Flamingo on a Stick

St Louis Arch- Gateway to the West. Debbie & Kirk, Bob & Sue, & Doc This past weekend we went on a little vacation. Left the 5th wheel in Cedar Rapids and left for St. Louis. Everyone needs a vacation once in awhile even if its from a life that is a little like a vacation in itself. A very good friend of John’s had a daughter getting married and talked her into inviting their group of friends, many of whom hadn’t seen each other in 20+ (may be closer to 30) years. This group of guys and their wives got to know each other when the fellas first worked at Rockwell in Cedar Rapids about 35 years ago. This is back in their wild and crazy youth and many of us who weren’t there have heard the stories so many times we feel like we were. They had a lot of fun but their lives moved on and many of them moved away to new jobs, careers, kids and life in general. Back in those days John was know as “Doc”. His brother the doctor would  give him scrub shirts as gifts and John always

First off, my computer has been fixed! The magnetic plug where the charger plugs in had to be replaced. Glad to have it back. :) It has been a big week for us here. On Monday we went with our son Gabe and his girlfriend Melissa to Early, Iowa to look at a  house.  Melissa was hired as the art teacher for the elementary school and middle school in the Schaller-Crestland school district. This is a consolidated school district of 4 towns just south of Storm Lake IA. After visiting they realized there really weren’t any places to rent in these small town so the principal suggested they look at buying.  They found a wonderful little ranch home on a half acre lot in Early, where the middle school is located.  Gabe and Melissa's first home! They wanted us to come and look to see if we felt this would be a good move. It is about a 4 hour drive from CR so we set out early and met the realtor at the house. After looking things over we too felt this was a great deal. They had already m

I had a post I wanted to do today on John but my laptop isn't charging and I think we will have to send it in to Apple. Luckily we have the Apple care plan and I think their turn around is pretty quick. We think it is the battery. So all my great photos of John and the boys are on that computer or DVDs and so I don't have acess to them. I am writing this on the iPad. So once I get the computer back I will revisit Dad's day just for him. To all those Dad's out there, have a wonderful day! Happy trails..........

At 28, when my brain and body were the same age! How old does your brain think you are? John and I talked about this recently. Our bodies often remind us that we are no longer young but for us our brains still think we are. In fact we decided our brains still think we are around 28 years old. Funny, but that is the age I was when I met John. We can’t deny that the years have passed by after all we have sons who are 22 and 25. We have had long careers in our chosen professions and we have had a multitude of different experiences but alas my brain is just not convinced it is older.  Now, my body on the other hand reminds  me almost daily. You may know what it is like, you get up in the morning and your joints seem to need some warming up before they’re really ready for the day. Then you go to the mirror and this person with wrinkles or as John says, old skin, is looking back at you. Who is that person any way? Certainly not me. Like I said, I’m just 28 years old!?!? Janie with ba

Thanks for the feedback on the new look. John mentioned that the comments were a bit hard to read so I changed the color and font a little. Hope it helps. Good news today. My son Gabe's girlfriend Melissa got her first teaching job! It is in a small town in NW Iowa. They are excited and will probably move in August. Now to get Mitch (younger son) employed and then we will rest easier when we leave here this fall. Happy Trails.........

Trail at Morgan Creek earlier this spring Was in the mood to change things up on the blog. Found this template and liked the way it followed a color scheme for a blog named after a flamingo. It has been a very quiet weekend. The weather has been up and down. Stayed relatively cool with some showers but with beautiful weather in between those showers. The weather lately took me to the photo in the header. This is a panoramic shot I put together in Adobe Photoshop Elements ( a really easy thing to do) of a storm we watched from a distance down in Fort Supply, Oklahoma. Ever since that storm we have seen storm clouds about twice a week. This week on Thursday we spent some time at the shower house during a tornado warning. We had quite a bit of hail, man is it loud when hail hits a fiberglass roof. No damage to either the truck or rig. Thankful for that. I have been spending plenty of time grading case studies and quizzes - just part of the job. I've had a couple lectures and q

Birthday party! John, Gabe, Melissa, Larry (my big brother) & Barb  (SIL), Emily,  & Mitch I was out on my run today and a young family I passed made me decide on todays post.  Many of us are trying to stay healthy and are out there walking and running which is exactly what we should be doing. It is not unusual in the campgrounds and RV parks that we are in that there are no sidewalks or trails so we must share the road with traffic. Luckily most of the areas we are in don’t have heavy traffic but we still need to to be very aware, after all cars and trucks are much bigger than us. I have found that many people don’t realize that pedestrians should walk on the left side facing traffic. For some that seems counter to how we do other things but it is important for our safety. When you walk facing traffic you are able to observe the traffic coming towards you, if you are walking on the right side then the traffic closest to you is all coming up from behind and you are blind to

First, I should say it has been hard to sit down and write lately, I think because we are in old familiar territory with friends and family. Nothing really new or too interesting happening. Yet it seems like we are busier than ever. The tale to tell today is about the Iowa State Parks and why I don’t think we will be staying in them any time soon or even ever.  This week we decided to try out Pleasant Creek recreational Area, a state park near us in Palo, IA. My nephew is competing in a triathlon there on Saturday so it would be nice to be there.  We got up and out to the park around 11:30 am. Took 2 trips around checking the “non-reservable sites” The Iowa State parks are suppose to have about half of their sites as walk up, non reservable sites. We spotted one that had no ticket on the post so we pulled in set up and paid our fees into the little kiosk. It was a beautiful day, of which we have had very few this summer, so we were set to enjoy it. My son and his girlfriend joined us b