Happy Father's Day

The weekend started off with a bang... or a gush. One of the levys downtown broke and water flooded the bridge and surrounding area. (I'll post some pictures at the end of this entry.) Typical for Friday the 13th, right? My place of work is just far enough away from the action that we were not evacuated, but everyone in a 3 block radius or inside the flood plain were. I wasn't there anyway though.

I was at home planning for our garage sale. We had some great help with the sale. Two ladies that I know from the Des Moines Nest board ( an online forum that we belong to) brought their little girls to play with Katen. They were all so well behaved and had a lot of fun! Another "Nestie" who is expecting her first child in December helped as well. Katen tried to amaze her with her great "raspberry blowing" skills and flashed some of her best toothless grins. The weather was beautiful and in the end we didn't make a ton of money but it was nice to be rid of some of our junk! The rest will go to a local charity called freestore.org and the clothes will go to Goodwill. ...once I get the energy to take them there. Garage sales are a lot of work!

Mike spent the morning of Father's day golfing with two of his high school friends and my Dad. It rained briefly but they had nice weather for the most part. Katen and I spent the morning running errands, cleaning up the house, and making food for the Father's day BBQ we were hosting in the evening. She was such a trooper while I strolled her though Target and she gave me a good hour to do housework while she played in her Fisher Price Jumperoo. (The BEST invention for a 5 month old ever!). I figured out that if I put her jumperoo by the patio door so she could look outside and also turned on the Roomba (one of those automated vaccumes), she had plenty to keep her flea sized attention span satisfied. (And I got the living room floor clean!)

Later in the day Katen helped me husk corn while riding in her baby Bjorn carrier. The was really interested in the bumpy, sticky texture of the corn and tried to put some of the silk in her mouth. Everything must be tasted, you know. It's fun to see her the little gears in her head turn as she experiences new things. Her mind amazes me.

What did Daddy get for Father's Day? He got a new battery powered hedge trimmer and weed eater combo. I know it sounds like we're putting him to work, but that's what he wanted. Honestly, the man can have any yard toy he wants as long as he does the yard work. That's not a job that I miss and he's doing a really good job. I remember a beautiful spring day when Mike and I cleaned up the yard from the winter as Katen rode in her Moby wrap with me. That was the last time Katen and I mowed. Apparently the sound and the motion is soothing to a baby though. She fell asleep if I remember correctly. However, putting her to sleep is still not good enough reason to try it again. It gets hot with the baby stuck to your front, wrapped in jersey knit fabric. I'll reserve that fun for the Farmer's Market.



As promised, more pictures of the flooding...



Those of you who live in my hometown know that the second picture is of the lower Red Rock Lake camping ground. The picture is of the check-in booth which is generally high and dry. Water from Sailorville Reservoir flows downstream into Red Rock Lake and causes domino effect flooding as it travels.