Monday, July 13, 2009

Midnight Madness

Saturday evening, Heather and I headed to Ames so I could run in the Midnight Madness road race. A few of the guys that I run with at work over the lunch hour got together and formed a team for the team competition. Heather snapped a pre-race photo on our way to the race.
Once we got warmed up, I pulled on my SCRC jersey. Anthony and I are ready to race!
The rivals...Los Animales, and if you look closely one is dressed as a red pepper and another guy is dressed up as a bird.
Joe, myself and TC head to the starting line.
All lined up at the starting line.
...and the race begins!
...here we go.
...and coming to the finish line.
TC racing to the finish.
It was a lot of fun to race and to race with guys that I run with. I ended up in 11th place and as a team we got second! For full results, click here.

Belated Happy Father's Day

Last Tuesday, we had my family up to our house to celebrate father's day. This was the first chance that we have all been around to get together. I was busy on the grill, cooking hamburgers, brats and corn on the cob, so unfortunately we didn't snap a ton of pictures. Here is my dad, my sister, Christa and her husband Wade as we are finishing up dinner.
Heather and Morgan had a ton of fun swinging on the hammock together!
We had a great time hanging out with my family, apparently Morgan goes to bed early so they did stay late, but we had a great time while they were here. Happy Father's Day dad!

Friday, July 10, 2009

4th of July

The evening of the 4th of July Heather and I got to hang out with our good friends Derek and Joni. Derek's parents live over in Urbandale, mere blocks from where they shoot off the fire works, so we could see them from the front yard. There was lots of food and lots of laughs!
Heather and Joni show off their hoodies, it was unusually cool for the 4th of July.
Derek and Miya, they were up at the carnival earlier in the day and Miya got her face painted.
It was a night full of fireworks, but we started off small with sparklers!
Heather shows Miya how to start a sparkler from another sparkler.
All good things come to an end and Joni's sparkler did just that; losing life it went limp and fell over.
Heather shows her sparkler skills handling 4 at once!
Miya really like the sparklers until some hot ash fell on her foot...that put an end to the sparklers for the night.
In an effort to help Miya's hurt foot, her "Boo" bear was brought to the rescue, only to be left in Derek's arms later.
Nothing says summer like watermelon and a bottle of coke!
Heather and I get cozy as the firework show gets under way.
First up was the neighborhood fireworks. Derek's aunt, uncle and cousins from Colorado came into town and they stopped in Wyoming and filled up with fireworks! Grants shows us the Black Cat......and the Black Cat in action!
As we were sitting there watching the fireworks, we noticed something flying through the air...BATS! Heather, fearing that they would get tangled in her hair, went for cover under some blankets.
Mitch shows us the next special feature...Snake Eyes
...and Snake Eyes in action.
Then the big fireworks began.
With a loud boom the night sky lit up.
...and again
...and again
...and again. It was a pretty firework display!
And then the finale for the street show, Mitch and Mike show us the Grand Finale!
...and the Grand Finale in action.
...4 minutes of fun!

We had a great time watching the fireworks and hanging out with the Pine's. Big thanks to the Pine's and all their family for letting us hang out for the night, it was a ton of fun!

Monday, July 6, 2009

4th of July - Urbandale Parade

The 4th of July! On Saturday, Heather's work got the opportunity to walk in the Urbandale Parade and toss out candy and hand out fliers for their Military Walk for Marriage, that is taking place July 25th at Gray's Lake. They had a crew of about 30 volunteers walking and Willis Auto Campus, let them borrow a Hummer for the parade! Here is the whole crew getting ready for the parade to start.

The Durick's brought their whole crew!
The Siskow's were all smiles as the parade got under way.
Evan would have been really excited about all that candy, if only he could have gotten it open.
Aaron and I practice our candy throwing skills...
...while Evan practices his smooth moves!
And we are under way...Happy 4th of July!
...followed closely by the Hummer
The parade was a huge success, we tossed out all the candy and handed out over 2,000 fliers, so hopefully we see some of you out at Gray's Lake, July 25th! If you can't make it, Heather and I will be walking and are looking for people to sponsor us for the walk, let us know if you can help!

Friday in Pella

Since Friday was a holiday and both Heather and I didn't have to work, we headed to Pella to help Chad and Shay with some finishing touches before their baby arrives. I did a little painting in the nursery and Heather helped pull some weeds in their flower beds. They wanted a tree to coordinate with the rest of the room, so I pulled on my painting jumpsuit and got to work.
Making progress on the tree!
A few hours later, the tree was complete!
We worked up a sweat and thought the best way to cool off would be to head to the pool. Nathan was super excited to show us the green slide. Wave to the camera...
...and down the slide we go!
Next he wanted Auntie Heather to join him down the slide and away they go...
...to a crash landing!
Next, Chad and Nathan show us how it's done.
And then the "Big Boy" moment of the day...for the first time ever, Nathan went down the slide by himself!

We had a lot of fun hanging out in Pella and we got a lot done too. Thanks to Chad, Shay, Nathan and Falco for hosting us for the day, now we can't wait to see how the baby likes his new room!

Friday, July 3, 2009

I-Cubs vs RedHawks

Wednesday evening, we went with Heather's work to the Iowa Cubs game. We got tickets for the sky box and had a blast! Dawn, Heather and Kim were all smiles as the game got started.
Aaron, as always, is counting his money while Jon watches.
Joni and Kim share a laugh.

The game ended up going into 14 innings with the Red Hawks finally beating the Cubs in the end. One thing I did learn was about former pro baseball, now minor league player Josh Hamilton. He has an amazing story of how he turned pro after high school then went down the wrong path getting involved with drugs and then turning his life around and how he came to know God. If you have a few minutes check out this video: I am Second: Josh Hamilton It is very powerful and gave me a new perspective.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Vic's Popcorn

Heather's coworkers recently introduced her to a tasty treat known as Vic's popcorn. It can be found at your local Fareway or Target. It is pre-popped popcorn that comes in the small brown bag. There are all sorts of different flavors and I will agree is it very tasty popcorn. When our friend Adam was here for the Copper Creek Triathlon, we offered him some Vic's popcorn and explained to him what it was, thinking he probably doesn't have Vic's in Omaha.
Not only does Adam know about Vic's, but come to find out, Vic's Popcorn actually started in Omaha. They even have Vic's Popcorn stores where you can buy popcorn by the pound! So when Adam came for the Hy-Vee Triathlon, he brought a huge bag of popcorn for us.
It's like 3 feet of popcorn and it is very tasty.

Thanks again for the popcorn Adam, we will probably still have some when you come for the next triathlon in August.