ceiling and shined the flashlight, they came face to face with a larger cat -- presumably the mommy cat! She took off down the ceiling where there was no catching her ( mind you, we have a very large space -- lots of darkness up there for her to hide.) Maintenance called the owner of the building, who then called animal control... six men had to converge onto our department to figure out the best way to get that cat out. They finally decided to set a trap with cat food up in the ceiling and hope that the mommy goes into it. When these gentleman were setting the trap up there, they saw another tiny kitten running around up there! They kept popping up ceiling tiles all over the place until they caught it! This kitten was gray colored, and after a trip to the vet, it was determined it was a girl! Sara decided to take this kitten home also, since it was a litter mate to the other kitten from yesterday. Later in the afternoon, maintenance came back to check the trap. Mommy was in there -- with another baby! Mommy was a gray striped tabby cat and the baby was gray like the second one! A trip to the vet let us find out that Mommy was way too wild to be taken home -- she hissed and spit and clawed at anyone and anything that came close. Didn't get a picture of her! The kitten was a boy. Sara was not going to take another cat, so another girl took the kitten out to her mom's farm to live with about eleven other cats... Mommy was taken far away and dropped off by a farm by one of our maintenance men. No one would let them take them to the pound... we all know what happens to animals there! We did not hear any more noises, so we hope this problem is solved! They never were able to figure out how the mommy cat got into the ceiling in the first place, though...

Zach and Spring Baseball

I apologize for not posting more about Spring Baseball, but there really wasn't anything to post! These games were more like scrimmages and I missed most of them because they were played when Brianna had events going on at the same time...

East High had three teams for the spring league. They played two games each weekend for a total of eight games. Scores were not officially kept, so I couldn't even tell you how many wins and losses they had. Zach's final spring game was May 3rd... and he hit a home run!!! YEAH!!!! The picture posted below is his homerun hit!

Girl Scout Event

On Saturday, April 18th, Brianna and her brownie troop got to go swimming at the new YMCA! Three hours of non-stop fun!! The pool has a wading area with sprinklers and fountains and small slides. At the other end of the pool it is a little deeper (about 3 1/2 feet) and there are bigger slides. Next to this is another pool, which is called the lap pool. It is 7 foot deep and has lanes for swimming laps and at one end is a basketball hoop to play water basketball! The girls never ran out of fun things to do! The only downfall of the evening came about a half hour before the party was over -- one little girl got sick and was vomiting in the lap pool!! So everyone had to get out and spend the last 30 minutes in the other pool with the slides! Check out the pics! I apologize if some are blurry -- some were taken with my camera and the blurry ones come from my cell phone!!

Looking For A Newer Model...

I am looking for another CJ just like the one I already have, but in a newer model... does anyone know where I can find one?? The one I have seems to be falling apart on me!!


Most everyone knows about his ulcer troubles last fall... I posted about it in the blog. Well, that seems to be doing fine, but his knee decides to give him some trouble over Easter weekend. He got up Easter morning and his knee was sore. CJ does tend to get some fluid build-up around the knee every once in a while (due to basketball injury when he was younger) so when this happens he usually wears a knee brace and stays off of it and the next day it feels better. So, Easter was spent at Mom's house and he wore the knee brace and sat around a lot, staying off the knee as much as possible. The next morning when he got up for work, it was still sore, so he wore the knee brace to work. By the time he got home from work in the afternoon, his knee hurt so bad that he could hardly walk! He kept me up most of that night because he was in pain and nothing he was taking was working. Tuesday was my day off, so CJ stayed home from work and I took him to the doctor. His doctor wanted to take some x-rays and said he probably tore his ligament around his knee -- just great. However, when the doctor came back with the x-rays, he showed CJ what the problem was. Apparently, at some point in CJ's life, he must have smacked his knee into something really hard and chipped a piece of bone off the fibula (the bone in your leg below the knee) and it is floating around in the knee area. This little piece of bone fragment is now currently lodged in CJ's joint between his fibula and tibia (bone in the leg above the knee). This is what is causing all the pain and swelling on his knee! The doctor then made an appointment with an orthopedic specialist to determine what course of action should be taken. The appointment with the specialist wasn't for another two weeks, so CJ came home and kept his leg propped up and hoped and prayed for that bone chip to move!! He missed work on Wednesday, but the knee was starting to feel better by Thursday, so he went to work then. When it came time for the appointment with the specialist, his knee was feeling just fine. The specialist took more of his own x-rays and told CJ that if his knee was feeling fine now, he couldn't just say that he needed surgery to remove it. Since this is the first time it actually hurt like this, he wants CJ to wait and see... if it starts happening more frequently or hurting worse, then he needs to consider surgery to have that bone chip removed. I am hoping we can put it off as long as possible... guess we'll see.

Two days after the specialist appointment, CJ started to complain about his right elbow... I told him he has met his "quota" of doctor visits for the year! See why I need a newer model?!

Happy Easter!!

We hope all our friends and family reading this blog had a very enjoyable Easter!

Brianna especially enjoyed this holiday because she got something from the Easter Bunny that she has been wanting for almost two years!! A HAMSTER!!!! (I'm gonna need to have a talk with that Easter Bunny...)

Our Easter started out like it always does every year -- the Easter Bunny hides Easter eggs all over inside and out (weather permitting) and the kids have to find them. Inside each egg is a clue that leads them to the next egg, then finally to their gift!! After about a half hour of running up and down stairs, inside and outside, etc. the kids got a clue that led them to the shower. Imagine Brianna's shocked face when she pulled the shower curtain back expecting to see another Easter egg and clue, but instead their was a hamster cage -- with a hamster already in it!! Let me tell you... she was the happiest girl in the universe!! (after she got over the initial shock!) Immediately, she named him Max and wanted to go to PetSmart to buy him toys and treats! Zach's Easter present was in the shower too -- an XBox 360 game that just came out that he had been wanting. He was pretty happy too! Maybe not as happy as Brianna, but pretty close!

Once we could pry Brianna away from Max and his cage, we headed out to Laurens for Easter dinner at Mom's. My sister and her family were also there, along with Aunt Barb and her family and Uncle Bill. Dinner was fantastic as always and the day went by way too quickly. The kids didn't have school the next day, but CJ and I had to work so we headed home after supper. It is always great to see family during holidays!!

Here are some pics of Brianna's hamster: