Monday, May 29th, 2017

Memorial Day 2017

It's always nice to have a three-day weekend.  Friday after work I drove the boys up to Grandpa Eben's farm for the weekend while Elizabeth drove to Chicago to visit friends.  It was quite a fun weekend on the farm.  Saturday morning Eben and I took the kids boating on Silver Lake.  It was the first time that either of the boys had been boating.  The waters on the lake were very calm, and it was a fun ride for us all.  Nolan enjoyed counting the pelicans that were on the lake.  That morning we also showed the boys Eben's cows.  Nolan was able to pet one of the little calves.  We also went up to visit Great-grandma Natalie at her assisted-living home in Ruthven.  On Sunday, we took some flowers over to Lynn's grave at Logan Township Cemetery.  I planted some orange marigolds by her headstone.  Last year I planted some Asiatic Lilies, and two years ago I left some daisies at mom's grave.

Nolan petting a baby calf

Cheese!

Moo.

Maxwell was happy to be wearing his life jacket.

Nolan on his first boat ride.

Grandpa Eben with Maxwell.  He even let Maxwell steer a little bit.

Here are the marigolds that I planted.

Sunday, May 14th, 2017

Happy Mother's Day!  Today I drove back from a weekend fishing trip up to Yellow River in Northeast Iowa.  Elizabeth was nice enough to watch the kids while I was up there.  So after I got home I took the boys to the grocery store and had Nolan pick out a bouquet of flowers for her, and I also made some homemade chocolate-covered strawberries.  Then we had some sushi tonight to help celebrate Mother's Day.

As for my fishing trip, I drove up Thursday night and spent the weekend camping with the Seago brothers (Jon, Matthew, and Jeremy), their dad Clyde, Tyler & Jordan Wright, and their friend Keith.  Three of them were also turkey hunting earlier this week (Keith, Matthew, and Tyler), and by the time I arrived at camp each of them had already bagged a bird.  Combine that with the fact that we were pretty successful fishing, and it was a pretty good weekend.  

I only went fishing on four short trips (about an hour to an hour and a half during the mornings and afternoons each of Friday and Saturday).   I caught two brook trout on Friday.  The first was at the Little Paint site, but way towards the back of the path along a rock ledge.  The second one I caught in the afternoon when we drove to a spot on Big Paint.  It seemed to be a pretty good sized one. I was fishing with pieces of night-crawlers.  Matthew and Tyler both caught their limit of 5 trout that day, and Tyler caught 3 big brown trout.  I think he said that they were 18", 17", and 15.5" in length.  Those were the biggest trout I had seen caught up there.  He caught them while wading in the river along the equestrian trail.

On Saturday morning I woke up around 8:40, walked down the path at Little Paint by myself to the first fishing hole around 9:15, and within 10 minutes I had caught a rainbow trout.  I kept trying a few spots back there for another 45 minutes or so, but no other bites.  Later on that evening I walked back to the same spot with Matthew, and I caught two more rainbow trout.  So in total for my trip I caught 5 trout (3 rainbows, 2 brook).  I suppose if I was really trying to fish most of the time I could have done better, but quite a bit of our time was just spent sitting around camp trying to heat up the fire to cook or just spent relaxing.   It was quite relaxing just sitting around the campfire, listening to the sounds of the stream behind us, and seeing the stars at night when it was nice and clear skies.  

I'm not sure how many times I have been up here fishing... maybe six or seven times.  I did blog about past trips in 2014, 2013, and 2012 at least.  

Here is the Harpers Ferry sign... the closest town to where our campgrounds are.

The Little Paint campgrounds sign where we stayed.

Matthew with a stringer of fish at Big Paint on Friday (I think that one of those was mine).

The rainbow trout that I caught Saturday morning.  

Saturday, May 6th, 2017

This morning Elizabeth and I took the kids down to Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines.  We bought a family membership this year so that they could experience some new animals and learn about them.  If we don't see the whole zoo in one day it's no big deal because we can come back whenever we like, which is nice if the kids need a nap or whatever.  Some of the animals we saw today were the red panda, tigers, lions, giraffes, snow leopards, sea lions, and wallaby.

Here Nolan is "driving" the Jeep while we are on an Africa safari...

Lion!

Snow Leopard

Elizabeth and Nolan with Wallabies in the background.

A wallaby.  Nolan kept calling them "kangaroos".

Giraffes

It was a really nice day to be in central Iowa.  After the zoo we drove over to Gray's Lake in Des Moines and had a picinic.  After we got home (and the kids had a nap) we got our sprinkler out so that they could have some fun in the back yard and cool off.

Sunday, April 9th, 2017

Yesterday, Elizabeth and I participated in the 11th annual Cy's House of Trivia event at Hilton Coliseum.  I believe that this was the fifth year that I have gone to the event (every year since 2012, except for last year).  Sara & Mike Kazlauskas drove over from Chicago to join us for the event.  The rest of our table was made up by Tim & Lydia Nevins, Kyle Perkins, and Ryan Butler.

The trivia seemed to be pretty difficult (like usual).  There was a "6th grade math" round that was hard, but thankfully we had Sara on our team for that.  I only helped with a few questions all night really, but I was proud that I remembered the Iowa motto when no one else on the table could (Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain).

The two most notable "Cyclone celebrities" that sat at our table were head women's basketball coach Bill Fennelly and "Voice of the Cyclones" John Walters.  Our team name for the event was "Disciples of 3sus".  This was an attempt to lure Naz Long to our table, which did not work.  We did track him down over the course of the night for a photo though :)  I think that our team ended up finishing around 30th place (out of about 100 tables).

Previous blog entries from Cy's House:

• 2012
• 2013
• 2014

Naz Long!!

Cy!

Sunday, March 12th, 2017

Today is "Selection Sunday".  In my opinion, this is one of the greatest days of the year.  All the anticipation from the college basketball season leads up to this day when the NCAA tournament brackets are revealed.  For the sixth year in a row, my Iowa State Cyclones are part of that tournament field.  Specifically, the Cyclones earned the #5 seed in the Midwest region, and they will face the Nevada Wolf Pack on Thursday.  Nevada won the Mountain West Conference this year, and they are now "public enemy #1".

If Iowa State advances past Nevada, they would play the winner of the Purdue vs. Vermont game.

The release of the NCAA tournament brackets was not the only thing to get me excited this weekend.  Yesterday, Iowa State defeated the West Virginia Mountaineers in the Big 12 tournament title game to claim their 3rd tournament championship in four years!  Today Elizabeth and I took the kids out to Hickory Park to celebrate (I had a half chicken dinner, or as the phrase goes "winner-winner, chicken dinner").

To summarize my attendance of basketball games this season: I went to 14 home games, and Iowa State had 11 wins and 3 losses in that time.
 
Wins:

• Savannah State
• Mount St. Mary's
• The Citadel
• Omaha
• Mississippi Valley State
• Texas Tech
• Texas
• Kansas State
• TCU
• Baylor
• Oklahoma State

Losses:

• Cincinnati
• Kansas
• West Virginia

Of those teams, seven made the NCAA tournament: Mount St. Mary's (16-seed), Kansas State (11-seed), Baylor (3-seed), Oklahoma State (10-seed), Cincinnati (6-seed), West Virginia (4-seed), and Kansas (1-seed).

Sunday, March 5th, 2017

This weekend Elizabeth & I drove the kids out to Omaha so that they could meet their new cousin!  We drove out Saturday morning and came back after lunch today, so it was a pretty short trip.  Still it was fun to meet the newest member of our family :)

Elizabeth holding Logan for the first time.

Logan was so happy to meet me that he had to "dab".

All three cousins together (with Amy & Elizabeth too).

Tuesday, February 28th, 2017

Tonight I witnessed a very special Senior Night for the Iowa State Cyclones, as they defeated the Oklahoma State Cowboys by a score of 86-83.  The game itself was close the entire way, and all of the seniors for Iowa State were key to victory.  It's hard to pick, but I would say that Monte Morris was the player of the game for the Cyclones as he recorded 12 points, 11 assists, 9 rebounds, and 3 steals (he also became ISU's career leader in steals today).  With the Cyclones leading by three points with just a few seconds left, Morris disrupted an in-bounds pass by the Cowboys and caused a turnover (after the referees checked video replay).  That helped to ice the game.

Matt Thomas tied his career high with 25 points in the victory.  He shot 7-of-11 from three point range.  Deonte Burton had a nice game with 20 points, and Naz Long added 17.  It was nice to see all of the seniors have such good performances during their last game in Hilton.

After the game, there was a ceremony to honor the seniors, and all 7 of them were given a chance to speak to the crowd (Darrell Bowie, Merrill Holdon, and Stuart Nezlek were the other seniors).

Tonight was the fourth time that I have seen Iowa State play (and defeat) the Cowboys.  The previous times were in 2015, 2014, and in 2013.  

Iowa State wins!!