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

Tuesday, February 27th, 2018

Tonight I took Maxwell with me to Hilton Coliseum for Senior Night, where the Cyclones fell to Oklahoma State, 71-80.  It's always a little sad to see seniors graduate from the team and play their last game in front of the home crowd.  The main senior on this year's team is Donovan Jackson, who scored 17 points and connected on 5-10 from long range tonight.  He has been a great 3-point shooter during his two year career for the Cyclones, and I will always remember the 3 that he made at Kansas last year to help seal that great road victory.  Of course there were two other seniors tonight (Jeff Beverly and Hans Brase), each of which played only this year for the Cyclones as they were graduate transfers. 

Lindell Wigginton had another good game for Iowa State, as he led the team with 20 points.  He was joined in double figures for Iowa State by Jackson, Zoran Talley (15), and Terrence Lewis (12).  Lewis was a nice surprise off of the bench today as he made four 3's. 

To recap this season, I attended wins against:

• Emporia State (exhibition)
• Northern Illinois 
• Iowa
• Alcorn State
• Maryland Eastern Shore
• Baylor
• Texas Tech
• West Virginia

...and I attended losses to:

• Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Texas
• Kansas
• Oklahoma State

It was a down year for ISU basketball, but still there were some fun moments along the way.  Tonight was the fifth time that I have been to a game between ISU and Oklahoma State (the Cyclones won the previous 4 games in 2017, 2015, 2014, and in 2013).  

I believe that this is the 8th basketball game that Maxwell has attended, and the 5th conference game.  

Wednesday, January 31st, 2018

Today after work I was able to bring Maxwell with me to watch the Cyclones knock-off #15 West Virginia, 93-77.  The entire team really played well today, and the victory came as quite the surprise as Iowa State was without their starting guard, Nick Weiler-Babb, due to a knee injury. 

It's pretty hard to pick a player of the game, but I suppose I'll go with Donovan Jackson who led the team with 25 points (including 6 of 10 from three) and dished out 7 assists.  Lindell Wigginton had a great game as he scored 22 points.  Cameron Lard had a double-double with 18 points and 13 rebounds, as did Solomon Young, who scored 14 points and collected 10 boards.  The Cyclones never trailed in the game today.

Another fun thing about the game today is that Maxwell got to meet Cy!  He was really excited to see Cy, but once he got close to us Maxwell became a little afraid.  I was going to set Maxwell on the ground next to Cy for a picture, but he started crying... so I ended up holding him and took a selfie :)

Let's see, I believe this is the third time I've been to an ISU-WVU basketball game.  Iowa State won on Georges Niang's last-second basket back in 2013, and the Mountaineers won last year's game.  This was the first time that I've gotten a good scoreboard photo of a win vs. West Virginia, so now I have at least one picture for every Big 12 school. 

This should be the fourth Big 12 game that Maxwell has been to.  The previous games were Texas this year, TCU in 2017, and Baylor in 2017.  Overall, I believe that this was the 7th basketball game that Maxwell has been to.  Also, MAXWELL IS TURNING 2 YEARS OLD TOMORROW!!! 

Cy!

What a nice smile Maxwell!

Saturday, January 20th, 2018

Iowa State just beat the #8 team in the nation!  Today I was able to watch the Cyclones defeat #8 Texas Tech, 70-52.  The 18-point victory for Iowa State was their largest margin of victory against any top-10 team in school history. 

Cameron Lard was the player of the game for Iowa State, as he led the team with 18 points while shooting 9 of 11 from the field.  He was joined in double figures by teammates Nick Weiler-Babb (13), Donovan Jackson (13), Lindell Wigginton (13), and Zoran Talley (11).  Talley was a big boost off of the bench.  Today's performance was really great to see considering the team has not had the greatest season so far.

This was the sixth time that I have seen Iowa State play (and defeat) Texas Tech.  The previous seasons were 2017, 2016, 2015, 2013, and 2012. 

Today marks the 5th time that I have seen Iowa State knock off a top-10 team.  The previous games were against #9 Baylor in 2017,  #1 Oklahoma in 2016, #9 Kansas in 2015, and #7 Michigan in 2013. 

To make today even better, it was unseasonably warm in Ames (high temps in the upper 40s). 

Iowa State won the opening tip.

ISU 70, Texas Tech 52.  

Saturday, January 13th, 2018

Today I took Nolan with me to watch the Iowa State Cyclones defeat the Baylor Bears, 75-65.  It was refreshing to see the Cyclones get back into the win column after starting conference play 0-4.  Of course I have not expected this team to reach the heights of recent years (or the NCAA tournament), given the players that graduated last year, but it is sure fun watching the young players on the roster develop.

As for the game today, it was freshman that led the way.  The player of the game was Lindell Wigginton, who scored a career high 30 points.  He shot 5-10 from three-point range.  Wigginton was joined in double figures by Nick Weiler-Babb (15), Solomon Young (11), and Cameron Lard (11).  Lard was very exciting to watch as he also had 5 blocks. 

Tonight was Nolan's 14th basketball game.  I did not blog about the Texas game earlier this month, which we took the whole family to.  It's just more fun to blog about the victories!  This was also Nolan's 5th conference game (he's also seen wins vs. Texas Tech last season, vs. Kansas State in 2016,  vs. TCU in 2014, and the loss against Texas this year).  Eventually, I would like to bring both of the boys to see wins against every Big 12 team... which I would expect to take a while.  As for the conference games that Maxwell has been to, that would be Baylor last year, TCU last year, and the Texas game this year. 

This was the 4th time that I have seen Iowa State play Baylor.  The Cyclones have won three times (tonight, in 2017, and in 2013), while the Bears ended up winning in 2015. 

The Cyclones won the opening tip.

Way to go Cyclones!!