Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 4th anniversary! We can't believe we've already been married that long, but so much has happened in four years. Both of our dads passed away a few months after our wedding, we built a new house and tore down the old, the triplets graduated from high school and are now in college, Glenn & Amy sold their business here and moved to Dallas, Bill's brother bought a house, Diane had another baby, we have some new farm equipment and I've learned to drive some of it, we've been on some nice vacations.

You can still see a picture of our wedding on the web site for the Miss Dubuque yacht that we got married on - click HERE. We were so lucky to have perfect weather that evening for our wedding cruise and it ended with a nice sunset just as we were pulling into the dock. We always wish we could do that same cruise again with that beautiful weather and the same people on board with us and just enjoy the ride and scenery. Some of our guests mention to us every now and then that they wish we could do that again. It was one of the best weddings we've been to!

Rolfe P.E.O. Chapter Wine Tasting

It's been a busy past few days! My P.E.O. sisters and I have been busily getting ready for a wine tasting fundraiser that was Sat. night, and Mom has been here and we've been babysitting two little girls including a couple of nights overnight.

These are all pictures of the wine tasting.








This is Julie Wurr from Heart N Home in Laurens who did the program for us. She sells Iowa wines in her store which is what we sampled. During her program she teaches you everything you need to know about wine and more!

In between each wine sampled, we had an appetizer that our group prepared and including a chocolate cupcake topped with cherry sauce & whipped cream to go with the dessert wine.

























Joanne, Sharon, Peggy and Karen.










Me with sister-in-law, Karen. You see her comments here once in a while.

We also had a folk singer, Andy Juhl. He sang while people arrived and throughout the evening.





Me, Mom and my niece, Diane.

Our P.E.O. group helps women continue their education and also helps women in our local communities. It was a successful fundraiser and a good time was had by all.

New Year for Stampin' Up! Starts 7/1!

All of my Stampin' Up! customers are excited at this time of year - the new catalog comes out! I've been getting mine ready to mail and sent them out yesterday. We have five new In Colors (Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade, Wisteria Wonder and Island Indigo) so I labeled and included samples of them for everybody. Some of our current year stamps are retiring so check my web site and get them ordered before the end of the month!

We've had about 7" of rain in the last five days - enough! Actually a little too much. Mon. night I was in the storm room again and Bill was out spotting. There ended up being quite a bit of wind damage in the area when it was all over.

We are lucky that we're not near any rivers here. Southwestern Iowa is really having some major flooding problems with levees breaking.

I put this picture of the apple pie I made on the 18th as proof that Bill had apple pie (again). He's always saying that I never make him apple pie. He would eat it every day if I made it that often.

Speaking of pie, today we went to the memorial service for a friend's mother. She was a great cook and pie baker. Everyone here has stories of going to her house and being fed a full meal no matter what time of day and of her delicious pies. For her memorial service, she wanted a country dinner at noon, catered, with homemade pie for everyone - and that's what we had. My job was cutting and plating the 21 pies and it took me that many pieces to decide which one I wanted (strawberry - yum!)! There was pumpkin, peach, blueberry, rhubarb, strawberry, apple and pecan. It was a nice service with about 165 attending - and staying for dinner! The family took her body to a country cemetery in a wagon pulled by a team of horses before the service.

Driveway Addition

These pictures were taken this morning. It's raining hard this afternoon. It's been a long time since we've had rain during the day. I'm glad I got the mowing done yesterday.

These pictures show the half circle part of the driveway that Bill added this week. It looks like we have a lot of driveways now but it works good. Lots of people have a hard time backing out of our driveway, and it is hard to see at night.


















Yesterday I defrosted our freezer that's in the garage. This is the first time I've done it since we've only had it a few months. This one is nice - it has a drain and hose in the bottom of it so it made the job really easy.

Today I'm cleaning the refrigerator. (last picture) Washing bins and all the shelves.

We think tonight would be a good pizza night, and I may make Bill an apple pie.

Decorah Eagles

Nice shot of two of the eagles out on branches right now along with the mother and barn in the background. Click HERE I've read that flying out of the nest to nearby branches is the next step before flying!

One of my friends is traveling today to see the nest! She and her husband have a cousin visiting this week who wants to see it.

More Projects

We got 2.3" of rain last night so Bill thought this would be a good project for today. We had decided last fall that we'd use some of our leftover river rock to put around the propane tank. Weeds were always growing up around it. I had picked up more bull nose edgers on Mon. when I went to Emmetsburg & Spencer.

Looks great doesn't it??

The last picture is the next project - for tomorrow - adding another part of the driveway so that people can circle around. Everyone has trouble backing out of our driveway since it angles. We did that to save a tree.

I'll be babysitting the little girls tomorrow. Camry is sure changing fast. Think we're going to the Summer Library Program and maybe Pizza Ranch for lunch.

Lots of Misc.

Bill has a "real job" today - getting paid to work at the dairy! No, not milking cows! He's doing some wiring. They're expanding the dairy and need to have 20 new stalls up and running Thursday. Lots of crews there working on various things today - very busy place.

He has been spraying the corn and beans when it's not too windy. The weather has gone from being super hot and windy a couple of days to cool and windy. My flowers are having a hard time getting going this year.

I had a P.E.O. meeting today. We only have a week and a half until our wine tasting fundraiser on June 25th at 7:00. It's going to be at our golf club here in town. It will be a candlelight evening with appetizers, Iowa wines and folk music. Hope everyone local comes! Free will donations will cover our expenses with the rest being used to continue to help women in our communities with education and other needs.

This is the end of our Stampin' Up! year (June 30th) so we are all looking forward to the new catalog which I'll be getting out to my customers by the end of the month. Our Last Chance list of stamps and accessories that are retiring is out. Be sure to check my web site and store to get these items before they're gone. (top right) And e mail me with any questions!

I'm starting to get ready for my Stampers At Heart downline meeting and stamp class for my Indiana customers which are the end of July.

Bill is looking forward to a prairie dog hunting trip this summer. It's been a couple of years since he's done that. They're going to Montana for the first time this year along with South Dakota.

Tomorrow I have a cookbook committee meeting. Our town has a big anniversary coming up in 2013, and we plan to have this cookbook ready for sale by then. There have been two nice cookbooks done here in past years.

Preschool Graduation

Last week we went with Peggy up to Bill's sister's for the twins' preschool graduation. Dave's parents made the trip from Omaha too. This first picture is the whole group after graduation.








We all ate together at a sports bar before the program. There were gifts - Christmas in June! And cake!

It was a cute program and the kids did a good job with their singing and hand motions.















Bill and Tim have been busy spraying the corn & beans for weeds between windy days. I've been mowing.

Our air conditioner fan quit on Sat. Luckily our air cond. repair guy came and put in a temporary fan after only a couple of warm nights and days since he knew the forecast was for REALLY hot weather this week. It was 100 two days. We were able to run the furnace fan and pull cool air up from the basement to keep the house around 78. The air cond. is only two years old so luckily parts are under warranty for 10 years!

Boy is it WINDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is your crop report - the corn has really grown the past few days and beans are up nicely. Both are blowing sideways today.























It is sure windy here today - and HOT (100). Last I looked, the wind was 37 mph and gusts of 50 mph but it sounds like it's 50 all the time. It sounds worse than a blizzard. My poor flowers were jut starting to recover from the wind and heat and now we're having it again. You can see what happens to mulch here. It does not stay put. Once Bill and Bryan got the edgers and river rock in the end of last summer, we planted some perennials and just hoped they would live through the late summer heat and the winter and come back.

The first 3 plants here in the 4th picture are dianthus or "pinks". They are blooming nicely this year. Our knock out roses were beautiful last year but died over the winter. We've planted new ones but they're having a real hard time with this weather so far.














We really like red vehicles but the truck is usually the color of road dust since we travel on gravel roads a lot. The only colors that really are "okay" and don't show the dust as bad are white, silver and the gold mist we have now. But the dust is always there and gets on our clothes all the time.

Summer Things

I think I may have shown a picture like this before but can't remember. Before I married Bill, one of my friends said "Oh, he is going to always be really dirty - farmers always are". But usually Bill is Mr. Clean! Sometimes I don't know how he can be farming and stay so clean! Every now and then he comes home with jeans looking like this. We use a lot of Resolve (formerly Spray N Wash) around here and love it - it works great on grease! On this day he was working on fixing tile lines out in the fields. He had to do a lot of digging.







I got to enjoy an hour or so here this morning finally! I'm loving how our landscaping is coming along and with the flowers now too, it really seems nice. Diane's hostas back here are perking up. This patio is on the back of the house on the east side so it gets morning sun and until about 3:00 - perfect! As of this afternoon, the screened porch is ready to use too! First we had really cool spring weather and then came the wind. Today is just hot (about 88). Bill finished the deck, patio and landscaping toward the end of last summer. The grass is still really spotty around the edges but the rest of the yard is looking good.

Bill and Tim are spraying beans today. Bill kept the sprayer running while Tim was at lunch and then I picked Bill up to come home and eat at about 1:15. He will spray until late this evening. I'll probably be taking some supper out to him.