June and July 2023

My brother and his family came up to visit us in June, so I left the day before to go to Boston. I wasn't avoiding him, I just had better things to do with my time, ha.

The best vehicle I've rented in my 13 years of traveling out there. It was difficult to take it back.

My coworkers in Product Operations.

We went to a music festival in Milwaukee and saw Foo Fighters and a bunch of other bands. They also had a motocross track:

Then the Foo Fighters! This was near the beginning of their first tour after losing Taylor Hawkins. They put on an awesome show.

Then we learned a fun fact about Milwaukee: it is in the top 10 cities in the U.S. for car theft, averaging 31 car thefts per day. The Kia Boyz are a gang who steal almost exclusively Kias and Hyundais in Milwaukee. Unfortunately, we had a Hyundai, but that ended when we returned to our parking spot. Long story short, the cops had recovered the car before we knew it was gone, but it was destroyed. So now we have a different car (not a Kia or a Hyundai). A long night in Milwaukee:

Our car was in the impound lot with about a thousand other cars. Some people must never claim them.

The windows were smashed out, there was minor damage to the exterior, but the dashboard was smashed up, the steering wheel had holes stabbed in it, and they ripped out all of the wiring under the dash and stripped the steering column. The front seats were messed up as well. So insurance decided that the cost to repair it wasn't worth it.

Also, we got solar panels! So no more utility bills and during the summer we produce enough power for 7 houses. Nifty!

June 2022

June was a good month! But it went by fast as it usually does. School is out for the summer, which means that Rose will be a senior in the fall and Emily will be a freshman. This will be the only year that they both attend high school together. And it means that Rose will be graduating around this time next year! That's hard to believe. Also, she applied to Coe College and was accepted! Welcome, class of 2027:

Since Cynthia works at Coe Rose's tuition is free, so we're only on the hook for room and board (which isn't cheap, either). Even though Coe is close enough that Rose could easily live at home, we felt like Rose living in the dorms and being on campus full-time would be an important part of the college experience and a step towards becoming a fully independent grown-up living on her own.

For Cynthia's birthday one of the things she asked for was a series of drawings of each of the houses we've owned. It's gonna take a while to get all three done, but I had the Des Moines house done in time for her birthday. With some help from Alice:

The finished drawing:

Alice in a rare moment when she's not tearing the house apart or climbing the curtains:

I made the trip out to Boston for the first time since the pandemic (and I'll be going out again in July). It was good to finally meet so many people in person that I had only spoken to on zoom calls. Also, I feel like I barely know anybody there anymore. The company has hired roughly 500 people since the beginning of 2020, so there are a lot of new faces.

Somewhere over Ohio:

Random: this groundhog apparently lives under our shed in the backyard. We occasionally see him waddling around out there:

I made the 30-mile roundtrip bike ride to Center Point. A few years ago I made this trip regularly, but then got tired of riding the same route all the time so since then I've changed it up.

I usually turn around to head back when I'm just north of the Center Point train depot:

Cynthia went with some friends to see the Indigo Girls:

Emily and Alice taking an afternoon nap:

That cat is growing like a weed:

We went to Double Z's to see Stryper! I've never seen them before and it was a pretty cool experience. Those dudes are gettin' old, but they can still rock like it's 1985. I was impressed, they can still tear it up and Michael Sweet has an incredible voice. And the only non-original member of the band is the bass player. There were a couple stages set up and Fresh Fighters played the smaller one in the background of our lovely date night pic:

It was cool to see all the die-hard fans and people who knew the lyrics to every song. Out of their 90-minute set I think I knew about 6 songs. And they have a new album coming out this summer. Lots of energy:

I always heard that Stryper threw Bibles into the crowd at the end of their shows... and guess what? They still do. We caught this one:

November 2019

November was a fun month, as it should be. We went some places and did some stuff and even took pictures of some of it. 

The first week of November I spent in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The fall colors were at their peak while I was out there and I wish I could've taken more pictures because it is difficult to take a bad picture out there. Driving through New Hampshire:

It's just a Marriott, but this hotel always looks picturesque:

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... Lily hates affection so, so much:

Check out this awesome November sunset:

What do you do when it's freezing cold outside?? Go to Orange Leaf!

For our 18th anniversary Cynthia and I stayed in a Mad Men-style mid-century house in DSM with all of the period-appropriate furnishings:

I like all the milled wood paneling and this nifty light fixture:

It even had a working fireplace:

This was in the kitchen, I don't know how it got there...

We visited the State Historical Museum of Iowa and discovered that there were SHARKS in Iowa at one time. That's crazy to think about. Seems a little more tame these days with cows roaming about.

The capitol is still there, why wouldn't it be? The East Village neighborhood has completely transformed and the rundown machine shops, old apartments, and boarded-up buildings have been replaced with shops and restaurants. That area is barely even recognizable now. Gentrification!

Even though we lived in DSM for over five years, we never checked out the governor's mansion, so we took a tour of Terrace Hill while we were visiting. It has an interesting history and the guy who built it in the 1860s was a con artist who ended up losing the house. Eventually the house became the governor's mansion after changing hands a couple of times.

The first and second floors of the house are exactly the way they were when the house was built. The governor's family lives on the third floor which has been completely remodeled and is apparently very contemporary. The house overall was well cared for and never needed to be restored. Many of the pieces of furniture are original from when the Hubbell's lived there.

This stain glass window was replaced at one point because the second owner (the Hubbell family) didn't like the original window that had an inscription on it. No record exists of what that inscription said.

Kim Reynold's office. Since she wasn't in her office during our visit (she had just returned from Japan the night before and was presumably sleeping) we got to poke our heads in and look around. What I would give for the chance to leave some thumbtacks on her chair... (shakes fist)

Good times!

We visited all of our old stomping grounds (except Gray's Lake because we ran out of time), visited Peace Tree, and stopped in at the Drake Diner, too. The food is always good:

I found this in a box of vintage postcards from the 1930s at the Brass Armadillo:

Game night! With all the stuff going on in the evenings we don't get to play games together very often. Emily will destroy you at Connect 4 and Rose pulls the red pegs out of her ships in Battleship, so... might not want to play against either of them. I'm good at Mad Gab because mumbling is kinda my thing. And Cynthia will beat anyone at trivia.

Ringing in 2019

We rang in the new year hanging out with the Von Thuns and playing trivia and card games, including the non-computer version of The Oregon Trail. It was a blast! Then on the morning of the 2nd I flew out to Boston for a few days:

The company celebrated their 50th anniversary in the old Boston Plaza Hotel. It's weird how many new people they've hired, I hardly know anybody anymore. When I started 9 years ago there were just over 100 employees and now there are almost 900. Only a few of the people who were there when I started still remain, so I guess that makes me a dinosaur. Anyway, there was a cocktail party after the company meeting:

The hotel was super cool; it was built in the 1920s and had retained its old timey appearance:

It snowed twice while I was in Boston, but I returned to a very brown Iowa. That's OK, I don't mind the unusually warm January. Hello again, 380:

In mid-January it finally snowed and we got to do all the winter stuff you're supposed to do. Like sledding:

Meet Mortimer the snowman:

As we sat outside around the fire one night, I'm pretty sure the snowman was closer to us than he was when I looked earlier...

Then all of a sudden Rose turned 14! I'm pretty sure no one saw that coming. She had lots of friends over for her birthday and had cake, ice cream, and a snow storm:

Her birthday celebration on her actual birthday:

And her birthday celebration with friends on Saturday:

Lily hates our good time:

The girls split into two teams and went to Lindale Mall to do a photo scavenger hunt. They were a little hyper and got yelled at by a mall cop, but they checked almost everything off the list and the team that won only had one item that they couldn't find. I don't think they had very much fun:

Also, Rose is studying for her permit, so lock your doors and stay off the streets.

Cynthia and I went to Riverside to see Everclear on a frigid Friday night. The temp without the windchill was -4. Thanks a lot, January. It was an awesome show, though, and cool to see Art still rockin' in his own weird way:

January ended with temperatures around -24 and a wind chill of -49, thank goodness. Can't wait to see what February brings us.