Sunday, July 28th, 2024

 Today I took Eben, Nolan, and Maxwell down to Des Moines for an Iowa Cubs baseball game.  I'm sure that I have been to an I-Cubs game before, but it's been so long that I have no idea when exactly.

I think that the boys had fun at the game.  Nolan got to meet the mascot, "Cubbie".  I got the boys some "Dippin' Dots ice cream, which they were pretty excited about.  I also picked up a souvenir baseball for Maxwell.  As for the game, the Cubs ended up losing to the Indianapolis Indians, 9-8.  The Indians scored all 9 of their runs in a terrible 6th inning for the Cubs.  We ended up leaving in the 8th inning when the score was 9-3... but the Cubs would rally with 5 runs in the 9th that we missed!  That included a grand slam!  Oh well.  

It's become a bit of a tradition to take grandpa Eben to baseball games.  Last year we went to a Twins / Red Sox game, and in 2019 we went to a Royals / Twins game.  I'm thinking that next year I would like to take dad down to a St. Louis Cardinals game!  

Sunday, July 14th, 2024

 HAPPY 11TH BIRTHDAY NOLAN!!

Nolan is now old enough to be considered a "wizard", at least in the world of Harry Potter.  Right after breakfast (I made a We Will breakfast pizza), Nolan took the online sorting hat quiz to see which magical house he belongs to.  It turns out he is a Gryffindor, just like me!  

Yesterday while Elizabeth and Nolan were at Adventureland, it was up to me to bake him a cake.  I stayed with the Harry Potter theme and made a cake in the same fashion as Hagrid gave Harry in the movie.  "I baked it myself, words and all."  I had never tried to write with frosting on a cake before, so I'm afraid mine did not look quite as nice as Hagrid's!  

For his birthday lunch Nolan requested that we go to Blaze Pizza.  He had his regular order of pepperoni and mozzarella with a spicy red sauce.  

After lunch we took the kids down to Urban Air in Ankeny.  They probably played around there for a good two and a half hours.  Today was the first time that Maxwell actually tried the zip-line thing there.  He was nervous at first, but once he tried it he really enjoyed it!  He must have gone on it 8 to 10 times in a row.  

Then this evening a took the boys out for a movie.  Nolan chose to see Despicable Me 4.  The kids both got a kick out of the movie.  

Finally, one we got home from the movie, Nolan opened his presents.  He got a little nerf target practice thing, some sandals, some water balloons, and a "Kids Against Maturity" card game.  I think that he had a pretty good 11th birthday overall.

HAPPE BIRTHDAE NOLAN!

Thursday, June 20th, 2024

 Wow.  We just got home from an amazing vacation to Alaska!  We flew from Minneapolis direct to Anchorage on the 13th, and we flew home yesterday evening.  We didn't arrive back in Ames until after midnight, so really we got home this morning.  We went out there with the whole GLEKS group (Gleasons, Lacinas, Easleys, Kyhl, and Saltons).  Grandma Becky was very generous, as she paid for everyone's trip!

During our time in Alaska, we all stayed at two air B&B houses that are next to each other, and we took day trips out of Anchorage.  The Salton crew's day trips included hiking on Matanuska Glacier, riding the train from Anchorage to Seward and back, and driving to Whittier where we took a glacier cruise (or we were supposed to anyways).  We also spent a couple of days just checking out things to do in Anchorage.

For our glacier hike, we had to drive a couple of hours Northeast of Anchorage. During our drive it was a very clear day, and for a moment we were actually able to see the peak of Denali!  I would guess that we were about 120 miles away from Denali at the time we saw it, which is pretty crazy.  Once we got to the glacier tour, they had us all change into waterproof boots, helmets, and we strapped spikes onto our shoes.  The glacier was more muddy or silty than I expected.  We were able to break pieces of the glacier off and eat the ice, and we could drink the water that was melting off of it.  

During our train ride to Seward, we took the regular "Adventure class" on the way down, and we upgraded to the "Gold Star" service on the way back to Anchorage.  In Seward we mostly just walked around and checked out different shops and restaurants.  We enjoyed lunch at a nice seafood place called Ray's Waterfront.  We had a nice view of the harbor, and we were able to watch some sea otters while we ate lunch.  I had the Halibut and chips, which was yummy.  The fries were especially good.  We had great views of the scenery while on the train.  We also saw a grizzly bear during our train ride!  It was on the tracks, and as the train approached it jumped into the water and started swimming away.  

Our trip to Whittier did not go exactly as planned.  It was kind of cool to go through the two and a half mile long tunnel into Whittier.  We took a cruise from there, which was supposed to be a 4 hour cruise to see glaciers.  However, about an hour and a half into the trip our boat started having mechanical problems.  It was unable to steer, so we were kind of stuck in one spot.  It took a couple of hours for a mechanic to come out to the boat and get it working, and by that point our boat just returned to port.  They did give us a full refund of our cruise, but we missed quite a bit of what we would have normally seen.  After we got back to port, the Saltons went out to eat at a restaurant called the Swiftwater Seafood Cafe.  I had the Halibut and chips, and it was my favorite meal of the trip!  The fish had to be freshly caught that day.  It reminded me of walleye or perch that we would catch with my dad up in Minnesota during a fishing trip, just to fry them up and eat it the same day.

During our time in Anchorage we were able to check out the downtown area, we spent some time in Kincaid park, and we took the kids to the Alaska Museum of Science and Nature.  The kids and I enjoyed reindeer dogs from a food cart downtown.  Elizabeth, Christian, and myself took the kids to 49th State Brewing, where we enjoyed some good craft beers. My favorite was the Solstice IPA.  We also took the kids out for ice cream at Wild Scoops.  Maxwell enjoyed a birthday cake ice cream with a "baked Alaska" top of torched marshmallow fluff.  Nolan had his usual vanilla ice cream.  One day for dinner the GLEKS crew ordered pizza from Moose's Tooth Pizzeria.  We ordered about 9 different pizzas, but my favorite was some kind of Apricot pizza.  

It was fun to see the entire GLEKS crew, but it seemed like our time there went too quickly.  

Some of the mountains and their reflection that we saw during our train ride to Seward.

Nolan hiking on a glacier.

Maxwell enjoying his ice cream from Wild Scoops.

My favorite food of the trip - Halibut and chips from Swiftwater in Whittier.

Saturday, June 8th, 2024

 Today I drove Nolan up to Cedar Falls, where his Ames Soccer Club team went 2-0 to start their 11U soccer tournament this weekend.  

Their first game was against "CF Attacking Aliens", and Ames won by a score of 6-1.  I'm pretty sure the CF stands for Cedar Falls.

The second game was a close one, with Ames defeating Hudson 2-1.  

Nolan got to play quite a bit in each game.  He doesn't start, but he comes off the bench and plays as a back line defender.  In the second half of the second game, Nolan did a really good job of stopping about 3 or 4 advances that the other team made.  A couple of times he was able to collect the ball from the opposing team and kick it back down to the other end.  Another time he was battling for the ball and was fouled by the other team, stopping their attack.  Then another time they were getting close to the goal and he was able to kick the ball out of bounds.  Anyways, it was all helpful to preserve their one score lead.

This is the first season that Nolan has played club soccer, and he is doing a good job of keeping up with kids that have been playing quite a bit longer than he has.  

Between games we enjoyed Pizza Ranch for lunch.  

Tomorrow his team has two more games in Cedar Falls.  Hopefully they can keep up the good work and possibly win the tournament!

Monday, May 27th, 2024

 HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

This weekend our family drove over to Nebraska, and we spent Saturday & Sunday camping with the Shostaks at Platte River State Park.  

There were quite a few things that we were able to enjoy during our time there, including: playing at a splash pad, a playground with a small "zip line", climbing to the top of an observation tower, going on a hike to a small waterfall, going kayaking, checking out a nature center, and of course making a fire and having smores / hot dogs.  

At the nature center, the kids were able to pet a few animals such as a turtle and a snake.  

Anyways, it was nice to spend some time with Amy, Brandon, Logan, & Emma!

Sunday, May 5th, 2024

 Today Nolan and I came back home after a fun weekend camping and fishing at Yellow River.  We met up with Jon, Matt, Jeremy, and Tyler during the trip.  

Nolan was lucky because I took him out of school on Friday so we could drive up that morning.  We had sunny weather on Friday, but the stream was a little cloudy because it had been raining quite a bit earlier in the week.  We did try to fish at the spot right by camp and down a ways by the first fork in the path, but we did not have even a nibble at either place.  We blamed the bad luck on the cloudy water.  We had a nice campfire Friday night, and Nolan enjoyed making smore's. The sky was nice and clear so that we could see the stars easily.

Saturday morning I took Nolan to the handicap accessible fishing hole.  I had never actually tried this spot before, but it turned out to be pretty good!  I caught 2 rainbow trout, and we both had quite a few other bites.  Nolan was getting a bit frustrated because he was not having much luck setting the hook when he would get a bite.  We came back to camp after about an hour of fishing, and I cleaned the two trout.  Then it rained fairly hard for an hour and a half, so we hung out under the canopy tent to stay dry.   After the rain stopped Nolan wanted to try his luck fishing again, so we went back to the same handicap area.  He caught 2 rainbow trout all by himself!  At this point we decided that whoever catches the next trout would be the "winner", since our daily limit is 5 trout.  We tried a bit more fishing by the hole next to camp with no luck, only to head back to the handicap area once again.  I hooked a trout and got it right up to the water's edge before it got away, so I was close to "winning".  Then after a bit Nolan caught his third trout of the day, and he became the Salton fishing champion for the year.

After all of the fishing we relaxed back at camp with everyone else.  Jeremy and Matt had gone fishing at Big Paint, and Jeremy ended up catching 2 brown trout.  One of them was a big16-inch trout.  Saturday night also had clear skies that was good for star gazing.  

Nolan and I camped at site #120 this year, the same as last year.  However, everyone else had changed spots and were a ways away from us.  Next year I should try to reserve something like campsite #115 or #117.  

Here are a few other years that I have blogged about fishing at Yellow River: 2023, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2014, 2013, and 2012. 

Nolan posing with the Harpers Ferry sign.

Here is one of the rainbow trout that I caught Saturday morning.

Nolan with one of his rainbow trout.

Sunday, April 21st, 2024

 We had a fun weekend, as the Shostaks came over to visit, and Amy came with me to Cy's House of Trivia.

Our team name for this year's Cy's House of Trivia was "Rocco's Modern Life".  Our team members included Dan & Anne Becker, Tim & Lydia Nevins, Ryan Butler, Rob Haaland, and myself & Amy.  The trivia categories were: War Movies, Which/who came first, Cartoon characters, where in the world, stage names, sports photos, finish the lyrics, and super bowl commercials.  We definitely could have used Elizabeth on the team this year for the finish the lyrics category.  Overall, our team ended up 53rd out of 100.  Last year we had a better showing.

Today, the Shostaks stayed around to watch Nolan's soccer game.  His Ames Soccer Club team ended up in a tie game with Ankeny, 3-3.  It was fun to watch him run around and compete.  Nolan is playing as a defenseman.