GROUP Gathering in Boone in June (Poetic?)

MY GROUP friends, Chris, Gina, Polly, Pat, and Marilyn, and I got together in June in Boone at Pat's house.  A couple of them hadn't seen Pat's house all renovated.  The last time we met here was during her reno.  She has fixed it very nicely.  There's a rumor she has a nice deck with a nice sliding glass door off to the north.  I can't wait to visit and sit on her new deck.  I love my  GROUP of friends.  It is always great therapy to be together to visit,  share, laugh, enrich our horizons, etc.

One of our outings was to the Reiman Gardens in Ames.  It was a lovely experience.

We had a "Glamor Night" spawned by the fact that Polly got a new beautiful ring for her birthday.  It was kind of fun to dress up and be glamorous.

GLAMOUR PLUS!!!  HA HA

Polly's ring of inspiration.

Then we had presentos.  These are the ones I presented, my favorite lotion, and 3 pieces of Syracuse dishes from our church in Sioux Center.  We are replacing these dishes with new ones.

The dishes.

Abracorndabra in May

For the last couple of years, in May, Bob has enjoyed going to the Abracorndabra Magician's Convention in Des Moines.  It also gives us an opportunity to see Brian, Cari, Dave, and Winston.  We went down a day early so we could do that.

Here are Brian and Bob.

Here is Winston doing his  "Pick up the frizbees" trick.  He's very good at it.   I've sen him pick up 13 of them at once.  He is such a talented, cute, and loving member of the family.

It's always fun to see Cari and Dave.

Abracorndabra is another time for me to meet up with friends,  Chris and Pat.  They come down to keep me company while Bob goes to his sessions.

Here they are pondering a screw and nut that Bob demonstrated taking off the nut without touching it.  Hmm.  They wonder, "How did he do that?"

While we were in Des Moines, we visited this pizza place on South 9th St. which was quite close to the convention/airport.  The guy who owns this, Derrick, was homeless.  He got this place and has run it successfully.  One thing he does is close on Mondays to serve the homeless.  I knew about him because he was on Ellen DeGeneres's show.  It's a great place to eat, great food, and you can donate to keep it going.  We did get to meet him and he had a great message,  "You can do whatever you want if you're willing to the work it takes to do it."  

DONATIONS.

We also visited the newly opened Des Moines Social Club.  This is a renovated fire house.  There are rooms for meetings, etc.   There's also a concession area as well as a neat looking Mexican food restaurant.  It has potential.

The East Village is on the East side of Des Moines and is becoming THE place to go with antique shops and funky shops as well as neat  restaurants.  

One of the enjoyable things about Abracorndabra is their show which is open to the public so we all went.  The magicians who presented at the convention, starred in the show.  The magicians attending the conventions went around before the show to perform close up magic for the audience.

Here are Chris and Pat waiting for the show to begin.

Here are Cari and Bob waiting.

Josie's Graduation

My dearest friend, Chris, has a granddaughter, Josie, who graduated from Boone High School this past May.  It's hard to imagine that she has graduated.  It seems just like yesterday that her father, Mark, was just a little boy, and now he has a daughter who has graduated.  Where does the time go?

Chris with friends, Marilyn, sitting down, and Pat.

Proud parents of the graduate, Mark and Michelle.

Josie, the graduate, with her mom, Michelle.

They had a photo booth.  Here's Josie getting ready for her photo.

Chris with her son, Mark, and two granddaughers, Josie, the graduate, on the right, and Jada on the left.

Spring Hail Storm

We had a really bad hail storm.  Actually there was a tornado warning and we were down in the basement waiting it out, but we heard the hail.  When it was all over, Bob went out and picked up some of the ping pong sized hail.  

  

We had some damage.  One of our second floor windows and one of our basement windows got broken.  Bob was able to fix them himself.  Yea.   Our van, which was outside, had enough dents that the insurance company didn't want to pay us to fix any of them.  So they totaled the car.  We didn't have to get the title changed so we'll keep the car until time to buy a new one.  We did have to change our insurance though.  But we were thinking about doing that anyway.  It does have over 200,000 miles on it.   Bob wants to get 300,000 miles on it.  Good luck to us.