A Trip to the Farm

My brother, Dave, and his girlfriend came to visit for Labor Day.  They didn't stay with us, but with my parents who live about 10 minutes away (now that we've moved...it used to be twice that :-)).  As part of the trip, we all went out to my uncle's farm for the morning.

I love this farm.  I have such wonderful memories of the farm, that even the smell doesn't really bother me.  (Well, it doesn't bother me at the farm...the smell that stayed on my clothes and in my hair after leaving the farm...that was a bit bothersome.)  Before this farm was my uncle's, it was my grandparents'.  As a kid, when we come to Iowa to visit, this is where we would go.  A lot has changed, but....much is still the same.  And it was great to get to take the girls out there - even if they did have some mixed feelings about the experience.

The day was an all-around good day.  We started the morning with a breakfast of doughnuts - a rare, but loved, treat.  Went to the farm, lunch at my parents, then after a much needed shower and nap, we bought new family room furniture.  But the highlight, of course, was the trip to the farm. 


My cousin (who helps my uncle farm and lives just down the road) sent her daughter over to the farm with all of her little bunnies for the girls to pet and look at.  This was as close as Evaline would get - and even this close was a little too close for her.  Cora, on the other hand, was very excited to see a bunny up-close and loved petting the soft fur.

There were a bunch of sows getting ready to give birth - they probably have had their litters by now.  But at the time, these were they littlest pigs there.  They were about 3 weeks old.  You can see Evaline clinging to her Aunt Katie.  Of course, our brave little Cora pet the pig.

Cora and her daddy.

 Cora and her mommy.

Cora and her daddy - once again.

 Looking at pigs - from a distance.

Put to work shoveling $#!^ . 

Evaline and her mommy.

 Taking a bit of a rest up on the hay bales.

This was Evaline's favorite part of the trip: the old swing hanging from the huge, ancient oak tree.  (When I was little, I, too, loved to play under this tree...on this very same swing.)



Evaline also had a great time on this part of the trip to the farm - we all loaded up onto the pig-loader and my uncle pulled us with his tractor to another part of the farm.  The second we started moving, Eva raised her arms in the air and giggled with joy.  Cora started crying and screaming "I want to go home!" at the top of her lungs.  On the way back, she walked back with her Grandpa Bill, but started bawling again when she saw all of us on it.

And some rare footage - all four of us together.  But, of course, both girls have their hands in front of their faces.

Daycare

We have a sort-of crazy daycare schedule this year.  We are incredibly lucky to have such a schedule - not because it is crazy, but because we have an awesome set of people caring for the girls while we're at work.

Last year we started the year with the girls at KinderCare (part-time - I'll get to that).  We really liked KinderCare.  The girls had a good time at KinderCare.  But...the second day there, Evaline came down some sort of stomach flu.  Then Cora got it.  Then they got colds.  Then came the barrage of ear infections.  In December they finally had ear tubes put in.  But that did not stop the ear infections. They came just as fast and furious as they did before the surgery. 

Some friends from work started taking their kids to a lady who was starting an in-home daycare in January, I think.  She was taking additional kids, and she was willing to take them on a part-time basis.  We made the switch in March, right after spring break.  Since then, the girls have had one cold.  Having healthy kids is a wonderful thing.

And they LOVE going to Kate.  We are very happy to have made this switch.

But it gets even better.  I said they go to daycare part-time.  They go only three days a week.  One day a week they get to spend with their Petersen grandparents.  One day week they get to spend with their Cooper grandparents.  I love that they get to spend time every week with their grandparents, that they are getting to build this kind of relationship with them.  They love it (the girls...I can't speak for the grandparents, but I'm hoping they feel the same way).

I'm afraid that this year all these different places on all these different days might get a bit confusing for the girls.  So I came up with this idea.  I created a chart to show where they will go everyday (I'm hoping that it may do double duty as providing a way to see where they are going AND to help teach them the days of the week).

Each picture is actually a pocket.  I cut out pictures of each girl and attached it to a large popsicle stick, so each day they can move it to the place they are going.  Like this:

Our New Home

For the fellow teachers out there...I don't recommend moving the week you have to go back to school.   I think that was among the most stressful weeks of my life.  But...now we are in, and after a couple weeks...starting to feel a bit settled.  We have no decorations on the walls (everything from the old house seems...well, wrong somehow for this new house), so it will take some creativity to make everything work.  But, we do have the main floor and the upstairs unpacked.  The only thing left is to organize the basement...we need to go through boxes and decide what needs to stay in boxes and just be moved to the storage area, what needs to be unpacked and moved into the storage area, and what to do the rest of the stuff.  We had much more room for storage at our old house (the basement was not finished, so the whole thing was a dumping ground - at times an organized dumping ground - but a dumping ground none-the-less), so I think that making the old work in the new will, again, take some creativity....and it is something that we just haven't gotten to yet.  

Would you like to take a quick virtual tour?  Unfortunately, I'm a bit of an idiot and packed my camera instead of keeping it out to take nice "before and after" shots so you could all appreciate the work we did the weekend before we moved in.  The colors were atrocious, and the paint job worse still.  But, since we've got most of it cleaned up, I'm afraid no one will ever believe me about how bad it really was.  Luckily it was just paint.  And, with a little work, even paint-mess-ups all over the ceiling and baseboards can be fixed. 

So let's start: You'll notice that there are no pics of the basement - I'll post those after I get all the boxes put away...and maybe once we get some furniture in.  We went from having one to having three living-room-type spaces...it might take a while to fill that. :)

Here's the front of the house (duh).

When you walk in the front door, directly in front is the staircase.  If you look to your left, you'll see the dining room (it still needs to be painted).

If you look to your right, you will see the formal living room...which we are currently using as the girls' playroom.

Next to the stairs is a short hallway with a coat closet, stairs to the basement and a half bath.  At the end of the hall, you enter the living room.

Turn 180 degrees from the living room, and you are in the kitchen. (The outlet covers are off because it still needs a second coat of paint.)

With an eat-in area on the other side of the bar/counter.

Between the kitchen and the dining room is a very small hallway with the door to the garage, another coat closet, and the pantry.

Off the eat-in kitchen there is a sliding door to the patio, here is the view of the backyard from the patio.  The house was vacant all summer, so as you can see, the yard needs some work...but...I think it has great potential.

Back in the house and up the stairs...straight ahead is the master.

And again  (don't you love the quilt?  My mom made that for us for a wedding gift!)

Bathroom/bathtub...this is my new sanctuary.

His and her sinks...plus a mirror that two people can look into at the same time and both can see their entire face!!! Bliss!!

Just outside the master, spare room #1.  It's messy.  I don't care. (This room has yet to painted.)

Second spare room...office right now, probably one of the girls will take it over in the not-so-distant future.  Although I'm planning on them sharing a room for several years yet.  I don't know why, but I just like them sharing a room.  (It needs paint, too.)

Girls' room.  We need new "big girl" furniture, and it will all be white.  Its on our ever-growing list of things we need to buy now that we bought a bigger house.

Girls' bathroom, it was painted a pale lavender.  Luckily, I had a shower curtain and towels left over from my very first apartment that match pretty well.  Whew...one less thing to paint, and to buy!

A Busy July

Time in the summer always moves just a little too fast.  I feel as though I've blinked and the summer is already gone.  Just a week and half before heading back to the old grindstone and celebrating the "new year".  Because, let's face it, as a teacher the year always begins in August - not January. 

It has certainly been a busy, busy summer.  We had a couple weeks of down-time between our Montana vacation and....selling our house!!  We put our house up on the market at the beginning of March, and almost four months to the day we received an offer.  After few negotiations, we were ready to roll out on a house search of our own. 

We had been watching the listings online and, actually, didn't think there were a whole lot of houses out there that we would be really all that interested in.  We narrowed it down to five that we wanted to look at, and after those five thought we were ready to put an offer in on one.  We scheduled a second showing...and ... around 8pm the night before that showing we got a call that the house had been sold.  Ugh.

Back to the internet, then five more houses.  We found one that we liked, but it was pretty far from the school where we teach.  We said to heck with location, and we put in an offer.  The sellers weren't willing to negotiate their price, and we didn't feel it was worth as much as they did, so we declined their counter.

Back to the internet, but this time only two more houses.  This trip ended with success!  After few negotiations this time, we are on our way to a pretty neat house on the Westside of Cedar Rapids.  About four minutes (maybe five if there's traffic) away from work.  In a perfect world, putting a house up in March would lead to moving in June and having July and August to settle in before school starts.  This, however, is not such a perfect world and we'll be closing on both houses four days before we go back to work!  The house needs a LOT of painting (I think the previous owners may have been blindfolded when they 1. picked out the colors and 2. did the actual painting), so we will be busting our buns trying to get that part of the move done before school starts.  We actually get to stay in the house for about 8 days after closing, so hopefully we'll get some small stuff moved and unpacked before the big stuff gets moved in on the 20th.

When we move, I'll post some pics of the new pad.

In the meantime, here are a few photos of the girls this summer.  Warning: I have been woefully bad at remembering to take pictures lately.  And, the girls continue to be woefully bad at cooperating with the photo shoots when I do remember.

 We only made it to the pool once this summer (so far...I'm still hoping for another trip).  This was how Cora spent her time.  She absolutely LOVED the water.

Evaline, not so much.  She decided to spend her precious pool time playing on the porch putting her baby in a friend's carseat.  This girl is BABY CRAZY - constantly, 100% of the time in "mommy-mode" taking care of her little baby.

 They discovered that grapes taste so much better when they get to pick them off the vine themselves (as opposed to when boring, safety-first mom cuts them into quarters to avoid choking hazards...apparently they like to live a little on the wild side).

This is the best picture of the two of them together that we've gotten all summer.  Both have moderately pleasant looks on their faces, no one is talking, or screaming, or running away, or picking their nose.  The way pictures have turned out lately, you may see this one reappear on our Christmas card!

Wordless Wednesday

**Wordless Wednesdays are now here with a spin...
YOU come up with the caption - just post it in the comments section!

Help Wanted...please...

We've been home and settled in to summer for almost a full week, and the feeling is fantastic.  It is so nice to be on our own time, doing what we want, when we want.  I've started running again...something I always enjoy and always talk myself out of doing during the school year.  This morning as I was leaving Cora told me: "Mommy - you go and run fast.  And have fun."  And so I did.

As much fun as we've been having, however, I have to say that I'm running out of ideas of what to do with a couple of two-year-olds to keep us busy, entertained, and educationally active.  I mean, I can plan activities for 10-to-16-year-olds like nobody's business, particularly if they are social studies related (C & E better watch out in 8 years...plans for archeaological digs and GPS scavenger hunts are already brewing in my head...).  But two-year-olds...here's where I'm stumped. 

We play with play-dough.  (Does anyone have a good home-made recipe for this, by the way? I suppose I could find it with a quick Google search, but if YOU've got one, then I won't have to look :-).) We read books, and we play "I spy" with their books.  We sing songs and dance.  We take walks and talk about what we see. And of course they love to help Ian and me bake and cook. And yet...I'd like to do something more.

Does anyone have some advice, websites to check out, ideas that you've tried, games to play, more songs to sing, alphabet or counting games, etc, etc, etc...if so...we need your help!

The most creative thing that we've done is get out some dried beans and popping corn and go to town sifting, sorting, pouring and playing.

Thanks in advance!

Rocky Mountain High.......Montana

I think that I've found my new favorite place. Of all the places that I've been (admittedly limited), I think that this might be my favorite one.  It may also be that I've just returned from a fantastic week-long vacation and am still feeling that Rocky Mountain High.

Let me start with this: I LOVE the mountains.  Specifically the Rockies.  If you have never been, you are really missing out and you should book that trip post haste.  There's just a feeling you get (or at least I get)being in the mountains.  It gives me a perspective on life and on myself that I don't feel anywhere else.  But those awe-inspiring views make me feel and understand how small I really am.  It is humbling, and it is also very empowering.

I've vistited several different places throughout the Rockies.  Growing up in New Mexico, I've been several places there, of course.  About four years ago Ian and I took a trip to Colorado (Dillon, Ridgeway, Durango, Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Park, Colorado Springs), and the summer I was pregnant we went back to Colorado (Estes Park).  I have to say, though, my favorite Rocky Mountain state is Montana, specifically Bozeman, MT.

Bozeman is the home to Montana State University, and sits at the Northern end of the Gallatin Gateway along the Gallatin River that carves its way through the Gallatin Mountains.  The town is fantastic...not tourist-y in the least, it is quaint, it is sophisticated, it is homey.  Ian and I are considering creating a savings account to purchase a place there in retirement :-).

OK, enough of these ramblings...what I really wanted to share with you all was the highlights from our trip!  (By the way...the trip was sans girls!  A whole week away was a bit much...but we had such a good time, and got to do a lot of things that we just couldn't have done with them in tow.  Instead, they got to spend a great week going back and forth between the Petersens and Coopers.)

Most of the trip was spent hiking.  Well, the mornings.  It was fairly cool (highs around 65) and it rained every afternoon.  So we spent the mornings hiking and the afternoons reading in the coffee shop above the local food Co-op. 

On our way out there we stayed the first night in Wall, SD...home of the famous Wall Drug, where the ice water is free and the coffee is only 5 cents.  When we were there it was a drizzly 52 degrees outside, so we bypassed the water and splurged on the coffee.  Wall is also the closest town to the Badlands of SD...amazing.  If you haven't gone, you should.  It's a National Park, so it costs $15, but its well worth it just because its so freakin' cool.  I'm not completely sure about the geology of how it was created...something to do with the area having been covered by a shallow sea and then as it drained out these were created:

Once in Bozeman, the most difficult hike we took was a trail to the "Storm Castle" mountain peak. I'm not sure of the elevation, but it was 2.5 miles straight up a mountain side (and back down again) It took us just under three hours.

This the view from the top, overlooking the Squaw Creek valley.

The next two are up at the very top...I love the view of the snow-covered peaks behind Ian in this one.

 This is the only picture of both of us together...and now that I mention it there is only one other picture of Ian (above) and one other one of me. 

This is the view straight down from the top, if you follow the creek valley (horizontal), just to the left of the center is a bridge that crosses the creek (it looks like a grayish rock-looking thingy), just next to it (if you zoom in really close you can see it) is the car next to where we parked.

And...a view from the bottom looking up.  In the upper center of the photo you can sort of see a rock peaking out above the trees...that's the top.

Next, we went to Buffalo Jump State Park.  This is one of the places where the Native Americans who used to live here ran buffaloes off the cliff to kill them en masse instead of having to shoot each individual one. 

Here's the cliff they ran off, meat was processed (dried) and skins were tanned at the bottom:

And just a beautiful view from the trail here, notice the clouds rolling in over the mountains in the distance.  I just love that.

Our third day, we unsuccessfully tried two trails:

We were excited to try this trail by the Madison River, unfortunately, the river had washed out the trail about 10 minutes in...

The drive to this trail - Spanish Creek - held our favorite views of the whole trip.  The road goes through a valley owned by Ted Turner...and it was absolutely gorgeous (the pictures don't come close to doing it justice).

Instead of a river washing out this trail, we decided to turn around after running into a herd of buffalo covering the road.  Chances are, that if we had continued, they would have gotten out of our way.  But...considering that one of the buffaloes is about the same size as our car...and potentially way more aggressive...we opted for turning around.

We did find success that day on our third try, here's a breath-taking view from Indian Ridge:

 Those are the highlights!  In addition to the great hikes, and reading (of course Ian and I would spend a good chunk of our vacation reading...but here we got to do it in a great coffee shop with a marvelous mountain view), we also ate at some fantastic restaurants.  The best was our last night (fortunately...so it didn't spoil us for the rest of the trip), we ate a tapas-style restaurant and the food and wine was amazing. 

All in all...it was a great way to spend the beginning of summer vacation.  And now I'm happy to be home, with my girls.  Who, by the way, are just waking up from their (2 1/2 hour!!) nap...