Wedding in the Smoky Mountains

When Kari’s brother, Brian, announced his engagement to Ella earlier this year we were very excited for them both.  When they told us they were planning to have their wedding in Tennessee, I scratched the back of my neck and smiled as I did some quick math in my head.  By my best estimate, Tennessee was a really, really long ways away.  Mapquest later confirmed my fears.  759 miles over 12 hours and 5 minutes.  Yikes.

You may recall that we have 3 little ones, ages 6, 4, and 1.  While they are all great kids, sometimes they can’t get across town without drama of one sort or another.  Needless to say, we spent the next several months alternately looking forward to, and dreading the big trip.  

Well, we survived!  And maybe even enjoyed ourselves a bit!  The kids did as well as could be expected (minus a “puke up” incident during the 14 1/2 hour marathon drive home on Sunday).  But the wedding was beautiful.  And we have plenty of good memories.

First stop was Metropolis, IL.  Super Thomas is ready for action!  (By pure luck, Kari had packed Thomas’ Superman pj’s, which was perfect!) 

 Then on to Hannibal, MO with a tour of Mark Twain Cave and some panning for gems.  As far as Emma was concerned, panning for those gems could very well have been the highlight of the whole trip.  She can get excited over interesting looking parking lot gravel, so finding actual gems was awesome.

 

We made 2 overnight stops on the way down in St. Louis and Knoxville to break the trip up a bit.  Here’s a shot of Kaylee in the butterfly house at the St. Louis Zoo.

 

 

Met up with Kari’s parents in Gatlinburg on Thursday and spent a couple days taking in the Smoky Mounains. 

 

 

 

Bears!!!!!  We saw a momma and 3 cubs while on a hike up to Laurel Falls.  They were probably 20 yards away when we decided that was close enough and buzzed on down the trail.

 

Here we are playing after the 1.3 mile hike up to Laurel Falls.

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful!

 

 

 

And a beautiful wedding.  Congratulations and best wishes!  Kaylee’s been “playing Ella” ever since we got back as she pretends to get married in our living room everyday.  I guess it made quite an impression!

Happy 4th Birthday Kaylee!!

Kaylee had a great birthday party today with all of her grandmas and grandpas, Ella and Uncle Brian, lots of friends and even Great Grandpa!  She’s had it in her head for months that she wanted to have a pool party for her birthday, so that’s what she got, and more! 

 

 

Presents…

 

 

 

Family…

 

 

 

 

 

  Kari does it again!  (It’s blue Jello water and fruit roll up towels, if you’re wondering)

 

 

 

 

 

Friends…

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Kaylee!!! We love you!!!!

 

 

 

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Emma rides a bike

 

 Emma was looking at our blog and noticed that we don’t have any videos of her!  She is very proud (and rightly so) of the fact that she learned to ride a bike over this last year so we agreed that would be a great thing to share.

 

 

Here is a shot of her last fall after we first took her training wheels off.  A little wobbly at first…

 

 … but check her out now!

Wow!  Great job Emma!!!!!

Four Corners

We thought we had the perfect solution to Kaylee’s problem with eating sandwiches.  You see, she has a habit of taking a bite right out of the middle and then chowing her way right on through, turning the bread into a U-shaped mess about the size of her face and leaving a trail of condiments up the sides of both cheeks. 

“Kaylee,” we said, “the trick is to always look for a corner to bite.  Don’t eat right down the middle.”

Brilliant, right? 

Wrong.  Now she takes 4 bites and she’s stuck.  Hrmph.

 

Sigh…

Today Thomas shoved a raisin up his nose so far that Kari called the doctor’s office (he sneezed it out while she was on the phone).  He threw his lunch over his shoulder onto the floor, rubbed cake in his eyes and hair at supper and tried very hard to get a noodle up his nose before we pulled it out.  Thomas experimented today with spitting.  He spit at least 3 full mouths of milk out onto the floor as he walked around with his sippy cup and continued to practice with just his saliva an uncountable number of times.  When scolded he proudly sat himself in timeout to be like his big sisters.  He fought a valiant battle to avoid going to bed tonight, dragging out the bedtime routine for about 2 hours and working himself into such a tizzy that he puked all over me and Emma, who couldn’t sleep from the noise.  Sigh…

You know what makes it all worth it?

Fun weekend

What a fun weekend! 

We started out on Saturday in Clive, IA where we met up with a couple of my college buddies, John and Larry, and their families.  We all have families of our own now, so the topics of conversation have changed a bit since those days in Stanley Hall, but it’s fun to get together nevertheless. 

Sunday brought the Johnson Family Reunion in Shelby, IA, where my mom’s side of the family meets every year.   Saw a lot of familiar faces and a lot of not so familiar ones, so I guess it’s a good thing we went so we can start to familiarize ourselves a little more with the latter.  A cousin brought along some new kittens which was a big hit with the kids.  The girls were equally excited with seeing my Uncle Bill, whom they affectionately refer to as “Crazy Uncle Bill”.  (He’s really not crazy - just enough on the silly side that 3 and 6 year olds think he’s the best.)

Did I mention that Shelby is 211 miles away?  And did I mention the fact that Thomas is very proud of the fact that he knows the words: car, truck, motorcycle and tractor?  Do you have any idea how many cars, trucks, motorcycles and tractors you can see in 211 miles of driving through Iowa?  And did I mention that when Thomas says a word he keeps repeating it louder and louder until somebody repeats it back to him to acknowledge it?  Thomas is not a good traveler.  He’s great once we get there, but he has no patience for being strapped in a 5-point harness for hours at a time with nothing to do but yell, “t’uck!”, over and over again.

With big plans to spend Monday at Adventureland, we spent Sunday night at a below average Motel 6 in Altoona.  You can tell our kids haven’t spent too many nights in hotels before because Emma’s first word upon entering the room was, “Awesome!!!”  She immediately gave us a tour, excitedly showing us the TV and our own sink and bathroom.  I noticed the ashtray with the ”No Smoking” sticker on it.

Monday we went to Adventureland and had a blast.  Grandma and Grandpa Gibson took us up on our invitation to join us, which was a huge help.  The weather was perfect, the lines were very reasonable and with the extra help to watch Thomas, the girls were able to ride a ton of rides.  This was their first trip to a real amusement park and it quickly out did the Motel 6 and the visit with Uncle Bill as the highlight of the trip.  (Sorry Uncle Bill!)

Emma was just tall enough to ride on “The Dragon”, - a loop-de-loop roller coaster.  I was a little nervous about letting her go, but she decided she wanted to, so off we went.  It’s a pretty rough ride but she came off smiling and said she wanted to go again!  Her head had to have been banging back and forth between the shoulder harness pretty good, but she didn’t complain.  We rode it one more time and she advised me that the secret is to keep your eyes shut the whole time.  She was very proud of herself for taming “The Dragon” but thought she’d pass on the other coasters the park has to offer.

Kaylee likes anything that goes fast and spins.  Fortunately, Kari’s stomach is a little stronger than mine so she could go on some of those cookie tossers with her.  Kari tried to put her arm around her on one ride as she spun up next to her on the seat and Kaylee pushed Kari aside as if to say, “I can do it!”  Kaylee is chomping at the bit until she is 42 inches tall! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were a number of rides that Thomas could enjoy. 

 

 

 

 

 

He was all about pretty much anything with a steering wheel.

 

 

 

 

Fun day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very fun.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emma’s first softball season

If you are ever looking for an entertaining evening, you can’t beat a night at the ol’ ball park.  Especially when it’s a ball park filled with 6 and 7 year olds who are just being introduced to the world of swinging bats, flying balls and a lot of confusing rules.  I’ve always heard about the kid sitting out in right field picking dandelions, or the short stop so distracted by drawing their name in the dirt that they don’t even notice the ball rolling by them out to left.  I always figured that was kind of an exaggeration.  It’s not.  Very funny to watch.

Emma is one of those 6 year olds this year and is doing a great job.  She seems to really be enjoying herself in her first year of softball.  They play a couple innings per game.  Everybody bats every inning and nobody is ever out, though fielders are encouraged to try to make plays.  

I’ve been able to help out coaching some, which has been fun.  We did a drill during one of the earlier practices where all of the girls got in a long line and tried to see how fast they could throw the ball down the line and back.  I wish I had got that on tape.  There were maybe 2-3 completed throws the entire time.  Turns out the odds of a good catch occuring the exact moment as a good throw are prettey slim when you’re talking about kids just out of kindergarten and 1st grade.  It was very funny to watch.

Emma has been trying hard to improve her skills, which we are very proud of.  She likes to play catch in our front yard and practice her batting.  She likes batting better, but I think she just likes to watch me run when she crushes the ball over my head!  (Notice the girls playing in the dirt during a game in this shot!)

 

Who knows.  If she keeps up the hard work, she may be the first female center fielder to play for the Cubs!  Keep playing Emma!

 

 

 

Mulberries, mulberries everywhere

We have one mulberry tree in our yard and it currently has a lot of mulberries.  A Lot.

I looked up on the internet how one harvests mulberries and it said to lay out a tarp and then shake them down.  It didn’t mention the fact that you should do the shaking when there aren’t a half dozen neighborhood kids watching.  If you do, kids tend to run under the falling berries and pretend like it’s raining and then dive onto the tarp grabbing handfuls of juicy mulberries like they just busted open a pinata. 

Grabbing handfuls of mulberries may seem like a good idea, but at this very moment I have a feeling that there are several neighborhood moms cursing my name as they go through bottles of Spray and Wash in a futile attempt to get out all of the dark purple stains I helped cause.

I don’t think our next door neighbor, Nancy, is a real big fan of the mulberry tree either since it hangs partially over her yard.  As you can imagine, not all of the berries fall onto a tarp.  Also, there are a lot of birds around and they seem to really like to eat our dark purple and black mulberries.  Any guesses as to what the result is from a bunch of birds eating a bunch of berries?  Not pretty.

Letting Thomas into the back yard right now is also a challenge as he likes mulberries nearly as much as the birds.  He enjoys picking them up and then squishing them in the palm of his hand.    

After our first day of harvesting yesterday, we spent about 2 hours sorting, washing, de-stemming and freezing buckets of berries.  I have no idea how long mulberry trees keep making mulberries but as of today there is no end in sight.  Kari’s been looking up recipes for mulberry jam and mulberry sauce and mulberry cakes and mulberry pies.  Who knew one tree could make so many mulberries?

 

 

At least the kids like them.

 

 

 

 

Cleanup time

Most of the news media has packed up camp now and has followed the flood waters down to Missouri and other places south.  The river crested here on Sunday/Monday a couple feet under what had been predicted and has thankfully started to recede. 

Here’s a shot I took of the water crashing up against the Burlington Street bridge near it’s height on Sunday.

 

And one of the water coming over the Park Road Bridge…

Now onto the cleanup and the stink and the mosquitoes.   I’ll be interested to see how everybody bounces back from this, but I’m not too worried.  I was so impressed with the huge volunteer effort leading up the flood.  The cleanup part isn’t quite as glamorous, but based on what I’ve seen so far there seems to be no less enthusiasm moving forward.

Glenn Beck paid a nice complement to us Iowans in the closing monologue of his TV show Monday night.  Here’s the excerpt:

BECK: Well, finally tonight, it looks like those in the Midwest are dealing with a disastrous flooding, and they`re going to finally be getting a break. It should be dry for most of the week, but the damage has already been done. And the numbers are staggering.

In Iowa, 4.8 million sandbags. Two million acres of soybeans have been lost. Four million acres of farmland under water, 1.3 million acres of corn lost, driving analysts to predict a 33 percent rise in the cost of corn from already record levels.

Thirty-six thousand Iowans are now evacuees, 24,000 in Cedar Rapids alone. And only five have died. That is amazing.

I just got back off of my summer comedy tour, one of my favorite times of the year because I actually get off this stupid island and actually get talk to people in the middle of the country. And every time I come back I come back rejuvenated.

When you watch the news every day, it is easy to forget how this country became this country. But when I travel, I remember the attitude that brought us here in the first place. It is an attitude of work ethic and personal responsibility.

My grandfather taught it to me. He was a farmer, third grade education, a guy who made his living off the land. Most of what he ate was at one time something that he had planted or something that he had fed, and he had the same spirit. He knew how bad things would be sometimes.

But he also knew that there were times when you would be able to show what you were really made of. By the way, he was from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

He didn`t want any help other than his family and the neighborhood getting together to fix the problem. Well, that is the same sort of spirit that we`re now seeing in Iowa and the rest of the Midwest today.

It is not a litany of complaints and nobody is standing on their roofs. It is an understanding of the issues at hand and using real heartland-style effort to get the job done.

The Iowa National Guard troops have been deployed, and of course they`re doing everything they can to help, but it struck me as interesting that much of their time was being spent not trying to rescue Iowans from their homes, but trying to keep Iowans away from their homes. They wanted to get in there and do the jobs themselves.

They actually wanted to enter the dangerous flood zones. They wanted to do whatever they could to help secure their homes and their belongings and save their communities.

It`s hard not to be optimistic on the future of this country when you think about that truly American spirit.

From New York, good night America.

- Makes me proud to be an Iowan.

Getting closer…

Our neighbor, Enrique, has a pilot’s license and shared some of the photos he took with us from his flight today (Friday 6/13).  What’s hard to believe is that they’re predicting at least another 4 feet before the water crests next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Here’s what the Coralville Strip looked like today.  It’s facing north - Iowa softball diamonds on the left and Walgreens.  The Vine and The Wig and Pen in the lower right.

 

Another one of the Coralville Strip.

 

The first bridge is the Burlington St bridge.  The Union and Danforth Chapel where I last posted pictures from by the 8 ft tall sandbag wall are in the upper right.  Looks like some water coming through there.  Very frustrating.  Yesterday I was over at the main library (center right) helping pass books up to the second floor from the lower level.  That’s a little easier on the back than sandbagging. (and maybe a little more worthwhile if the walls don’t hold?)

 

Here’s one of the art buildings.

 

 

Hancher Auditorium will be in trouble with water another 4 feet deep.

 

 

 

   Here are Kaylee and Emma standing in the fossil gorge below the spillway about 3 weeks ago.  We took a little outing up there to see all of the fossils on a nice day.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is what the spillway looked like today.  In the last picture the girls are standing somewhere near the bottom of this picture, where the white water is right now.  Water isn’t supposed to go over the spillway at all except during exteme flooding.  Today the water level in the reservoir was 4 1/2 feet higher than the top of the spillway.  That’s a lot of extra water pouring down into Iowa City and Coralville!