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

father's day blog

Happy Father's day to all the Dad's out there.

I had to work so that was my enjoyment for the day.

Sarah grilled brats for Supper, those were good

Right now Sarah is at Mason City playing in the municipal band, and Matthew, Daniel, Philomena and Mary are at a movie, so it is just myself, Caroline and Stephen at home.

I am enjoying the peace and quietness of the house, just the hummmmmm of the central A/C.

Another 2 days of training in Des Moines starting on Tuesday. After that things will get back to semi normal.

my presentation went well last Saturday for my MPA course, now I have to write up a report for my final project and that is one course in the bag! A group of 5 of us are collaborating on the final project. We will submit our reports and one person volunteered to collate them together.

Have a good week!

posted by Randy

June is half over!

Sarah has two interviews this week! Tuesday afternoon she has a general music and 5th grade band job interview with the Tripoli school district. Tripoli is SE of Charles City and NE of Waverly. Wednesday morning she has a 2nd-5th general music and 5th-12th grade instrumental music job interview in Bedford. Bedford is SW of Des Moines down by the Missouri border. Say a prayer for her.

Mary is at Camp Tanglefoot. The campers came today, before it was just the training part with all the other counselors. Mary is the Craft Director this year. She feels really old because one of the new junior counselors is someone Mary used to babysit. Mary was home yesterday for a day off and to do some laundry, but she forgot to take back her deodorant. Randy had to drop it off at camp for her.

Matthew made the front page of the Mason City Sunday Globe-Gazette yesterday. You can view the story at http://www.globegazette.com/frontpage_history/pdfs/2009_06_14.pdf . There is also a video online of Matthew and Daniel at http://www.globegazette.com/shared-content/search/index.php?search=go&l=20&s=recent&r=&d1=06/01/09&d2=06/15/09&q=how%20to%20fold%20a%20flag folding a flag. The multimedia box is on the near right side part way down the page, scroll down the video list until you come to "How to fold a United States Flag". It is right after "lawn mower maintenance".

Daniel and Matthew are both going canoeing on the St. Croix River this Thur.-Sat. with the Boy Scout troop. Randy doesn't get to go because he has a class. Daniel is still working at Fareway, loading groceries, often in the rain. Matthew still works there too and has been sleeping in since the new Assistant Manager isn't scheduling him for the 5:00 am shift unloading the truck.

Matthew received a couple of local scholarships he applied for: the Knights of Columbus gave him $250 and the Clear Lake Friends of the Library gave him $300. The library was a brand new scholarship and Matthew had to write an essay for it. Matthew will also receive a Conservation Officer Association scholarship for $500. All that money adds up and helps him pay for college! Mom is happy!

Philomena went to an aviation camp on Sat. at the Mason City Airport. There was a ground school for a couple of hours and then they got to go up in an airplane for a quick flight around Clear Lake. It so happened that Philomena got to ride in Msgr. Hemann's plane! She really enjoyed it and wasn't too scared about it. Philomena is also doing activities at the library this summer. Tomorrow they learn how to make balloon animals and Thur. is crafts and theatre class.

Stephen just got back from cub scout camp with Randy, but didn't get to go swimming because the camp pool was not working. It was too cold to swim anyway. Stephen is also doing activities at the library. He especially liked the program Dan Wardell from Iowa Public Television gave last week. I took a picture on my phone, but when I went to put it on the computer, it disappeared. I'll have to try to find it in cyberspace somewhere.

Randy is out-of-town quite a bit this month. I counted at least 11 nights in a motel. He is currently at his pursuit driving recertification class for a couple of days down in Ottumwa. He also has his other two classes, a certified public management class and masters of public administration class, several times this month. One meets at the Drake campus in Des Moines and the other class meets at Mary Greeley Hospital campus in Ames. (I probably got the class titles wrong.)

I am still doing my Hallmark and Perkins jobs. I just wish the weather would warm up a little so I could take the kids swimming.

Posted by Caroline

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.

finally a new post to read!

Well it has been a while since the last note that Daniel posted. It has been extremely busy here.

Sarah is sending out resumes daily. A superintendent of schools from New Mexico was in Perkins last night and Caroline talked to him. He goes up to Minnesota to hire school teachers for down there. He likes the work ethic up here so that is why he comes all this way to hire. He gave Caroline his business card. We are trying to convince Sarah to at least consider the possibility.

Mary is at camp working.

My first MPA class is keeping me busy. I am writing a 6 page report and a 15 minute PowerPoint presentation on a chapter of the book we are assigned. Then our final project is a 20 page report. all I can say thank goodness for Google. The 5 minutes of Googling my subject matter has reaped more than enough material. back when I was going through college it would have took me weeks to go through the literature cite catalogs to search for the articles and then try to find them. Boy it is amazing how quickly things change. The kids today should at least experience for one day what we had to go through so they appreciate technology.

We have a summer working who does not comprehend using a typewriter and white out.

Stephen and I are off to cub scout camp tomorrow, we will be through Sunday. It will be fun.

everybody have a good weekend

posted by Randy

Random blurbs

Hello all

I don't suffer from insanity...I ENJOY EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!

here's a funny video I've known about for a while, and don't worry, in the beginning he's not swearing, it was just beeped out to protect the name of the construction company.

Brick coverage!!1!

thankfully this guy isn't real, it would suck to be him.

Dear sir:

I am writing in response to your request for additional information in block 3 of the accident report form. I put poor planning as the cause of my accident.you asked for a fuller explanation, and I trust the following details will be sufficient.

I was alone on the roof of a new six story building. when I completed my work, I found that I had some left over which, when weighed later, were found to weigh more than 500 pounds. rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them down in a barrel by using a pulley that was attached to the side of the building on the sixth floor.

I secured the rope at ground level, climbed to the roof, swung the barrel out, and loaded the bricks into it. Then I climbed back down and untied the rope, holding tightly to ensure a slow descent of the bricks.

You will notice in block 11 that I weigh 135 pounds. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I Proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building.

Somewhere in the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel, which was proceeding downward at a equally impressive speed. This explains the fractured skull and broken collar bone, as listed in section 3 of the accident form.

Slowed down slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers on my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley.

Fortunately, by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope-in spite of beginning to experience a great deal of pain. at approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel. now devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 50 pounds.

(I refer you again to my weight.)

As you can imagine I began a rapid decent down the side of the building. somewhere in the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. this accounts for the two fractured ankles, the broken tooth, and the lacerations of my legs and lower body.

Here my luck began to change slightly. the encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell on the pile of bricks; fortunately, only three vertebrae where cracked.

I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the pile of bricks-in pain and unable to move-I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope; I could only lay there watching as the empty barrel began its journey back down towards me. This explains the two broken legs.

I hope this answers your questions.

sincerely,

Thomas L.

Posted by Daniel.

Graduation Final

Sarah has graduated and she spent her first full day as a graduate in Music Education enjoying her freedom. We are very proud of her accomplishments and hard work.

Just a quick picture of Sarah conducting the Wartburg Band in the song "America the Beautiful" at her graduation ceremony. That was a teary eye moment watching her do that.

It was a nice ceremony and we were very happy both sets of grandparents were able to attend.

Sarah's graduation cake that Caroline brought with us had a slight problem while sitting in a warm vehicle all afternoon. The frosting did not like the heat. The cake tasted good regardless of how the icing looked.

I hope everybody had a nice Memorial Day.

Posted by Randy