what's up in central Iowa?

W>A>T>E>R>

The rains came down and the flooded rivers and creeks came up...

And our house stood firm and the basement is dry, but our gravel road didn't fare so well with the creek running over it all day Wednesday.  The cows and their calves survived their swim back across the creek-turned-lake... and have actually enjoyed the extra water for cooling off in the overwhelming heat.

Here's a link to pictures of nearby Ames ~ (Remember, my pics are on film still in the camera...)  My Wisconsin friend said she's been seeing pics on the national news.  So many people losing property ~ one 16yo lost her life when their car was washed off the road Wednesday morning.  Due to multiple water main breaks in Ames, they have to limit water use and boil.  ISU students are coming into town there.  Story City residents (among others I'm sure) had sewer back-up in their basements.  Cambridge (where we attend church) is a small, very low-set river town without storm sewers ~ what a mess there!  I-35 just reopened yesterday afternoon...

But it didn't rain here Wed night or last night! woot woot!  Praying for a dry weather spell, but we're in a bit of a HOT, HUMID, THUNDERSTORM or SUNNY sort of weather pattern.  :-(   I so wish we could send some of our rain to the areas suffering drought this summer!

Our two oldest girls are off to the Iowa State Fair today to work in a church booth - in air conditioning  :-)  Kayleb has been here since Tuesday evening, and Matthew & Jessica arrived Wednesday night (Tim's nephews).  Yesterday the guys got most of the drywall up on the garage ceiling!  yay!  Jessica is off to the fair today with the girls.  Matthew is here somewhere... Kayleb is currently installing drawer pulls on the kitchen cabinets  :-)

And I ought to go switch laundry  ;-)

happy birthday

...to the Computer Geek!  14 years ago (and about an hour) this young man was born (our first home birth!)  Wow, how time goes so quickly!

Interesting that this is "today's verse" from Bible Gateway...

“For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.” (Isaiah 33:22)

The Computer Geek's real name means "God is my judge."  =)


Three of his sisters contributed to decorating his cake yesterday as he requested  (Tell him how blessed he is!)

It's supposed to be a computer screen... with this ugly Python snake on it...

This morning's birthday breakfast included...
scrambled eggs with fried potatoes, sausage, cheese
waffles, blueberry sauce, "maple" syrup (real flavor added to sugar water... not quite up to par)
smoothies (all because a nectarine was mealy)
Mostly prepared by his big sis Miss Music Box ~ She baked the cake too (I think I am the one who is spoiled!)

argh

It used to irritate me when Huggies "improved" their diapers while reducing the number of diapers in the bag and raising the price... (okay, it still does irritate me ~ I just don't have to face it daily like I did many long years ago)

So, Blogger, what is the deal with the NEW template designing stuff?!?  I was quite content with my design from hotbliggityblog... Then I got notice that it would disappear on Aug 1 for whatever reason.  So I went shopping for a new design and ended up with the blue flower one from cutestblogontheblock.  Today I decided to look again (after battling to get my links to show up in a different color) Quit trying to change text color and found another cute design at hotbliggity.. But for some reason it won't appear on the blog ~ except the hotbliggityblog logo?  Bleh.  So I picked a template from the minimal Blogger choices, and here we are.  :p

Bright spot:  The links are now clearly seen.  And I'm provoked to get up and do something else with this day come back and spend yet another hour messing with the format.  Okay, I'm done now.  I think we'll have to live with this for a few months.

Please don't miss the post on Prague now that I've posted this rant!

who's going to the Czech Republic?

Julie asked me to  

Tell more about the Czech Republic trip?!

I'm sorry! ~ I thought I had posted more information than just the button with a link in the sidebar, but I can't find anything else... So here you all go!  And thank you for praying!

Miss Music Box (pictured below on right) and her dad and about 30 other volunteers and missionaries will be leaving September 10 to travel to Prague.

They are going with Couriers for Christ, a ministry of Wyldewood Baptist Church in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  I was excited to find the website for Missionary Jon Rettig who has ministered with his family in Prague since 1994.  They will be assisting the Rettigs and the small church there by distributing these John & Romans (which were printed at Branson West, Missouri, Conny!) and inviting the people of Prague to learn of Christ and attend an evangelistic meeting toward the end of the campaign.

There is a great need for prayer for this campaign.  

God is the only one who can change lives for His glory.

• Pray for the precious souls of the people in Prague where atheism is prevalent.
• The Czech Bibles that will be given to those attending the final meeting are having production problems ~ They are coming from Korea and need to arrive in Prague before September 10 instead of later in  September.
• One of the team members has recently had surgery and is having lingering effects. Pray for Holly's health and strength to make the trip to Prague.
• Another team member's wife is due with their third child shortly after his return from Prague ~ Pray that Doug's wife doesn't go into labor early!

Miss MusicBox will celebrate her 17th birthday in Prague ~ Pray that this will be a meaningful time of growth in her walk with God ~ And please pray for Tim also, who is weary from our long year of housebuilding in addition to his usual responsibilities.

Dekuju! (deck-oo-you)

Thank you!

P.S.  There ARE links in this post ~ I haven't figured out how to make them show up better with the new format.  Move your mouse around and hopefully you will find them!     Okay, changed the format again, as you can see  ;-)

And, here's a link to Mrs. Rettig's blog that seems to be hosted/posted by their sending church...

the crazy life

Here's my FB status from last night:

.what.a.day. After dropping off E, we hit a bookstore, Target & Kohls in Ankeny (and Bosco's for half-price gyros!), then on to Ames for groceries and a "quick" stop at the mall... Left home this morn ~11 and just got home again at 8:50pm. Do I need to mention that I had my teenage shopping queens with me?

And to prepare for such an unexpectedly long day, Miss MusicBox and I were shopping online until after midnight Monday night ~ I finally shut it off when we lost i-net service in the thunderstorm.  Smart?

Monday we finally finished cleaning out the old house (Tim still has a pile of trash and a few things in the garage) ~ whew!  I need to bake bread today (yesterday)... And the Computer Geek has a paper route to deliver today.  I should actually cook a meal for my family?  Church tonight.  Friday begins "tax-free weekend" for back-to-school clothes shopping (um, which we sorta did a LOT of yesterday)... So they gave us $30 of store credit at Kohls to be used Friday or Saturday.  And since I have several things to return, maybe we will brave the crowd on Friday morning?  ugh.  Friday night we need to celebrate the CG's 14th birthday, because on Saturday we will be at a family reunion...

Next week...
The Cattleman's Sunday school teacher gave them the "Romans 12 Challenge" this summer (in competition with the high school class) ~ The younger class appears to be winning the challenge, and their prize is a camping trip!  (That's next week)  And we have Tim's nephew Matthew and his new bride Jessica coming for a few days (to work on the house! yay!) ~ and maybe Kayleb too??  Miss MB has a day of babysitting for a friend, then she and Miss Artist are to go to the State Fair with their high school Sunday school class to help run an evangelistic booth... I think Miss A has agreed to an evening of babysitting.  Youth group is invited to a swimming activity on Saturday.

And in just five short weeks, Tim and Miss MB need to be packed and ready to travel to the Czech Republic!  (thus my 'willingness' to marathon clothes shop yesterday)

Crazy?!


I should like to look forward to heaven because I will see my Blessed Savior ~ not just because I'm tired of life on this earth...

"Hezky den" (hess-key den) 

"Have a nice day" in Czech  :-)

~ ♥ ~

garage floor prep

Must have been Wed, July 14 ~ Kayleb returned for yet another long weekend of helping us!  Wednesday night we were up until 1am getting the floor ready for a Thursday morning pour (or so we thought).  This meant installing a drain... which meant drilling/knocking a hole in the wall  ~ Through how many inches of concrete?!

(sorry, can't turn these two pics ~ cock your head to the left)

But yay!!! the drain pipe is through the wall!

Here the girls are helping "staple" the pex tubing to the styrofoam ~ Yes, we are putting heat in the garage floor too.  We baby our cars.  ;-)

Another day Kayleb put another hole through the wall, this time encountering re-bar (oops), in order to vent the stove hood.

Not much else on that roll of film besides messy closets and kitchen  =)  So here's one more of Smokey happily relaxing on the front stoop while the guys worked on the garage floor ~ and the kids enjoyed quite the lightning show before the rain.  Didn't capture that on film.  It was the branch-all-over-the-sky type lightning ~ very cool.

Oh, and a little miscommunication about the concrete pour ~ they eventually came on July 21 to pour the floor.  Just a minor speed bump.  Those pics are still undeveloped.  That's life with one-time-use FILM cameras.

finally pictures

First the surprise... that is difficult to do justice with photos ...

...such a cool gift with our farm's name painted on an old barn board  =)  Tim got it mounted on the wall yesterday morning.

Thanks, Amber!!!

I've lost track of which day the Computer Geek accomplished this project... creating a 'sidewalk' to the front door.

(photos by Miss MusicBox ~ actually all but one? in the whole post!)

The daily battle for the boys is to conquer the weeds ... the hills of dirt make them even more impressive oppressive.

Anyone recognize this prevalent plant?

Smokey seemed to be enjoying our new home... but she disappeared last weekend  :-(

We found a new pink wildflower to add to our collection ~ Anyone know what this is??  The plant must be about 3 feet tall.  We moved it from the old ditch to the new one this week (thanks to the ComputerGeek).

Tim must have been moving the fence the same evening that the CG was building the rock sidewalk.

She even captured the cattle on the move...

Must have been Monday night I finally got to this project... which was a lot more work than I expected.

First I changed my mind about which wall to put it on... got it taped up there level and centered. Then you have to peel off the backing... without taking the letters with it...

Then it's time to make the letters stick to the wall while peeling off the top layer...

while standing on a step stool, leaning across the piano... stop, roll the shoulders... while Miss MB tries to get me to make funny faces at her for a photo  :p

Whew... no need for all the in between photos...

This corner looks like home at least!

Meanwhile, Tim was moving more appliances...

And the Cattleman learned how fun it is to reattach the bottom grill on an upright freezer  ;-)

Miss Artist is enjoying the variety available in the ditch and pasture for making 'flower' arrangements...