Friday, December 25th, 2020

 Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!  This year we were planning on it just being the four of us at home for Christmas, mainly to limit contact with others due to Covid-19.  However, yesterday grandpa Eben dropped by, and as long as he was already here we decided to have him stay for Christmas.  

Santa was very generous to the boys this year.  They got a remote control car, a drone, Nolan got a big Hot Wheels garage, Maxwell got a Paw Patroller and a Ryan's World safe, both the kids got some Legos, along with lots of other little toys and blind bags.  Elizabeth and I signed up for a "beer of the month" club, so we will be getting some fun gifts for ourselves throughout the year.  I should have gotten a picture of the boys with all of their presents, but it was hard to delay them from ripping open their presents this morning.

For lunch we had a very nice Christmas meal.  I roasted a duck in the oven, and I used the drippings from the duck to make gravy.  Elizabeth made mashed potatoes and cornbread stuffing.  We had pumpkin pie for dessert.  My favorite part was the duck gravy over mashed potatoes.  The reason I cooked a duck this year was in honor of the Iowa State Cyclones who will play the Oregon Ducks in the Fiesta bowl here in just over a week.   

Anyways, today was a good day filled with the kids playing with toys, enjoying a nice meal with family, and relaxing.  Tonight Elizabeth went to bed early, and I watched Frozen II with the boys before putting them to bed.

Here is the duck that I roasted.  I rubbed salt, pepper, and paprika all over it, stuffed a sliced lemon in the body cavity, and roasted it at 375 degrees for about 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Sunday, November 29th, 2020

 Well, quite a bit has happened since my last blog post.  Earlier this month, Joe Biden was elected to be the next president of the United States, as he defeated Donald Trump 306-232 in electoral college votes.  Thank you to Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona for seeing the light.  

A few days ago we had Thanksgiving.  Because of Covid-19, we did not get together with any other family members.  Still, we cooked a big meal for the 4 of us.  I ordered a couple of pounds of smoked turkey from Hickory Park, so that we didn't have to cook a whole bird.  Then at home we made mashed potatoes with gravy, butternut squash, cornbread stuffing, and pumpkin pie.  The boys basically just ate the turkey, some bread, and the pumpkin pie.  Well, Nolan ate the pie, and Maxwell just ate whipped cream.

I'm happy to say that the Iowa State football team has been having an excellent season thus far.  This weekend the Cyclones defeated the Texas Longhorns down in Austin, which basically clinched a spot for Iowa State in the Big 12 title game.  The Cyclones have a 7-1 conference record and sit alone in first place.  It will be exciting to see how they finish the season, and to see what bowl game they get selected to.

The main reason that I am blogging today is because we had a family photo shoot.  We drove over to a tree farm outside of Cambridge to have our photos taken.  Maybe it was because it was a little cold out today, or maybe he was just in a bad mood, but Nolan was NOT very happy about having his picture taken.  Here are a few of the photos we ended up with...

Saturday, October 10th, 2020

 Iowa State 31, Texas Tech 15.

Today Nolan and I met up with Brian Gleason and his friend Gary to attend Iowa State's dominant win over the Red Raiders.  Originally this year I was not planning to go to any football games due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Fans were not even allowed to attend ISU's home opening game this year.  But starting last week Iowa State started to allow up to 15,000 fans at home games.  Fans are spaced out a bit in the stadium to promote social distancing, and face masks are required for everyone.  It was definitely a different atmosphere than usual, but I was glad that we were able to attend today.  Just a little bit of normalcy seems to go a long way this year which has been a rough one.

As for the game, Texas Tech struck first when they blocked a Connor Assalley field goal attempt and retured it 90 yards for a TD.  That was rough, and it was remenicent of the last game between these teams two years ago when Tech scored first on a blocked punt.  However, for the rest of the game after the blocked field goal, the Cyclones pretty much dominated.  They scored 31 unanswered points, and the only other score for Tech was a late garbage time TD.

Today was Nolan's fourth football game that he has been to.  The previous games were against Oklahoma in 2018, UNI in 2017, and UNI in 2015.  He behaved very well at today's game, and he even half way paid attention to the game.  

This was the fourth football game that I have witnessed between the Cyclones and Red Raiders.  That includes wins for ISU in 2018 and back in 2002 when Seneca Wallace had "The Run".  The Red Raiders prevailed back in 2012.  

Nolan posing before the start of the game.

Go Cyclones!!

Saturday, September 26th, 2020

Today Nolan and Maxwell were able to take turns riding in the combine with grandpa Eben while we combined about 50 acres of corn.  I was running the grain cart and hauling corn from the field just west of Eben's house up to the grain bins.  It was kind of a long day for the kids to be riding in tractors / combines.  Nolan did pretty well, but Maxwell got bored with it after about an hour.  It's always good for the boys though to get an idea for how life on the farm is.

We were also able to take the boys up to Ruthven to visit great grandma Natalie.  Since they are not allowing visiters at the care center, we had to sit outside and talk to her through the window.  After our visit with her, we stopped by Lakeland to get the boys some soft serve ice cream.

  

We had a grain vac sucking up corn that was emptying into a hopper.  The boys thought it was fun to play in the "corn waterfall".

Wednesday, August 19th, 2020

I just got back from a fun long weekend up at Cass Lake with the boys.  Friday night after work I took Nolan and Maxwell up to grandma Becky's place in Mason City for a quick visit, and then on Saturday we drove the rest of the way up to Cass Lake, where we met up with Amy, Logan, and Eben.  Amy's friend Emily, her husband Kelly, her dad Steve, and Emily & Kelly's daughter Nora were also up there in a different cabin.  We stayed in Condo #9.  Overall the fishing was slower than in past years, which I will detail below:

On Saturday evening I went out trolling for northern with Eben and Maxwell.  I managed to catch a nice 24 inch northern, but I had to throw it back (the state fishing regulations for that area are to release any northern between 22 and 26 inches).  I was using a green dardevle lure with yellow/black spots on it.  Eben also caught two northerns (14 and 17.5 inches).  We kept the 17.5 inch one of his.

Sunday morning we took our whole gang out fishing for perch.  All combined, we kept 9 perch.  I had 5 keepers (and I caught one other small one that I tossed back).  Maxwell did manage to catch one perch all by himself!  That was his first ever perch.  Nolan was not able to catch anything besides crawfish, which had him a little bummed.  That night I went trolling with Kelly and Steve, but we had no luck.

On Monday morning we caught 7 keeper perch, and I actually caught one Northern while using a minnow while jigging for perch. I had 3 keeper perch.  Most of the luck we had fishing this day (including the Northern) was in Buck Lake.  Of those 7 keeper perch, Nolan, Maxwell, and Logan each managed to catch one all by themselves.  Amy and Eben went trolling for Northern that night.

Tuesday morning our whole crew went out for quite a while but came back with no fish at all (I had caught one small one that I tossed back, and nobody else really even had a nibble).  Eben said that was the first time he could remember during his time up there that he was completely skunked on a fishing outing.  Later on that afternoon I went back out with Eben, and we did a little perch, walleye, and northern fishing.  I managed to catch one perch was all.

So overall, we ended up keeping only 17 perch and two northern.  Personally I kept 9 perch and 1 Northern.  That's quite a big difference from my last trip up there in 2017, when I caught total 39 perch and kept 22 of them.  

Although the fishing was not great for this trip, we did have a lot of fun.  On one of the days I bought passes for my boys and I to use the indoor pool, which they really enjoyed.  On other days the boys played with Amy and Logan on the beach by Stony Point resort.  There was even a trampoline in the water that they played on.  Each night we built a campfire and enjoyed making smores.  We also got the boys some soft serve ice cream, which was really tasty.  Nolan had vanilla, and Maxwell chose cotton candy.

Here I am with my 24 inch Northern before I released him back into the water.

Maxwell, Logan, and Nolan in Condo #9.

Here Maxwell is with one of the perch that he caught all by himself!

 

Tuesday, August 11th, 2020

 Well, it's been a strange couple of days.  Yesterday around 11:00 in the morning the city of Ames completely lost power.  There was a big storm that moved through with straight line winds over 80 mph, and it knocked down tons of trees and power lines.  This actually affected much of central Iowa.  I was at work when this all happened, and after a couple of hours of standing around in the dark our clinic was finally closed.  After I got home I could see that limbs from our neighbor's willow trees were blown everywhere in our yard and theirs.  There were a couple of other neighbors down the street that had entire large trees fall down.  So Elizabeth and I spent a couple of hours helping them pick up branches and move them onto piles.  We spent the rest of the evening at home with candles lighting up the house.  

Today our power did not come back on until 3:35 in the afternoon, so we went over a day without power.  McFarland clinic was still closed due to the power outage, so I did not go to work today... very strange to have a Tuesday off.  I had put a couple of large bags of ice in our deep freezer, and luckily that all stayed frozen enough.  We did have to throw away a few things from our refrigerator (milk, cheese, yogurt, mayo, sour cream), but it wasn't too bad.  

I might as well update the coronavirus numbers, for comparison to my earlier blog posts this year.  So far in the United States there have been 5.15 million confirmed cases and 164 thousand deaths.  In Iowa, there has been 49,339 cases and 940 deaths.  This has been a pretty shitty year.

On a happier note, I am looking forward to taking the boys up to Cass Lake this coming weekend.  We are leaving this Saturday and will come home on Wednesday.  

Tuesday, July 14th, 2020

HAPPY SEVENTH BIRTHDAY NOLAN!!!

I can't believe that our big kid is now 7 years old.  Elizabeth was able to take the day off with the kids today.  Just for fun we rented a hotel room last night at the Hilton Garden Inn, so we were all able to go swimming in their pool yesterday evening, and Elizabeth and the boys swam some more there today.  Nolan's buddy Nico was able to stop by and go swimming as well, which was fun. 

Nolan got a skateboard and a scooter for his birthday, along with some knee & elbow pads for safety.  He was a little frustrated with them today, and it will take some practice to get better at using them. 

The most memorable thing about today was the fact that right after Nolan blew out his birthday candles on his cake, the tornado siren went off!  We grabbed the cake and headed to the basement, where our whole family ate birthday cake while hiding from a potential tornado!  It was quite the peculiar moment.  Anyways, the tornado warning for Ames only lasted about 15 minutes, and we were safe. 

Here I am getting ready to measure Nolan's growth on our tall wall.  He is just under 4 feet tall as of today.