let's have another round!

March Madness is here!

Which means a string of birthdays

For now I will wish the first half of the month birthday revelers a happy birthday they are my Dad, Teresa, Tom, Mary and Nathaniel

For their birthday here is a cute birthday entertainment video

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKythlXAIY

The youtube video was found by Rachel V.  Sarah's friend.  Rachel sent it to Sarah and I thought it was cute to pass along for others to see.

we are starting to see more of our Buick

Stephen went to Breadeux Pizza and made pizza with his cub scout den today

we are all very tired today since we got back very very late from Mary's play last night. It was a good production and quite humorous. Mary did good.

have a good week.

posted by Randy

Happy Birthday Gabriel!

Happy belated birthday Gabriel!

I finally had the chance to see the cute little tyke for the first time at Mass today.

I hope everybody is enjoying thanksgiving day today.

Daniel and I after lunch will head down to the 80 to scope out the deer down there.

then tomorrow we will take Tom along with Crazy Daisy down to the 80 to let her run some of her energy off.

Matthew made it off on his road trip of spelunking over the holiday.  I was amazed he could actually wake up that early.

have a happy day everybody

posted by Randy

Happy Birthday to Sophia!

Thank you Sarah for catching this.
I had my dates mixed up, I was a week ahead of myself, now I have to go back and work that week I skipped.....bummer!

Happy birthday Sophia, I hope you receive lots of presents and eat a whole bunch of cake and ice cream.  Enjoy your special day and have a fun party

Posted by Randy

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Jacinta!

I hope you had a fun day filled with presents, cake and ice cream!


Posted By Randy

Happy Birthday to Stephen!

Happy Birthday to Stephen!

Yes, if you look closely that is an actual real bug inside that lollipop he is licking! (well it is dead....at least it was not moving)

Sarah got those on her Wartburg Spring band trip last spring.  She gave one to each of her brothers.  Stephen was the only brave one to try it.  So, ....did he eat the Bug?  No.  When the bug became exposed, he stopped licking the lollipop.  But he was braver than his other whimpy brothers who didn't even open the wrappers to their lollipops!

Believe it or not Sarah found those gems at the Amana Colonies.

Stephen is all excited, he did pick out his breakfast cereal, even though he does not eat cereal.  It was Apple Jacks (good choice)

for a cake he chose Chocolate

for icing it was Chocolate

for his first choice of ice cream it was Chocolate

for his second choice of ice cream it was Chocolate  (you get to choose two ice creams)

I think he likes chocolate.

We will celebrate his birthday sometime in the evening.

posted by: Randy

The usual birthday salutations and more

Happy Birthday wishes go out to

Joseph

and to

Donna

May you enjoy your special day with lots of cake and ice cream and plenty of presents

Schoolwork is getting to be the norm around here, the big goal this year is to keep them motivated about school and learning. That is the challenge we are working on

A couple weeks ago I took Philomena and Stephen to the County Conservation Center and we chased monarch butterflies and tagged them. it was a lot of fun and we did some other things at the Center while we were there.

Stephen is excited about a book he has found, it is called "Don't Touch That! the book of gross, poisonous, and downright icky plants and critters" by Jeff Day M. D. Stephen is making sure I know all that is in the book, because he is reading it to me every chance he can get. He reads a couple pages in the morning and then in the evening. We have learned everything from poison ivy to bee stings and now we into gross bugs. We are half way through the book.

Philomena is having me find Waldo, White Beard and the scroll. We have been to places where many Waldo's have been before. I sure wish Waldo, White Beard and the scroll would be a lot bigger. I do get lucky and find them first some times

Daniel is going on a weekend camp out with the scouts this weekend. They are going to a State Park and do some fishing. It should be a fun time. They are getting the food tonight for the camp out. Daniel is taking wood shop and metal shop this year. Daniel now has his school permit so he drives to school every morning to catch the van that takes the students to Garner for Shop.

I finish Class #3 of my masters program this weekend. It was about measuring outcome performance. 7 more classes to go and I will be finished.

We have not celebrated Caroline's birthday yet, or our anniversary, I am not quite sure when we will get around doing that.

Sarah is getting a cat, and I don't think she liked the suggested names I offered up for it. It is a male cat which is going to be neutered rather quickly when she gets it. So here is the big question? Does it really matter to give the cat a masculine name if it is neutered?

Mary is back at Central and finding out that she needs to slow down on the number of text messages she is sending out. She has unlimited minutes to talk, but texting seems to be the way to go. I believe she is in the Steel pans band again this year.

Matthew checks in once in a while. Now, we have received suggestion from others parents whose children also fail to phone home on a regular basis. These parents have provided us with some successful techniques they have used in the past that are very effective. I do like the idea of shutting off their phone, that one ranked high on every one's top 10 list.

We finally got some rain up here this week. We have been dry for 24 days. You had to be careful driving, because of all the oil build-up on the roads it was slick as ice when the roads were wet.

Everybody have a good weekend

Posted by Randy

College kids do not forget to call home!

Another round of Birthdays

Boy, it seems like I no sooner get one round of birthdays done another set comes flying by.

Happy belated birthday to Nicholas! Nicholas good buddy I hope you had a fun party.

Happy belated birthday to Martha H. Martha I hope your day was filled with fun times and lots of cake and ice cream!

Our trip to the boundary waters went very well. We all had fun. The weather was OK, it was mostly overcast, we had a few times where the sun would shine through, we had a couple times we were caught in the rain while paddling around.

On the second to last day we decided to move to a campsite closer to our take out point. Unfortunately we had to battle a head wind to get there. After our last portage we headed to our campsite, but the head wind was particularly strong, and we had to battle it to get to the backside of an island that had more protection to get a break from the wind. Daniel and I were paddling and it just seemed like we were paddling, but we were not getting anywhere. I looked over at Matthew's canoe and his partner, and they were paddling and their canoe was not moving even though they were paddling fast. I thought "Oh Boy! this is not good" and then it started to rain. Well the rain stopped and we finally made it behind the island where it was easier paddling. We did make it to the campsite that we wanted, so we set up camp, and we went swimming.

The next day we had a mile left to paddle to the take out point. The head wind was stronger and spitting rain again. We had to keep the canoes pointed into the wind so they did not go sideways into the wave troughs, which could cause the canoes to tip over. We made it and it was fun. The shower we took before we left for home sure felt good.

Philomena is at a week long camp at camp tanglefoot, and she will be canoeing this week!

Sarah is busy painting the inside of her house that she is renting in Sumner, IA

Hopefully Matthew will finish up his Eagle project this Thursday evening.

I had lunch with a couple of our summer officers today. One of them stated that his parents and sisters will be coming up to visit for a week and wanted suggestions on what to show them around the area.
I mentioned the tour of the Winnebago plant in Forest City, and to go see the Bill Baird puppets at the McNider Museum, the ones that were used in the "Sound of Music" musical. He looked at me and did not have a clue what I was talking about. He never heard of the Sound of Music! I then quizzed him about "The Music Man" Meredith Wilson, how that is based on Mason City, I asked him about the Bill Riley talent show? Buddy Holly, the surf ballroom? He did not know any of those people, musicals or events. Fortunately the other summer officer did know all of those things so there is some hope for remembering the classics.

I will be working the State Fair in the afternoon starting at 2:00 PM on August 20, 2009 at the DNR Building.

I have now finished two of my MPA Classes I have 8 more classes to go to get my masters degree! So far I have a 4.0 GPA!

Summer is rolling along real fast now.

take care and have a good week!

Posted by Randy

Belated Birthday wish!

Well tie me up to an ant hill and cover me with molasses!

I cannot believe I forgot to wish Lucas a Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday Lucas sorry for the oversight. I just cannot believe I did that, especially to my favorite nephew!
I hope everything went well for your birthday!

I might as well add happy birthday wishes to Jason S. and Carlon T. for their birthdays coming up on the 12th

And also to Mary H. for a happy birthday to her on Monday!

All these birthdays........ it just makes a person feel old.

We had some rain and wind the other night, but not as bad as Cedar Falls got hit.

we got a new computer, I bought a program to transfer the files, but it keep getting an error message that my old computer memory is full and it will not do it. Drat, now it is the slow painstakingly way.

Everybody have a good week

posted by Randy

Happy Anniversary wishes

Happy Anniversary to Bret and Anne. I hope they had a wonderful day enjoying their anniversary. A toast to them!

Well the 4th of July is here and gone, Philomena has been up to camp at Schoenstatt, since last Sunday. We pick her up tomorrow night. Things are pretty quiet around here without her bouncing around. I missed her wit and smiles.
My next mpa class starts on Friday, the professor has assigned a lot of reading material for us to go over and discuss. It is about business ethics.

I am slowly getting the boundary water trip organized. We leave at the end of the month. That will be a lot of fun.

Matthew will be doing his Eagle project for Boy Scouts next week, He is constructing a bat house at the outdoor classroom at the Clear Creek School in Clear Lake.

Matthew registered for college last week.

Mary is at Camp Tanglefoot working.

Stephen is enjoying riding his bike around the circle and up to the stop sign. He does like to go fast.

I enjoyed seeing some of Marie's pictures from her DC trip that she posted.

I think it is really neat the Alicia picked a college in a location that does not have snow in the winter time and she gets to play soccer! Way to go Alicia!

It will not be long before we will have 3 out of the house. I am just hoping our water bill will reflect that reduction!

We have been fortunate on the weather enjoying some cool days and nights. The A/C has not been turned on for a couple of weeks.

I hope everybody has a good week, you are all in our thoughts and prayers.

Posted by Randy

belated birthday salutations!

Another set of birthday salutations, except they are of the belated kind.

Happy belated birthday wishes to Melissa, I hope you had a nice birthday, your birthday kind of snuck up on me, I did not see it coming (notice a little short humor interjected there) :-)

Happy belated birthday wishes to Connie, Caroline's youngest sister, I believe they celebrated her birthday earlier than the scheduled brithday date.

I hope cake was eaten by all.

I have been looking through all of my records and for some reason I am having some difficulty trying to find their true ages for these birthday girls?

Now that June is almost behind me and my training is just about winding down I need to begin preparing for the boundary water's trip at the end of July! That will be fun since I missed the St Criox canoe trip this year.

We have the A/C on which makes the house nice. Daniel helped me clean the central air unit again this year. The outside coils and fins of the unit gets dirty and by cleaning them every year it lengthens the the life span of the compressor and A/C unit.

Stephen got his upper braces on today, he chose green for his color of his bands. He is slowly learning how to ride his bike.

that is all for now

Posted by Randy

sneaking a last birthday wish in before the day is over

I had to sneak in a last Happy Birthday wish to Megan, whose birthday is today.

Happy Birthday Megan, I hope you had a real fun day and had lots of candles to blow out!

Cub Scout camp went well it only rained on Friday, Saturday and Sunday were great with cool nights for sleeping and no mosquito problems

Best quote at camp from an 8 year old from our group. "Dad, I don't want to wear the poncho. A poncho is just a dress with a hood on it"

For some reason wearing a poncho is not cool even after pointing out all the other people wearing ponchos. We even saw an Iowa Hawkeye poncho!

Happy Birthday Megan!

Have a good week

Posted by Randy S.

Am I a space cadet? or what?

Boy! Sometimes I just do not know what is happening to me.

I just looked at the calendar and I just now realized I posted Robert's birthday wishes a week early. So Robert a pre-happy birthday again for Monday. I am probably safe, I heard no comments about the mess-up, so nobody caught the error.

somehow last Thursday May 7, 2009 was not even on my radar screen.

Happy belated Birthday wishes to Grace Annie! If you have any cake left over you can throw it in my face for being so late with the birthday wishes. Since I am not there to receive it, your dad can be my proxy. I hope you had a fun birthday party, and please send pictures, particularly the one of your dad with cake in his face on my behalf!

Claire! Happy birthday today! I hope today is special for you and you bask in the singing and merriment! I heard your dad was going to buy you a car! Or was that Andrew? Or do I have the right family? At least I thought someone said car?

The birthdays just keep rolling in. Happy Birthday!

I picked some Asparagus yesterday from our back yard garden (which consists of rhubarb and Asparagus), I cooked it up in garlic and butter, Philomena and I ate it all. It was good,..... it was very good.

Caroline took Stephen and Philomena down to Pella to the Tulip festival today, to attend Mary's concert this evening. Caroline is bring a load of Mary's stuff back tonight also

Sarah is visiting friends and Luke at Bethel this weekend.

Posted by Randy

Birthday Salutations all around!

Well it seems like it is another birthday today, except this time this birthday is not originating from my side of the family tree.

Happy Birthday to Robert!

I heard your dad say he was going to buy you a new car for your birthday! I hope you like it!

At least I thought he said car?

Since Robert's passion is animals I thought it would be fitting to have an icon with animals in them.

have a wonderful day Robert enjoy your birthday and I hope everyone you meet today wishes you the same.

Posted by Randy

Happy Birthday Back-To-Back Salutations

Happy Birthday Michael!

If I was there to help celebrate your birthday I would probably take you out for ice cream!

Maybe your mom and dad can do it on my behalf. Hey! Its your birthday, might as well take the whole family to share in the celebration! May I recommend odering a banana split.

Blow out a candle for me, OK?

So, if you see or call Michael today be sure to wish him a happy birthday!

Have an enjoyable day and do not forget to get measured every year!

Posted by Randy

Birthday Salutations

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNA!

If you happen to see Anna out and around wish her a Happy birthday!

We hope your special day is a fun one.

posted by Randy

Birthday Salutation!

A Birthday salutation to my Nephew Mathias!

May all your presents be tax exempt!

posted by Randy