Monday, September 29, 2008

Happy Belated Birthday, Mary!!! 9/28

This is (John's aunt) Mary's cabin in Lake View, Iowa, where she lives across the road from Black Hawk Lake. We were there (including Izaac) on Friday, 9/19, to go boating on a bigger lake (than in Jewell) and John installed a new screen door on the house.

It was a warm, sunny day, but a little breezy. Mary, Izaac and I went boating for a couple of hours, avoiding splashing water (from the wind) when possible!



That's John's sister's cabin in the left side of the picture (Ann Smalley, who lives in Apple Valley, MN).

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Izaac's toys?

Here's Izaac inspecting the boat after John got it backed into our garage.



Even though we have a small bucket of toys for Izaac at our house, including a little ride-on thing, he invariably plays with some interesting things he finds around our 'camp'!

This is a 22-second video of him dragging two empty cat-litter containers on the driveway. It did make some good percussion noises!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

It was a VERY good week!

Besides the fact that the Cubs won the NL Central Division on Saturday, it was a fun week of boating. Tuesday at Little Wall Lake, Friday in Lake View (IA) in Black Hawk Lake with (Aunt) Mary and Izaac (while John put a new screen door on Mary's cabin) and back to Little Wall Lake (in Jewell) for Saturday and Sunday.

Samantha and her 'significant other', Marty (shown in the photo 'tubing'), joined us on Saturday afternoon, as did my friend, Kim. Saturday, we grilled some hot dogs and hamburgers and Izaac's Aunt Michelle (with friend B.J.) came up to retrieve Izaac.



On Sunday, we went to Little Wall Lake again, but it was much windier and not quite as pleasant for boating as the other days. Kim and her hubby, Ron, joined us (John, me, Samantha and Marty) for an afternoon of being splashed! It was still fun.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Izaac in the boat, etc.


That's Miss Noel inspecting the boat in our garage when we got home the other day. I'm not sure whether she approves yet or not, since she didn't choose it for a nap destination.


Even though his hair is wild, I think Izaac had fun on his first boat ride (sitting on Uncle Johnny's lap here). He seemed to really relax and almost went to sleep listening to the motor. (One of my brother's sons went to sleep as soon as we were riding the boat as a youngster--was it Ben or Joe? Maybe both at different times.)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Boating on Little Wall Lake


This is Alex (our son) and Izaac (our great-nephew) driving Grandpa Markey's boat on Little Wall Lake yesterday. The weather was spectacularly PERFECT (not too hot or cold or windy like some days in the past when we've gone).

This is our first boating outing of the summer, because of the floods in Des Moines and then the boat was having some problems with 'missing' (whatever that is). So (my) dad bought a couple of new parts and put them on (apparently saying some bad words about the motor design during the repairs) and it worked!

(the water in the Des Moines river is down due to construction of a new pedestrian bridge.)

This is a 17-second video of Grandpa Markey driving his own boat on Little Wall Lake.


Monday, September 15, 2008

WE BELIEVE!!!! GO CUBS!!!!!

GO CUBS!!!!!
Carlos Zambrano pitched a NO-HITTER against the Houston Astros in Milwaukee (due to the hurricane) last night.

There is a great picture here and article in the LA Times. (I didn't copy the picture because I don't think it's legal...)

Also, the Cubs site here (and it's only 4:32!). COOL!!!!!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Happy Birthday Shirl!


This is a picture of my younger (not by THAT much) sister with her grandson, Izaac at a softball game/outing in July for Shirley's office. One of Shirl's coworkers made this shirt for Izaac and had a matching shirt made for her son, Henry.

I hope dieting doesn't interfere with your slice of birthday cake today!

Three's a crowd!


Poor Bogart. This is usually his chair for napping, but Lucy just wanted to relax and snuggle. Then Gracie thought it looked rather inviting, but there just wasn't room!

This is a 20-second video of them on Monday, 9/8/08. Sounds like I didn't get the soap opera (television) turned off after the noon news (in the background I hear a woman talking and I think it's Sami Brady).

Soybean Puzzle?


It's September, and the color of the landscape around here changes fast. This is a soybean field near our house (that grove of trees on the right side of the picture is where we live) and the field seems to be striped.

The stripes run in sets of which direction the planter was driving (north or south in this field mostly, north to the right in the picture). One strip is yellow while the beans planted going the other direction haven't started to turn yet. I'm not a farm expert, but I don't remember a soybean field turning in 'stripes' like this before this year. It's been a strange one for wet weather here, so maybe that has something to do with it. Other fields we've driven by are mostly turning yellow in patches, not rows, like this one.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Gloomy Sunday 9/7/08



These pictures were taken on Sunday (9/7/08) at Little Wall Lake near Jewell, Iowa. You can tell school is back in session here, because there were hardly any boats, let alone campers or kids on the playground, etc. It was an overcast day, but not too cold, so it would not have been unbearable on the water or at the park.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Happy 21st Birthday Claire Smalley!


This picture of my niece, Claire, (on the left) with cousins Will Newby and Samantha Walker--((my daughter)) is from the Chicago wedding of Patrick (John's cousin) and Hannah, 8/4/07.

Claire is a college coed attending DePaul in Chicago. She's going to make movies (she's made a few already) when she graduates. She grew up in Minnesota, and now one of her MN. cousins, Will Newby, has joined her at DePaul. This is Will's second year and he studies computer networking, etc.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Our house, chaotic? NO, never!!!


My hostas are blooming (again) but the Sedum has NEVER bloomed at this house. It only stays green. I'm not sure why not, but it's disappointing, enough to inspire me to plant something new in its place.

Last Thursday was a little wild, too. John's mom's washer died, so I called on a Maytag set washer/dryer in Ft. Dodge (via KQRADIO's Trading Post Show--I LOVE it!!). We went to Ft. Dodge and found the house okay (the appliances were upstairs, of course, and a twisting staircase in the way!). John and the seller loaded the appliances onto the 'little red truck' while I watched two little girls in the apartment.

Off to Sac City to have lunch (from the HUB---YUMMY!) and John put the washer into the basement of Grandma Jean's house.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Friday feline day


Wednesday was wild!

At 9am the handy-man contractor came and looked under the Prairie Room to see all the insulation fallen from under the floor. The problem is there is only a small-ish window for access.

Then he looked at the outlet upstairs and thought he could make it work, but after switching a new breaker and outlet it still didn't. He'll send the expert next week.

At noon I spoke to a group of recently-diagnosed Cancer patients in Ames at the Bliss Clinic. The nurse (who I had for 80% of chemo treatments) who asked me was there. I asked her (before I accepted the challenge) if she wanted me to tell the whole hellish truth, and she said I could say ANYTHING I wanted. It was interesting, and a little nerve-wracking (I hate to speak in public) but think I did okay.

Then, on to the shopping tasks at hand and the first Handbell Choir practice of the school year! Yikes.

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