July 2022

In July I went to Boston again for our summer team meeting and while I was there I was able to gather up a couple of actual, real-life books that I helped create to bring home:

Over the last 18 months I've designed/templated/worked on over 100 books that are now in print and sold in schools all over the country. That number is unusual because typically I work on maybe a dozen books during that same time span. And I have no idea how many books I've worked on since I started in January 2010. It would be cool to have them all on one bookcase at home, but not very practical!

Flying out to Boston again:

The row of tail rudders looked cool:

My company planned out every minute of each day I was there from 8:30am to 8pm, so it was kinda tiring. Even though they kept us so busy that week, a group of us (about 18 people) did get to go to a go-kart place and race for a couple hours. We did five races and I won a race (after starting off in 5th place) and then almost won a second race, but spun out on a turn right near the end. I did record the top two fastest lap times out of the 18 of us, though. The cars were governed at 50 mph, so the races were pretty intense.

Getting lined up to start a race:

Group photo afterwards. Some people kept their head socks on like a buncha dorks:

When I got back home from the work trip I discovered that the pumpkin patch had taken over a large part of the backyard, but I also spotted five pumpkins! Seems kinda early for them to start growing. I'm excited to see how many we end up with and how large they get. There are only three pumpkin plants, but they are monsters.

These are pictures of the same pumpkin taken a week apart:

And there are still more blooms, so possibly more pumpkins:

The garden has kale, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeños, string beans, pumpkins (at the far left), and radishes. The spinach and radishes have already been harvested:

Even though it's been so hot, I've still been riding my bike often. Here's a toasty Saturday pic just outside of Center Point:

Trying out a newly-opened place for date night... the photo's not blurry, we're blurry, just like Bigfoot:

Kitty cat knows how to enjoy summer:

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:

Hello, November

In the eleventh month of the year of our Lord two thousand and fourteen, we did some stuff. Most of it was interesting, some of it was not. Some interesting/uninteresting events have been selected completely at random and posted below. I would suggest ignoring most of it and just looking at the pictures.

On the second Saturday of the month, Rose had some artwork that was put on display at the ELSC. Her class painted a life-size silhouette of a girl doing a backflip that they painted on a large square sheet of plywood. It was really cool! There were several large panels like that the kids at her school painted and they will be hanging in the gym.

After the art show, we went to Cynthia's grandpa's 90th birthday in Independence (no matter how many times I spell that word, it never looks right). There was a good turnout with 90 people showing up for it and I took pictures so that we can make a photo album for him. A side note: it is WAY easier to photograph a 90-year-old's birthday party than a 9-year-old's party. A lot less running around and not nearly as much screaming.

This month we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary! It's crazy how quickly time passes and it's weird to realize that 2001 was so long ago. I can remember that day so clearly and the funny thing is that this year on our anniversary the weather was exactly the same as it was the day we got married/eloped. It was cold and snowing lightly and the air was so still. Unlike the day that we got married, though, I was able to take the full day off work this year so that we could have a lot of fun together.

The following weekend we took a trip to Dubuque and stayed at the Grand Harbor hotel by the Mississippi. The girls came with us and we played at the indoor waterpark (which was really the main highlight for them). We spent some time at the Mississippi River Museum and then took a tour of the William Black steamboat.

A solemn moment with Mark Twain.

A hut outside near the steamboat. It was a cold day!

I think Emily's eyelids froze shut.

This was the view from our hotel room that evening:

Rose and Emily warming up while watching TV after spending a few hours at the waterpark.

It started snowing that night, but we only had an inch of snow by morning.

A cold winter sun the next morning.

Next, we took a ride on the Fenelon Place Elevator. Back in the day the elevator cars were pulled up the hill with hemp rope. When you get about halfway up the hill you start feeling good about the fact that they are pulling each car with two steel cables instead!

Emily wasn't sure she wanted to ride the car at first, but once it got going and she saw how slowly it moved she was OK with it.

There's our car!

The view from the top.

I wonder how long it would take to reach the bottom if the cables snapped. Not very long, I bet.

We celebrated my birthday with some great food and fun. I've often wondered what the world would be like when I reached age 37. Now I know. No robot butlers, flying cars, hologram TVs, time travel, or personal jet packs. Thanks, science.

We visited my folks for Thanksgiving and Dave and Daphne were there as well. Daphne is still adjusting to the exotic winter climate in Illinois, so she keeps the thermostat at their place set to 83º, hahaha. For his birthday, my brother asked to turn it down to 75º for just one day. It's the little things in life...

Abby wasn't able to get plane tickets to fly home, so we video Skyped her on Thanksgiving day. She's got 45 boxes of stuff stored in my parent's garage (in addition to all the stuff she already has in her apartment down there) and is wanting them to haul it all down there to her. Good luck with that!

Skyping with Abby.

We've got the tree up and if Lily keeps attacking it she's gonna become one of the decorations on it. I think we could replace the star at the top with a large stuffed cat. Should make a good conversation starter.