Saturday, September 22nd, 2018

Today Eben joined me for an Iowa State football game, as we watched the Cyclones defeat the Akron Zips, 26-13.  It has been quite a while since dad has gone to a football game with me... I believe the 2011 Kansas game was the last time we went to a game together.  Normally, he is busy combining around this time, but this week he has had quite a bit of rain and flooding at home which has prevented him from starting the harvest yet.

Anyways, prior to the 11:00 kickoff, I took dad over to the Vet Med lot for tailgating.  Our normal spot at G7 was closed due to being too wet.  We met up with the usual group of friends for a few drinks, well I was drinking but Eben didn't care to.  Elizabeth loaded the boys up and brought them over with her bicycle and trailer, so they had a chance to enjoy tailgating as well.  Nolan had fun playing with Bash again.

As for the game, Iowa State took care of business, but it was not the blowout that some had expected.  Hakeem Butler did have a nice 24-yard touchdown reception for the Cyclones.  As he was nearing the goal line, Butler was up-ended by a defender, but he was able to stretch the ball out and knock over the pylon at the goal line while completely upside-down.  It was very athletic and impressive. 

There was a pretty somber mood in the stadium to start the game.  The crowd was all wearing yellow to honor Celia Barquin Arozamena, who was tragically murdered in Ames earlier in the week.  Before the game there was a short video tribute for her and a moment of silence.  It was hard not to get teared-up a little.

Eben posing with Nolan and Maxwell at the tailgate lot.

The band formed a "CBA" to honor Celia Barquin Arozamena.

Go Cyclones!

Saturday, September 15th, 2018

This morning I took Nolan with me to watch the Iowa State Cyclones football game vs the fifth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners.  Unfortunately, the Sooners would go on to win 37-27, but the Cyclones at least played tough against one of the top teams in the country. 

Kickoff was at 11:00, so the plan was to get out to the tailgate lots early.  Having a 5 year old makes it difficult to get there super early, but we managed to show up around 7:30 or so.  Dan Becker had his son, Bash, at the tailgate as well, so at least Nolan had a friend his age to play with.  Dan made everyone some yummy breakfast burritos, and the boys played Frisbee.  The usual crowd was at the tailgate, including Tim Nevins, Ryan Butler, and even Kyle Perkins for a little while.  Kyle and his wife just had a baby, Dorothy, earlier this month, so I wasn't sure if he would make it out or not.

As for the game, the Oklahoma offense looked quite impressive as would be expected for a top-5 team.  Still, the Cyclones held tough thanks to a pair of long Zeb Noland to Hakeem Butler touchdown passes (51 and 57 yards).  Butler's first touchdown of the game (the 51-yard TD) was especially impressive given the way he broke multiple tackles after catching the ball en-route to the end zone. I believe that this was the third time that I have been to an OU-ISU football game, the others being in 2014 and 2012.  I dream of the day that I can actually witness the Cyclones upsetting the Sooners, as they did in Norman last year. 

This was the third time that I have taken Nolan to an ISU football game, and the first game that we were actually able to make it through the whole game.  The previous games he has witnessed were 2017 vs UNI and 2015 vs UNI. 

Nolan posing before kickoff.  Out seats were in section H row 13.

There was a pretty good crowd on hand for the game today... officially 58,479.

Friday, August 24th, 2018

Well a lot has changed around Ames recently as the students are back, and classes for the fall semester started this week.  We're looking forward to having Nolan start his first day of kindergarten this coming Monday.  The great thing about back to school time is that it also means the fall sports season is here :)

Today Elizabeth and I were able to take to boys to our first ISU sporting event of the season - Iowa State's home opening volleyball game vs. Ole Miss.  The 21st ranked Cyclones swept the Rebels in 3 sets (25-21, 25-11, 25-19).  The kids seemed to have fun at the game... even if they didn't exactly watch the game itself.  Of course we split a clone cone so the boys could have their ice cream fix.  Then they spent most of the time just being silly and playing in the aisles where we sat.  Cy the mascot did come up and sit by us, which was cool.  I tried to take Maxwell over to him at one point for a picture, but Maxwell was too scared when we got up close to Cy.

I believe that this is the third year in a row that we've seen the home opening volleyball game for the Cyclones.  Last year we saw the game against Kent State, and in 2016 we saw the Cyclones play Wichita State.

Our first clone cone of the season!  

Cy sat by us at the game for a bit!

A view of the action between ISU and Ole Miss.

Monday, July 9th, 2018

First I would just like to say happy anniversary to Elizabeth.  Seven years sure have gone fast!

The main thing on my mind tonight is the epic vacation that our family just went on to Hawaii.  Becky was generous enough to take all of the GLEKS families on a Hawaiian cruise, and it was so much fun I can hardly describe it.  

Our trip began on June 28th when we flew from Des Moines to Phoenix (almost 3 hours) and then from Phoenix to Honolulu (about 6 hours).  Because of the time change, we arrived in the middle of the day, and we had to try and keep the kids up longer than usual.  That was a long day, especially because the kids cried for long periods during the flights.  On the day of our arrival, we did get to dip our toes in the ocean at Waikiki beach. That night we went out for dinner at Maui Brewing Company.

Nolan LOVED the beach at Waikiki.

On the 29th the main thing we did was play at Waikiki beach.  Both kids really had fun playing on the beach and in the shallow waves.  Maxwell would be silly and bend over so that his head was on the ground and let waves splash his face.  He stopped after getting mouthfuls of salt water a couple of times.  We had a big pizza party for Becky that night to thank her for the trip.

On the 30th of June I took Nolan parasailing.  I thought that parasailing was one of the most enjoyable things that I did in Hawaii.  The view was spectacular.  Nolan did get a little frightened when we were up at the very top, but overall he handled it well.  We also boarded the cruise ship that day.

July 1st was our first day at Maui.  We took the kids to Kaanapali beach, where we set up a rented canopy and beach chairs, and we enjoyed the beach most of the afternoon.  The Gleasons did meet up with us there, and they went snorkeling.  The let me try it for a while as well, which was a lot of fun.  I even saw some humahumanukanukaapuaa while snorkeling.  Elizabeth and I went to bed early that night because we had a big day planned for day 2 of Maui.

Elizabeth and Maxwell building sand castles at Kaanapali beach.

On July 2nd, we woke up super early, like 1:45 AM.  We hopped on a shuttle around 2:30 in the morning, which took us up around 10,000 feet above sea level on Mount Haleakala.  The idea was to watch the sun rise from on top of the mountain.  It was actually super cold up there, and we stood around in the cold for about 45 minutes before day break.  Unfortunately, it was cloudy at that time, so all we saw were clouds at day break.  Later on the clouds did lift some so we could see the sun, but it wasn't the true "sunrise".  After that, Elizabeth and I went on a 7-mile downhill bike ride, and then we went zip lining.  The very last zip line was quite long, and it was a lot of fun!  

The view from Mount Haleakala once the clouds lifted.

July 3rd we spent at Hilo on the big island.  We bought tickets to the "Hop on, Hop off" bus, which took us to a variety of places around town.  We saw Rainbow Falls, the Hilo farmer's market, a statue of King Kameamea, and we went by a row of old Banyan trees that were planted by famous people (I remember Babe Ruth and Amelia Earhart, and president FDR).  On the night of the 3rd, our ship cruised past the active Kilauea volcano.  That was spectacular to see in person, and it was probably my favorite moment of the whole trip.

Rainbow Falls

Elizabeth with a yummy poke bowl that we split for lunch in downtown Hilo.

The volcano is on the right, and where the lava flows into the ocean is on the left.

On the 4th of July I went deep sea fishing with James, Christian, Emily, and Becky.  It turned out to just be a 4 hour boat ride without any fish (or even any bites), but it was still fun.  

On July 5th and 6th we spent time in Kauai.  We drove the kids to Lydgate park on the 5th.  The beach there was pretty rough, so we were not able to go swimming.  On the afternoon of the 6th the ship cruised along the Na Pali coast, which was very beautiful.  

Our cruise ended on the 7th, but we still had a day on Oahu before our flight that night.  We did a quick tour of the Dole pineapple plantation and had a Dole whip (pineapple ice cream that was smooth and very sweet).  We also stopped by the Polynesian Cultural Center, where Nolan got a temporary tattoo of a lizard.   

Monday, May 28th, 2018

Memorial Day 2018

It's been a busy few days for the Salton Family.  Last Tuesday, the 22nd, we drove down to Des Moines to pick up my new 2018 Toyota Camry Hybrid from the Toyota dealership!  So far I really like the car.  It rides very smoothly, and it can get up to 50 miles per gallon.  The color of the car is "Brownstone". 

My new car!

Then this weekend we took the new car on its first road trip as we traveled to Mason City to visit grandma Becky.  "Band fest" was going on, so we took the kids to watch the parade on Saturday morning, and then they were able to ride a few carnival rides.  We also treated them to ice cream at Birdsall's, a really good local ice cream parlor where Elizabeth used to work back when she was in high school.  I enjoyed two scoops of their black raspberry marble ice cream :)  The boys each had a scoop of cotton candy ice cream.  Between candy at the parade, actual cotton candy at the carnival, and ice cream, they each had plenty of sweets on Saturday!

Nolan and Elizabeth pose at the parade in Mason City.

Today Elizabeth took Nolan to the water park here in Ames for the first time this year.  I stayed hme with Maxwell, as he had gotten a little too much sun while up in Mason City.  For supper we took the whole family out to eat at The Cafe.  As always, the food there was very good.  We've also been gradually preparing ourselves for our upcoming trip to Hawaii later this summer... it's going to be so much fun I can hardly wait!

Sunday, May 6th, 2018

This weekend I went up to Yellow River near Harpers Ferry, IA for our annual trout fishing trip.  I was joined by the Seagos (Jon, Jeremy, Matthew, and their dad Clyde), Tyler and Jordan Wright, and their buddy Keith.  The entire group had been up there for a day or two before I arrived... I came up after work on Friday because I'm trying to save days off from work for our big trip to Hawaii :)

Friday night we had good weather as there were clear skies and no breeze at all.  It was perfect conditions for a nice campfire, and it was nice to look up at all the stars in the sky on a clear night.  Tyler and Keith had both shot a turkey before I arrived.

Saturday we also had good weather for most of the day.   I went trout fishing with Matthew on the trail back behind the Little Paint campground.  There are lots of little fishing holes back there, but where we went was left at the first fork and all the was back along the rock wall.  That morning we each caught 3 nice rainbow trout using pieces of nightcrawlers as bait.  Jon went back farther down the trail and managed to catch his limit of 5 fish before noon. 

After our morning fishing, we came back to camp and relaxed, cooked some lunch, and tried to stay in the shade.  It was a good 80 degrees out, so we didn't feel like fishing again until the late afternoon.  After it did start to cool down a bit, I walked back to the same fishing hole that I was at this morning, but had no luck there.  I then went farther down the trail and managed to catch 1 nice rainbow trout at another fishing hole.  Jeremy and Jordan met up with me by then, and we all tried our luck farther up stream.  I caught another trout, but it was tiny, so I tossed it back.  Jeremy almost caught a really big brown trout, but it got away from him at the water's edge.

That evening we had a turkey feast.  Keith cut up his turkey breast into small pieces, wrapped each one in bacon, and cooked them over the camp fire.  It was amazingly good!  Then Matthew managed to make a really good turkey noodle soup.  He had boiled the turkey legs in a covered cast iron pot for 3 hours, then he strained the broth that was leftover and used that for soup stock.  He added a bunch of chopped veggies, noodles, and seasonings, and the end result was very good.  Later Saturday night we did have thunderstorms that rolled through, and they put a premature end to our campfire. 

My plan for this morning was to leave by 10:30 or so just to have plenty of time to be home and catch up on a few things before work on Monday.  Before I left the camp, I did manage to go fishing just a little.  I walked over to the fishing hole right close to the camp site, and within about 3 casts I was able to land another rainbow trout worth keeping.  So for the weekend I caught 6 rainbow trout (5 of which were keepers). 

Here are some other years that I blogged about our trout fishing: 2017, 2014, 2013, and 2012. 

Here I am with our stringer of 6 trout on Saturday morning.

Mathew with our stringer of 6 trout on Saturday.

The fishing hole close to camp.  I would catch a fish within another cast or two of taking this picture.

Saturday, April 21st, 2018

Well, I've been slacking off on updating my blog quite a bit as it's been almost 2 months since my last blog entry...

Anyways, today we had some family fun as the four of us went over to Perfect Games for a little bowling.  This was Maxwell's first ever time bowling (and Nolan's second time) I believe.  For the boys we had them use the "bumpers" on the sides of the lane, and they used a ramp to help roll the ball.  Nolan managed to be the big winner today, as he scored 128.  He actually picked up 6 spares!  I came in second with a score of 112.  Honestly, I was just happy to break 100 since it was my first game of bowling in a couple of years.  Maxwell managed to score 102 in his first-ever game of bowling.  Elizabeth ended with a score of 97. 

We also took the kids out to eat at Hickory Park for lunch.  Maxwell enjoyed mac & cheese with a side of mac & cheese, Nolan had chicken strips with french fries (and ketchup), Elizabeth had a black bean burger with sweet potato fries, and I had a pork tenderloin along with mashed potatoes.  All in all, it was a fun day!

Here are our final scores from bowling today. 

Elizabeth posing 

Nolan watching his ball roll slowly down the middle of the lane...

Nolan and myself

Maxwell and Elizabeth