Vacation report: part 2 of several

....vacation brain, detached from time
Saturday, July 3rd, was a beautiful sunny day for the 4th of July Parade in my hometown of Charles City... (more on that later)…. And Sunday was a nice rainy day of showers. This changed the morning canoe plans, after I had gotten out of bed at 5:00AM and lathered on sunscreen and bug spray…. The rain started at 5:30AM, just when I was to be picked up by Steve and Vanni.


So Sunday, actually turned out to be a nice relaxing-napping day prior to our 4th of July traditional dinner that evening, which had to be moved inside, due to the rain….. and the fireworks were canceled for that evening.

But our dinner was a nice gathering of family and friends. Nothing too fancy for us.... just a bit "festive".... Yes, it was me who put up the Red, White & Blue Peace decorations on the light.





Since my niece Sarah was not able to make it to Iowa this year for the 4th (taking summer college class), her traditional honor of "Flag Cake making"... had to be handed over to Karin, and Karin did a splendid job.



Friends: the other Judy, Myrna, the other John, Vanni, Steve.
(missing: Qaqsu visiting from Alaska)



Since the Fireworks were canceled, we were able to enjoy "game night" on Sunday after dinner. The big winners this year, Greg and Michael.



PS: Sarah is to fly into Iowa this week, so I believe she will want to make the flag cake herself, and my talk Papa into making more homemade ice cream for her visit.

Vacation report: part I of several

7-09-10 vacation brain
I’ve completed week one of my two week vacation… not everything went as expected, but I suppose the good news is that I did achieve relaxation and rest, in spite of some drama…. Which I’ll report on eventually.

First the drive up to my hometown last Friday didn’t go well. We headed off at 2:30 PM in the afternoon and expected to arrive by 5:00PM in time for dinner. North of Story City, on Interstate 35, after traveling for 45 minutes, the traffic came to a dead stop. There we sat for about 30 minutes and my Mini Cooper began to overheat. People were getting out of their cars, and there was word that there had been an accident. We had just passed an exit and the next exit was 4 miles ahead…. No one was moving, so the accident must have been between us and the next exit.

Greg said we needed to return to Des Moines to switch cars, since he had gotten out and opened the hood of my Mini and found the radiator fan was not working. The car was cooling as long as we were moving, but overheating while stopped. Oh yes, I need to mention we were behind a truck with some pigs.... luckily the wind was coming from the south and thus the smell for us was not too bad as for the people ahead of the truck.



Eventually, we were able to move into the inner lane and did an illegal crossing of the Interstate median where the ditch was not too deep. Back to Des Moines at 5:00PM… we decided just to eat in Des Moines, since we found out the Interstate had been closed.

After dinner out, we started off again via a different route…. Marshalltown diagonal road, and enjoyed the beautiful country scenery. We arrived safe about 9:00PM.... and Greg was taking pictures as the sun set over the wind turbines, close to my hometown.

Sunflowers

7-7-10 vacation brain
I have some volunteer sunflowers in the Des Moines yard this summer. Not hard to do, since I was feeding the squirrels regularly this winter with piles of sunflower seeds.

I was amazed at the blooming process: these pictures just span 4 days last week!




OK.... I am on vacation..... and vacation time away from the computer begins NOW! Give me a few days and I'll be back.

Dead trees

7-6-10 sad brain
I have not seen it yet in person, but our KC house had some needed tree work done the first part of July.

I love trees, but boy... they can get to be expensive when you have to have them removed.... of course this opens up new possibilities for replace and new landscaping ideas!

Before

After


I will miss that old rotting apple tree by the front door. We did eat some of the apples last year.

More time with "art"

7-5-10 creative brain
I feel lucky to have had some time to spend on creating some new art over the last few weeks... well I have MADE the time.

Currently working on a project for neighbor friend Sue. She wanted something to match her new living room rug. I'm still having fun playing around with pixel pieces of paper. Here is my laid out work, not glued down yet.

Happy 4th of July

When my niece Sarah was in middle school she had to write an essay on her favorite holiday. She wrote about 4th of July in Iowa because of the fun family time together without the hassle of buying presents. This surprised me a bit, since Sarah loves getting presents.... but she is correct we do have a great 4th of July tradition going in my family for several decades now: Picnic, parade, 4th of July dinner, fireworks, canoeing, board game playing, swimming... just to name a few things we usually do together. ALSO we honor Dad for his Marine service in WWII. Every once in awhile hear some of Dad's gruesome war stories.... we feel blessed that he was not killed.



Proud to be a "peace-loving" American!

4th of July Weekend

7-3-10 humidity brain
4th of July weekend is usually very hot in Iowa, however I do remember one time back in the mid 1990's when it turned very cool, and we were not prepared to be wearing sweatsuits, jackets and bluejeans.... instead of shorts and sleeveless shirts.

After enjoying several days of temps in the 70's and low 80's.... and glad not to run the A/C..... This weekend is predicted to be hot again... so to remind myself NOT to complaint about this, I am posting these pictures from 6 months ago.
Compare and contrast!



Our front tree is missing of course... now the light pole is visible. I think I need a new smaller ornamental tree to hide that from the front door view.

Backyard....



Which would you choose?