June 19, 2012

Father's Day weekend was full of activity. Mary Ellen and Mallory were down to attend Finley's dance recital. Jim has spent many hours adding a "lift" to the back of my little Ford tractor to take grandkids for rides. Mary Ellen tried it out this weekend and it worked great. While here we always put her to work. One of her work tasks included getting the pool set up. The picture from Finley's dance recital is a little blurry but I thought it was a good one of how expressive she is in her dancing. The proud Mom and dancer are the next photo. Sunday afternoon we had a long over due family gathering of my Mom's side of the family. Of course, I forgot to take a picture. Guess we'll just have to do it again. The pool picture of Caleb and me is thanks to Mary Ellen helping us get the pool up. That picture wasn't taken until the Tuesday following the weekend when it was in the high 90s. However, the sun went in and out and with a stiff breeze we actually got cold. Caleb was shivering at one point.

June 11, 2012

Jim's first tractor ride of the season. The WMT (a sister radio station to WHO out of Cedar Rapids) sponsored this trip. It started in DeWitt then to Clinton the first day. That evening 500 tractors parked on the levy of the Mississippi river. That evening we traveled north 20 miles to have supper with Frank, Lauree and Carolyn. We had never been to Lauree's house so that was nice.

Dam to Dam, June 2, 2012

Saturday, June 2, was a beautiful day. Temps were just rigtht and it was race day for David. He ran the MetroWaste Dump run last fall. Today was his first try at a half-marathon (I think) a 20K which I think is about 13.1 miles. David was never an athlete in school. Sometimes you figure out your "loves" when you get older. He finished 194 out of what was advertised as 8,000 but some of those might have been 5K runners. He came in at 1 hour 25 min. and 59 sec. and he was hoping for under 1.5 hours, so he made that. Alicia and I met him on the route and then after he ran past us we packed up and drove downtown, found a place to park, walked to the finish line where there just happened to be a couple places for us to stand. We waited about 20 min and then he crossed the finish line. Today was also David and Alicia's 5th wedding anniversary so I label the picture at the finish line "Happy Anniversary Honey, now give me a sweaty hug". I might add that the next weeked (June 9) David ran a marathon called the Marathon to Marathon. It started in Storm Lake and ended appropriately in Marathon, Iowa. He did that race in 3 hrs. 20 minutes and was reportedly sore, but finished the race.