We're home in Sioux Center

We arrived in Sioux Center Wed. May 14. We've been getting our house wired to the world, researching health insurance options available to us, getting some of our stuff moved to Sioux Center, visiting the Cardonas in Omaha, taking Aly and Logan home to Manhattan, KS because she wasn't feeling well, and visiting people at school. It's a lot cooler here although lately and today it is in the 90's today. I think it'll be cooling off this weekend.

It's time to be visiting friends and family here.

Iowa is a nice state and it's lusciously green right now so that's nice.

My memory stick for the camera is out of memory so it's time to download the pix so I can start a new set of pictures.

Do I still keep up the blog. Sure.

The 5th Grade Girl That I Mentored in San Antonio

This is the girl that I mentored at Susie's school in San Antonio. We had a nice time together while I was there. We exchanged little mementos the last day I was there so we could remember each other, and one of them was this picture. We each got a laminated picture. I hope we might be able to connect next time we visit San Antonio.

Hello Erin Good-Bye San Antonio

This was our last night in San Antonio and we finally got to see Erin. She was full of energy and happy school was over. She was delightful and showed her mom how much she cared and loved her with a very nice Mother's Day gift. We had dinner at Sosolita's (sp?) which is a good Mexican food restaurant where we also met and ate with everyone last summer. Bob and I had gotten a gift certificate from the counselor from Susie's school to thank us for our volunteering and then Amy and JR flipped the rest of the bill as part of a Mother's Day gift along with agreeing to help Susie measure and put up blinds for her windows at her house. They're so great.

We had a great time in San Antonio even though it got quite hot. Now it's time to head to Iowa where it's not so hot. Iowa here we come.

Susie and Erin welcome home.

Amy and Erin - Sisters So cute.

Amy and JR - such a nice couple!!!!

Susie and her daughters, Amy and Erin. Can you tell they're related? Love you.

Bowling with Amy and JR

Even though it was Saturday and it had been a long week, we got up early and met Amy and JR at a bowling alley, and we bowled a couple of games. It was fun and funny. You know how you see people bowl on Funniest Home Videos, and they go over the line and fall and slip and slide all over the place? Well that can actually happen because it happened to me the first time up. We all laughed so hard. It was a good thing that I did not hurt myself. But let me tell you, when you fall past the line, it is very hard to get up because it's so slippery in the alley. I do not recommend it to anyone. Oh I did actually hit some pins with that particular ball. I however have never been a great bowler, and today I proved my lack of skill. But we all had fun. Here we are.

Amy. Is it going to be a spare?

Good job, Bob. He started slow, but gained speed later. He bowls best under pressure. He had the high score for the morning.

We ended up watching JR's speed of his bowling ball. He got up to 20 + mph. Wow!

Lucy has great form.

Susie was able to hold her bowling ball with her healing pinky finger.

Susie made several spares and strikes and had the second top scores.

Do you think she got the split?

One of Susie's strikes. YEA!!!

Last Day at Stahl Elementary School

Friday was Bob's and my last day to volunteer at Susie's school. We enjoyed volunteering our time for Susie and for the school. Bob spent the last two days offering magic shows to a lot of the classes. He didn't make it to all of them, but he did keep busy. I heard great reviews. The last few days Susie had a Book Fair, and it was very busy. Her assistant was out sick with the flu (not the swine flu), and her substitute was from Iowa so we got along really well. I also had to say good-bye to the 5th grade girl for whom I was a mentor. We had a special time to say good-bye and to wish each other well. Susie took a really good picture of us, and I'll add that when she sends it to me from school on Mon. Meanwhile here is Bob at one of his magic shows, and here's the library. We'll miss Stahl Elementary.

You can go to this link and see an article about Susie providing 5th grade science centers in preparation for TAKS. There's a picture of me helping some students. This was one of the activities with which I helped.

http://www.neisd.net/pr/news/Stahl_TAKS_math_prep.html

Susie's Surprise

It was a very exciting day today for Susie. She got this in the mail. "What could it be?" she wonders?

"Oh my gosh!!! It's my passport, and it only took 10 days!!!" she exclaimed. "Now I can officially go to Canada on my way to Alaska in July!!!!! YEA!!!!!! Alaska, here I come!!!"

Aunt Berta

Sunday, Susie, Bob, and I visited Aunt Berta. She is my mother's brother's wife. Our cousin, Roy, joined us. But our cousin, Sally, wasn't able to join us. Hopefully we'll connect with her another time. We had a nice visit. Berta served us some delicious candy balls that were very rich, but we managed to eat them just fine. We almost left without taking a picture of Berta. Roy had already left. We went back and got a picture of Berta in her backyard with her pool in the background. She's getting it ready for the season, and she'll be swimming every day. Wish I could join her.

H1N1 Strain of Flu or Commonly Known as Swine Flu

We are all surviving the H1N1 Swine Flu scare down here. It's a miracle though because the outbreak started the day after our Fiesta activities in the area where it all started. We were in New Braunfels (Susie getting her passport) and at Amy's and JR's who live in the school district that was the first to close because of cases reported at the high school there. New Braunfels also closed their schools. And all the sporting events in Texas have been postponed for a week or so. Susie's school district and most of San Antonio's school districts have not closed their schools. But we were in the affected areas the day before the start of the H1N1 swine flu outbreaks here.

Also Bob went to Mexico Wed. for his last dentist appt. I was worried they would close the borders while he was there, and he'd be detained. But that didn't happen either.

So far none of us has swine flu symptoms. Hope everyone else is keeping healthy.

Fiesta Party at Amy's and JR's

For our Fiesta Day off and after getting the Passport process started we went to Amy's and JR's for our own little Fiesta Party. We cooked some good food, played Wii bowling and tennis, and played the guitar. Then we played a game of ZAP, a dice game of Bob's. Next we cried laughing so much while we played a game called Things. Drinking Margaritas had nothing to do with that. We also watched the Battle of Flowers Parade on TV instead of fighting the traffic and the crowds. We had our own Fiesta fun. Unfortunately, JR wasn't able to stay for much of the party because he had made plans to be with some buddies that weekend. I'm sure he wished he could have been with us for the whole party.

Here are some pictures of our fun.

Amy's kitchen after we cleaned it up.

Shiner (Amy's and JR's dog) tries to help Lucy bowl. I think she got a strike that time.

Finally Susie Got the Application for Her Passport

Susie, Patsy, Kathy and Buddy (and some of their friends) are taking an Alaska Cruise this summer so Susie had to get her passport. After many visits to several different post offices to get the process started, she was finally successful when she went to the New Braunfels Post Office on our day off for Fiesta. Several times she tried, but lines were a mile long, and once she didn't have the correct birth certificate. But now she'll be getting her passport in time to go to Canada on her way to Alaska.

The right birth certificate.


Passport Info

In the office getting er done.

Fiesta Parade at School April 23, 2009

Fiesta Week is a big deal in San Antonio, and they have a big celebration at school the day before the Battle of Flowers Parade. They get a holiday on the the day of the Battle of Flowers Parade.

Here are some highlights of the fiesta parade they had at school. These were kindergarten floats and the rest of the grades were the spectators. The floats were so cute and creative.

Pre Parade This is the Principal getting ready to lead the parade. It was also her birthday that day.

Some of the staff getting in the mood and getting the trike ready.


The crowd waiting for the parade to begin.

The parade begins.



A Fiesta Queen.
Some of the floats. Some had themes, some were elaborate, large and spectacular, but the small ones were just as cute.