Sweet baby girl

She's ADORABLE, as you can see. I'm not biased or anything- he he. My sister, Cindy, gave birth to her on HER birthday, July 22nd. You ROCK sister of mine! Happy (late) birthday, I love you soo much!

What to do in IOWA for fun...

WELOME to the SOLON BEEF DAYS. Of course, we HAD to attend the festivities. Anything with BEEF in the title sounds like fun, right?? Randy entered the Haybale throwing contest for a whopping 5 buckaroos. I bragged that I would enter for the WOMEN but glad I didn't once I saw the guns on those girls. I would have been HUMILIATED. They started the men out at 7' and increased in increments of 6". I must say, Randy still has some STRENGTH from his football days! He threw clear up to 10'6"!! I didn't realize I had my camera on me until his last throw:

The winner threw an astounding 12'6", a new record. If you know Randy's competitive nature, don't be surprised if you see us practicing in the backyard for next year. Jon and Theo were great to console him after his loss.

The deck is DONE

After a few weekends of digging in the MUD, a little work here and there (ok, a LOT), I present our FINISHED deck project for the summer.

BEFORE:


AFTER:

I think it turned out pretty nice, and now we have extra storage for all the yard stuff. Randy says I'm not allowed any more projects for THIS summer.

Sweet 4th Fun

This year's 4th of July was one of the most fun in a long time! It started with Cooper and I running in the Dylan Campbell Benefit 5k - he was a trooper and we finished in about 29 minutes (under 30 sounds good to me) I realized that since I've been running alone I don't haven anyone to get me motivated to pick up my pace - which means I was sucking wind trying not to let the old man behind me pull ahead at the end - if anyone ever wants to RUN... call ME.

Here we are L to R: Kristie, Melissa, Heather, me and Rivka - thanks for the fun time, ladies!

Then it was off to the Coralville parade to bask in the sun. Donigan's mom had popcorn so Cooper wouldn't leave her alone once he figured that out, she was a good sport about sharing. That town knows how to throw a parade! Yes, there was plenty of salt water taffy, but we also scored cloth grocery bags, sparklers, free movie passes, discount massages, a t-shirt, beach balls, and ice pops. By the end of the parade Rivka and I were as bad as the kids next to us, pleading for someone to throw us goodies.

The Boyer's were nice enough to invite us over for a BBQ that afternoon, so after a quick nap we picked up Randy and headed out. Coop had to share when Kate decided his food looked better than hers. Luckily there was plenty to go around.

















After my reluctancy to give in to the popsicle with a nice white polo shirt, Jessica reminded me that they're easy to bleach and - after all - it was the 4th. I also believe he would have heisted Megan or Claire's if he didn't have his own.

We went downtown to watch some fireworks but tired boys and loud noises don't mix, so we lit some sparklers and headed home - hope you all had a wonderful 4th, too!