Time Flies

Andrew is now 9 and Xander just turned 7.

This summer the boys have been doing Tae Kwon Do at Hawkeye Tae Kwon Do at the University of Iowa Field House.
Andrew is getting ready to test for his yellow belt next week. Xander wants to wait until December.
August 3rd we are taking a trip to Southern California for a week. Then we will be back home and the kids start school August 19th. Andrew will be in 4th grade and Xander will be in 2nd grade.

President Xander and VP Andrew at the Treehouse Museum in Ogden, UT.

The kids and I drove from Iowa City to Ogden, Utah, in June. It was a long drive and I don't think I would do it again without another driver. But, we did have a good time.

Spring Break 07

Day 1

Today we walked over from the Marriott Atlanta to the Georgia Aquarium. We were very excited to go and see the Whale Sharks. The first exhibit we went to was the whale shark exhibit. They also had a hammerhead shark. The boys really enjoyed seeing the sharks. Next we went to an exhibit that had a few touch pools. Xander got to touch a sea star. Andrew got to go down a really tall tunnel slide, but Xander was too small to climb up there. But, Xander was able to do the tunnel crawl. Xander started getting a little grumpy, he hadn't eaten much for breakfast. We'd gotten separated from Andrew and Jason, so we got some Dippin' Dots. We met up with Andrew and Jason again and the kids finished their Dippin' Dots. Then we went through the exhibit with the beluga whales, sea otters, sea lions, and penguins. After all of that it was time for lunch. Next the kids and I went through the River Scout exhibit and saw pirhanna, and asian clawed river otters, not to mention some really huge catfish. We also saw the tropical fish exhibit and saw Nemo and Dory, along with a bunch of jellyfish. Xander had some grumpiness and there was an issue with him bringing the squishy jellyfish he wanted out of the gift shop without paying for it. But, overall it was a nice trip to the aquarium :)

Tomorrow we leave Atlanta at 7AM for Orlando. We'll be seeing our friend Steve and his kids and checking into the hotel.

Big Happenings

I'm sure most people have heard by now that we are moving to Iowa City IA shortly. We've been up to a lot of other stuff, but for now I'm just writing to give an explaination of the pictures of the house that we're buying.


Here's the garage and the parking pad

Here's the driveway

This is the giant willow tree that we were surprised to learn was actually on the property and not the neighbors

This is a picture of the trees along the side of the yard

These are the trees in the backyard

Here's the corner of the house and more of the backyard

Here's the parking pad

Here's the front door and porch

This is the side of the house

Here's the back of the house

Here's another view of the back

This is the laundry room, there are also cabinets and I think a counter on the wall behind where I stood to take the picture. The laundry room is upstairs with the bedrooms.

This is the upstairs bathroom that the boys will use

This is the master bath: One sink, the other sink and tub, commode area, jetted tub, shower

Master bedroom, I kind of like those lamps on the wall

Master closet

One of the upstairs bedrooms

closet in another of the upstairs bedrooms, that's Xander

The "lookout bridge"

View from the lookout bridge down the driveway...

View from the lookout bridge toward the chandelier and top of stairs, complete with what will likely be my piano nook :)

The infamous cubbies in the mudroom

The rest of the mudroom with the window seat, complete with storage and the large reach in closet.

The pumpkin half bath

The kitchen

The pull out recycling center

The lazy susan cabinet

the pantry

The living room or family room or whatever

The screened section of the deck

The open section of the deck

The little bench or whatever at the bottom of the basement stairs

The media section of the rec room in the basement, complete with nice sconces on the wall

under stairs storage closet

Double sided fireplace in rec room

Other side of rec room

Basement bedroom, likely to be our computer room

Basement bathroom

Water-heater and manibloc plumbing

Unfinished area

The office or library or whatever on the main floor with built in bookcases

Dining room from front door, showing the shape of the room, from the kitchen looking into the dining room

The tile in the mudroom and half bath on main floor

Garage, lawnmower parking or whatever

Stub for natural gas bbq on screened part of deck

Exterior light, this one is on the back of the house, but it has similar ones on the front.

So, that's the picture tour, such as it is, sorry the exterior shots were blurry, I had a smudge on my camera lens and didn't realize it till later, but I did get it cleaned off for the interior pictures :)

Back From Tahoe

We just got back from our trip to Lake Tahoe yesterday. We drove up there from Las Vegas. It took about 9 hours. Which made for 2 long days in the car there and back. But, we all had a lot of fun while we were in Lake Tahoe. On the way up we made a short stop at Rhyolite ghost town, which was fun, and much more authentic than our trip to Virginia City later in the trip.

We stayed at the Hyatt at Incline Village. I think Incline Village was my favorite area near the lake. It wasn't nearly as touristy as a lot of the other areas. The first day we walked across the street to a private beach for Incline Village residents and $14 got us all day access. The kids had a lot of fun there. They played "Pooh Sticks" (dropping a stick on one side of a bridge and seeing whose stick is first to pass through to the other side) and climed in trees. They also had a nice playground for the kids and Xander spent a while on the beach putting his feet in the (69 degree) water. Later that afternoon we took the boys swimming at the heated pool at the hotel. They had a kids only pool that was only 18" deep, which was awesome since I forgot to throw their life jackets in the car.

We also drove around Carson City to check out that area, we didn't really stop and do much there though. On Monday we went to South Lake Tahoe. We drove over to Emerald Bay on the California side (that is where Jason's brother Jeremy is getting married next month). And, on the way to Emerald Bay we stopped and took a short hike that led us to a place where they had windows so you could see under the stream and see the trout swimming around in there. The boys really enjoyed that, but I forgot to take my camera, since we hadn't planned on doing a hike right then.
After seeing Emerald Bay we went back to South Lake Tahoe to eat lunch and ride the Heavenly ski resort Gondola. Xander was very excited when he saw the gondolas, and kept saying "Ride that?" over and over until we got on it. It was a long scary ride for someone as afraid of heights as I am, but the boys loved it. They got some souvenier stuffed animals at the midstop gift shop. (Andrew hadn't brought a stuffed animal to sleep with and it was driving him crazy not to have one, so he got a bear wearing a Heavenly hooded sweatshirt). We didnt' really get to stay at the top since there was lightning in the area and they were sending everyone back down for safety reasons. It actually rained really hard that afternoon, so we spent the afternoon checking out more of Carson City, and surrounding areas.

On Tuesday we went and did the MS Dixie II family fun cruise. It was an hour and a half and we had lunch on board the ship. That seemed to be both of the boys' favorite part of the whole trip. Xander climed up and down to every deck on the 3 deck ship a million times (at least it felt that way to me, following behind him). We went up to watch the paddle wheel turn several times. It sailed across the lake from Zephyr Cove to Emerald Bay and we got a close up look of Vikingsholm ( a viking castle styled house on the shore of Emerald Bay). By the time the cruise was over Xander was very sleepy. He napped in the car on the hour or so trip to Virginia City. I was kind of disappointed in Virginia City. I had expected that it would be touristy, but it was even more so than I thought it would be. There are a few museum type things and original buildings that you can tour, but it's mostly just tourist trap shops. I preferred Tombstone, Arizona, I think. After Virginia City, we drove up through Reno, which was much larger than I had pictured, before heading back down through Truckee to Lake Tahoe and Incline Village.

Wednesday was just our trip home. We went down through Bishop, California. Then we cut across to Nevada on Highway 168. It goes past the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest (which we didn't drive over to see). It is the most curvy and most up and down piece of road I have ever been on. I came about as close to being car sick as I get. It felt like we were on a roller coaster. In hind site, it probably wasn't the best route home, but the canyon was pretty, and it was an adventure. :)

Kicking off another week

We survived Xander's first week of school. He still tries to make me feel guilty. But, ultimately he did pretty well for his first week. He even used the potty once at school. He will always sit on it when they ask him to, and one time on Wednesday or Thursday he actually went. We've had a few more successful trips to the potty here at home this weekend too. With any luck we might be through with diapers by the end of the year. And then I can take away the binky :) I hate to put him through too much all at once. I'm trying to be more strict about only letting him have it in his bed at least.

Andrew has decided his favorite video game is Hot Wheels World Race for the Playstation 2. He's actually doing really well at it. Better than I can do on the tracks he's raced on a lot. Andrew is just getting so big, sometimes the things he says is so funny, he sounds so much older than he is sometimes.

I didn't get many constructive things done the first week with both kids in school. Hopefully this week will be better. 4 hours sounded like a lot of time. But, it's really not. By the time I drop them off and get back here 30 minutes is gone. And then lunch usually takes almost an hour, even when I eat at home. I'm sure I'll find a routine soon though. It is so weird to have a little bit of peace though.

They are getting very close to being finished with Madden PC at Jason's office, so hopefully the two week shut down is just around the corner. I know everyone at Budcat and their families are looking forward to it as much as we are.

Xander's first day of school!

Today the Drew went back to school, and it was Xander's first day of school. Andrew was very excited to get back and see his friends. He was looking forward to seeing Xander on the playground.

Xander does know how to make me feel guilty. He cried as I went to leave. But, I didn't get any calls from the school to come get him. They said he calmed down and seemed a little unsure what to do some of the time, but that he was good. He sat on the potty every time they asked him to, but nothing came out. It seemed like he ate his lunch good, there wasn't anything in his lunch box when I picked him up.

I picked Xander up first and he just wanted to leave. The assistant principal ended up getting Andrew from his class for me, Xander wouldn't go with me to get Andrew.

Andrew was sad that he didn't see Xander on the playground really today. He said he saw him once riding a bike when he was on his way to another class for science. Andrew was sad he didn't get a chance to give Xander a hug and kiss on the playground. :) It was pretty cute.

Anyway, hopefully it will go as well tomorrow as it did today :)

Happy Birthday Xander

I finally got some new pictures posted. Including pictures of Xander's 2nd birthday. I can't believe he's so big already! He got quite a bit of outdoorsy stuff for his birthday, he's such an outdoorsy kind of kid. And, I wanted him to have something do to in our backyard besides just throw rocks.

Not a whole lot has been going on since my last post. We had a pretty laid back 4th of July. We grilled on a little charcoal grill in the backyard (our built in gas grill is still broken), and the kids played in a little wading pool we picked up at Wal Mart. We did do some sparklers, and then we drove around and saw some fireworks from the car.

The boys and I took a short trip to California and mostly visited my grandparents and my uncles, although we did go to my parents for a little while. Andrew actually went home with my mom that Saturday and had a sleepover at my parent's house. He had a really great time. Then on that Sunday, Xander and I went over and picked him up. My mom drove back to Vegas with me, and then she rode home with my dad when he came over on Wednesday for Xander's birthday. While we were in California we visited a children's museum that had some real police motorcycles, a police car and an ambulance that the kids could climb around in. They really had fun doing that.

And, as I already mentioned, Xander had a lot of fun on his birthday. He seemed really happy with all of his presents and the boys played outside in the wading pool again while we grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner.

Now tomorrow is July 18th and Xander starts preschool. How crazy! I'm sure the first couple days will be a little hard on he and I both, but I know he'll love it once he adjusts. Andrew has done so well at that school.