Break it up!

I know the previous blog was huge...lots happened! This blog is just one day in the life.

Several employees and 2 husbands went in to the Kitchen Essentials to put the store back together. After being closed for a business week, it will be busy this coming week!! I believe by the time everyone left, the store was fit to open Monday. It better be, Gretchen and I picked out really cool stuff that will be shipping soon!

After work, I came home and I will let the pictures talk for me as to what I did. The only pic I didn't take was cleaning all the baby trees and "helicoptors" out of my front flower bed.

This is our old mailbox. It is old. It is broken.
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This is our NEW mailbox ($10.97 at Lowes). This took me 5 minutes.
This one took me a bit longer. You see, we haven't had a house number for 4 years. This one is even reflective. Now the pizza guy knows where to go.
Ranger is doing very well after his surgery. He still walks 3-legged at times but is frisky and his fur-cut is pretty much normal. He is still restricted to his leash for 2 months more.

Brody is spending the night at my house for the first time tonight. He is Spiderman in this photo. Notice his hands; he is "webbing". He is a very sweet little boy. He gave me a hug tonight and called me Mimi. I think I'm in love!

What a WEEK!!

1. Thursday, June 5th, Dave leaves for Oklahoma. Sigh.
2. Friday, June 6th, Lois, Laura, Tyler, Ranger & Maggie go to Mpls for pleasure and business. I took my camera but never took a picture cuz I didn't have it when I could. The dogs traveled so well, Ranger just really liked being with me. They both made themselves at home at Dave and Elaine's house, plopping on the furniture (Ranger) and walking on the back of the couch (Maggie).
3. Saturday: The 3 of us went to see my mom at her new place and took the dogs with. She enjoyed seeing all of us and meeting Tyler. I also showed Tyler around my old neighborhood and of course, I took him to see Dave's barbershop, which was my dad's when I was little. Dave (Harder) tried to sell the shop to Tyler...hehe. Tyler told him he would have to make some changes, like "gut the shop". I went to see my Uncle Les and Aunt Luella later on and had dinner with them. We had a wonderful visit. He has always been my very favorite uncle (my dad's younger brother). After that, I went to my brother's house in Blaine. My niece Jenny was there (cute baby bump) and we visited for quite a while. We don't see each other enough. I would love to see my nephews Eric and Charlie and of course, my great nephew, Jovanni. Maybe next time.
4. Sunday: I met up with Gretchen (my boss) and went to the Minneapolis Gift Mart. We saw all of the new products coming out and ordered a ton of stuff for "our" shop. This actually went on for about 8 hours Sunday and Monday.
5. Tuesday: Met Gretchen and her husband Kim and then on to downtown Mpls to choose some display fixtures for the store.

This is where we got the call that the downtown area of Cedar Falls was dangerously close to flooding...that is where the kitchen shop is. Ahhhh! Poor Gretchen was shaken and we made a hasty exit, she and Kim went home and I went to the Mall of America. People back home were sandbagging and a crew of townsfolk came to the rescue by going to the shop and making sure all was out of the basement and off the lower shelves and floor. Amazing! The river crested the highest ever at 102.12 feet. Downtown was closed as well as quite a few streets and bridges in both Cedar Falls & Waterloo. I'm sure you've all seen the pictures...and today, most of Iowa along the Cedar River is under water.

6. Wednesday: I head home hoping they will let me into Cedar Falls. There was only one bridge open between Waterloo & CF and after several detours, I made it back to my favorite house on Lovejoy Drive.




7. Thursday-Present: The flood moves south of us and we begin cleanup. Thank to all who contacted us and Thelma to check on things. It's just crazy to be all over the national news for about a month...and it's not even a caucus!

Say Goodbye Once & Leave...

This is one of our 3 new trees in the backyard. This is how tall it is on the day Dave left for Oklahoma (tonight). I'll take another picture when he comes home next year.

The send off was brief and hot/humid. Good ol' Mayer Crews from Cedar Falls was there and gave a short and nice farewell. General Dardis was there too and did the same. Our thanks to Perry & Lori, Chuck, Brad, Kandie & Lucas Vaughn, & Jim & Mary Lee for joining us to say goodbye. It was good to have you there and know you care about Dave and our family so much. We love you guys too!

This time, we agreed that we wouldn't watch him get on that bus and wait until it left. We just said goodbye and head out. I think that was easier on all of us, Dave especially. The ceremony started off with the national anthem which of course, all of the soldiers in uniform saluted. Halfway through, I turned in time to see Lucas standing at attention in his little uniform and saluting too. That's when I lost it. It was so sweet and cute.



Lucas and Alexis

Deployment Briefing-GRRRRRRRR!

That's what they call the meeting that takes 4 hours and gives you all of the info that you should know while your "soldier" is gone. It actually only took 2 1/2 hours, I believe because our group was smaller than most (30 vs. 200). I think I have this down pretty good. However, the reality is hitting me pretty hard today. I found myself feeling anxious and not tolerating any kind of inconvenience. Even though the meeting was short, we had a family picnic from 1-2 and then were supposed to get ID cards issued from 3-5. Guess what? No ID personnel showed up. GRRRRRRR! People brought their children and we killed 2 hours before the other meeting. Oh yeah, the meeting room had no AC because of the construction at the hangar. GRRRRRR! You know how I feel about heat and humidity. Thankfully, the meeting was very informational and necessary, and was much shorter than planned. Phew! I'm home now and trying to relax. Dave's send off is Thursday at 5 pm. Won't see him until August for about 4 days and then he leaves out of country for a year. I might be cranky then too!

By the way, to all of our dear friends and family who have been there for us and continue to be there with offers of help and company: We love you and Dave will miss you. You won't miss me though...I'm calling you!!!

It's a lot of BLOG

Ranger: He is doing great since his surgery. The vet said he would start touching his foot down at about 3 weeks and he was touching down after less than a week. He still has that funny haircut. We got an Elizabethian collar for him so he wouldn't lick or chew his stitches (staples). However, I just couldn't put it on him and leave him home alone. I put it on Tyler instead.


Spring: Our flowering crab tree out front was beautiful this year. It helped that the winds were down and no hail or hard rains so it stayed full over a week. It looked like snow when the petals fell. Carrie brought me some lilacs from their yard, which makes me happy. I remember walking to school down Lilac Lane and picking them to smell all day in school.




Fires: We have had two fires in our back yard...in the fire ring of course. Perry came over one night along with Mike and Carrie, Tyler, Laura and Brody. It's so nice to gather around with guitars and fires.


Mushrooms: Mike brought us some beautiful morel mushrooms and even cooked them for us! They were so yummy!






Tornadoes: Where we live, it's hard to believe that the tornadoes even happened. We never even got any rain at our place but boy did they ever get hit in Parkersburg and Dunkerton area. I'm sure you've seen pictures of the houses and businesses that were just leveled. We were grilling steaks when the sirens went off. I hate to say it but we pretty much ignored the sirens because we could see the weather was north of us. After seeing Parkersburg though, we will go downstairs next time.


Memorial Day: What a gorgeous day! Dave and I got Thelma and went out for lunch and then to the cemetery. We told Big Davy stories. He sure is missed. I am including pictures of Travis Vaughn's site. He is in the same cemetery as Dave's dad. It was so hard to think of the young soldiers who were killed. There were 2 new graves of young soldiers this year, very close to Travis's grave. God Bless their families who miss them.

Poor Ranger

Our little buddy had his ACL surgery yesterday and we picked him up this morning. He looks pretty rough with his new haircut. He has lots of staples on an incision about 6-7" long. The physical therapy will be intense however. He has to be on a leash for 3 months every time we go outside, for everything. We will be taking him swimming every day too once his staples come out. Thank goodness it's warming up! I stopped in to see him at the vet yesterday after his surgery. He was so happy to see me but he was kind of dopey. We sat on the grass and he fell into my lap and fell asleep. It's really good to have him home. Oh yeah, Dave's home too! It's good to have him here. He wants to take his recliner back to Camp Dodge.

And so it begins....

Well, it has started. One week down, about 60 more to go! Dave was in Des Moines last week at Camp Dodge going through the Combat Lifesaver Course (see pics). Having been trained as a Medic when I first joined, I was quite impressed with this intense course, which ended up with the guys starting IV's on each other.




We had a very nice weekend together. Dave was so tired Friday night and his arm was sore from an anthrax shot. We stayed home and grilled pork chops for supper. Saturday we went to Lowes, Menards, Best Buy, Blaines, & Walmart....looking for the perfect tomato cage for the monstrous plants I grow. That wore both of us out! We did manage to stay up late and head downtown CF to the Reverb to see Tyler's band play. Quite an interesting place with lots of artwork on the ceiling panels. Tyler's band rocks out pretty good. It was fun to see all of the "youngsters" in their different styles of dress. (Do I sound really old yet?)

Mother's Day: What a lovely day! We all met at the Hong Kong and had yummy Chinese food. Brody was mostly interested in leaving the restaurant to go see the Ironman movie. Thelma and I were showered with hugs and love for being the moms. We went to her house for a while afterward but it was soon time to leave so Dave could finish loading up his car to go back to Camp Dodge. I got a cool phone call from my Mom and talked to Mom, Elaine, Steve, & Dave. I am excited to go up to Minnesota in June to see everyone again. Dave left around 6:00 and the blues set in. I'm gonna miss my guy so much. Sigh.