November 2023

Cynthia and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary this month! We went to Black Sheep for dinner and Rose was working there that night, too. It's cool to see her working and being all grownup.  

When we got home, Emily was playing guitar. She was teaching herself a Violent Femmes song. She's very musical.

For my birthday we went to the Quarter Barrel cuz I'm a kid and like eating pizza and playing video games. 

I put the Christmas lights up before Thanksgiving and a week later we had snow:

Daniel's Park with the sun setting behind the few surviving trees:

And as is our tradition we went to Sharon's to help put up the tree and decorations. Her Christmas tree base was junk and didn't keep the tree upright very well, so I built a new one:

Alice and her weird obsession with the bathtub. For a cat who doesn't like to get wet she spends a lot of time in there. Weirdo.

It was a very mild and sunny November, perfect for being outdoors.

November 2021

So here's November; my birthday, new siding on the house, our anniversary:

This year I turned fortyschmchmmphsomething it doesn't matter:

After cake we went to Speedeez and tore it up on the go kart tracks. We started off on the normal track with the 15 mph karts. These people are bullies behind the wheel, always cutting us off and stuff:

THEN... we got on the racetrack where the go karts go 40 mph. Twelve laps go quicker than you think, it was so much fun:

Huh, our house was originally yellow. Who knew:

Looks like the house blew up:

New foam insulation and house wrap before installing the siding:

I forgot to take an "after" picture, but it looks great. Same color, just a lot cleaner... it looks like a new house.

Also, all the Wash cheer captains won post-season awards, which includes Rose. Go Rose!

For our 20th anniversary we stayed in an Airbnb in Washington, where I of course forgot to take pictures. Sheesh. Some photographer. I love Cynthia and I'm so blessed to be married to her.

November 2020

In November Cynthia and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary by going to DSM and staying in our nifty mid-century modern hideaway again. And we visited Peace Tree when we got there:

 

A picture-perfect breakfast:

After a brisk walk around Gray's Lake we explored the new tunnel connecting to Waterworks Park:

All those years living in DSM and we never visited the Salisbury House. So we checked that off the list and it was even better than expected. As cool as it was I still think I like Glensheen better. This place is quite the castle, though. It was built for Carl Weeks, a pharmacist who made a killing making his own cosmetics and selling them in his stores, later distributing them nationwide. The Weeks family didn't have much money prior to their unexpected success, so when they achieved overnight wealth they didn't really know what to do with it all and went a tad overboard. They spent uncontrollably until the cosmetic business declined around a decade later and they lost ownership of the home, donating it to Drake University with the agreement that they could remain as tenants. Drake gradually placed more limitations on how they could live there and which parts of the house the family could access until they eventually moved out and lived in a small ranch-style house nearby.

The entryway was designed to impress and although I didn't get a picture of it from the main floor, I did get this shot from up above in the balcony overlooking the room:

The back stairs coming down from the balcony:

They had an enormous garage and a separate building for grounds keepers and a mechanic. They ended up in the center of controversy when one of the sons raced around the neighborhood in one of the cars late one night and killed another driver.

A Thanksgiving with just the four of us:

One of Cynthia's coworkers asked if I could draw a picture of her childhood home. This is my first completed color pencil drawing in over 20 years:

We found this snake on the trail on one of our walks. He/she was very cold and could barely move. I helped the snake find some soft earth to tunnel into:

Every spring and fall I clear out the Conrad's gutters. This year I installed gutter guards so their gutters wouldn't keep clogging:

Time to put up the tree!

I think this squirrel is ready for winter:

Daniels Park. A few months ago on July 4th we celebrated on this very spot pictured here with friends and family. It will be a very long time before Cedar Rapids recovers from the derecho.