Ready-Set-Tumble!

We signed Paige up for a 3-4 year old tumbling class. Today was her first class and she was really excited to go.

She was so excited to get to wear her "gymnastics clothes", as she calls them.

Practicing on one leg

Up on tip-toes

This was so cute. She's suppose to be grabbing her ankles with her hands and lifting her head off the mat. She couldn't quite get her head to stay up but she tried really hard.
( Sorry for the slightly blurry picture)

She was really cute and had a lot of fun. It was fun to watch her. Dylan and I kept laughing at how cute she was. She really was trying her best to do everything the teacher was showing them. We hope these classes will help strengthen her muscles and help with her coordination. If nothing else, at least she's enjoying them.

Bedtime Stories

Dylan loves to read and Paige loves being read to. So we've combined the two and have Dylan read Paige a book before bed each night (or at least on nights when it's not too late and everyone's still somewhat happy).

Tonight's selection was poems from Shel Silverstein's "A Light in the Attic".

Getting Back to Normal

The kids have been asking us to take them miniature golfing all summer. So we braved the mosquitoes and made it our end of summer/back to school activity.

Here's Dylan posing for a picture. We kept having to remind him it was golf, not t-ball :)

Paige with her usual "cheesy" smile.

We had lots of fun and I only ended up getting 18 new mosquitoe bites (and that's with bug spray). No joke!

It seems things are finally settling down and we're getting back to normal around here. The van is fixed and the rental car returned. Dylan started school last week. Paige is starting a tumbling class this week and preschool next month. We had a fun and busy summer. We're sad it's winding down but are looking forward to a lot of good things to come this fall.

An Invisible Bulls-Eye

Could someone please tell me if there's a gigantic target above our house that we just can't see?!

Last night we had another sever thunderstorm with high winds and heavy rain. We noticed a large limb from our tree (the same tree that damaged the garage, by the way) had fallen and was laying in the driveway. Upon further inspection, we noticed the limb had fallen on the back of our car and shattered the back window.

Bill and I had a good laugh over it, because honestly, it's really unbelievable, and what else were we going to do? Fortunately the estimate to get the window repaired wasn't too much, so we won't have to claim this on our insurance. The van is in the shop being repaired and we just pray that nothing happens to the rental car in the next 2 weeks.

Good News

We found out today that the drunk guy who hit our van is insured. Not only that, but his insurance company says they are going to take care of everything plus they're reimbursing us for the cost of a rental car until the van is fixed. So now we're just waiting for them to set up a time to come assess the damage on the van and let us know if it's fixable or totaled. We're keeping our fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly.

Claim 2, Get 1 Free

Unfortunately for us, our insurance company has heard from us very often this summer.

Claim #1: Hail damage to the van. As we were driving to Utah in early June to visit family we got caught in a terrible thunder storm in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The hail was huge and of course we were in the middle of Wyoming where there are no overpasses, bridges, trees etc., so no where for us to take cover. Our van got pelted with hail and has hundreds of tiny dents all over to prove it.

Claim #2: Storm damage to the garage roof. Less than a week after we got back from Utah we had that crazy wind storm. Several large limbs from our tree went through the roof of our garage. We are still in the process of getting all of that fixed/replaced.

Claim #3: Drunk driver hits our parked van! Tonight after dinner we were sitting in the living room and heard a loud crashing sound outside. We weren't sure what it was so we went out front to look. About 4 houses down from ours there were 2 cars, 1 which had a lot of front end damage so we assumed the two cars had been in an accident. As we were watching people drive by and look at this accident we noticed they were also driving slowly by our house and seemed to be looking at our van which was parked out front. We soon realized that the loud crashing sound wasn't the two cars hitting each other, it was the one damaged car hitting our parked van!!! As if this wasn't bad enough, which it was, the driver of the other car turned out to be drunk and spoke very little english. He was arrested for driving while intoxicated and taken to jail. We are still trying to figure out if he has insurance as he didn't have any documentation in the car and the car is owned by someone else.

So tomorrow, I will yet again, be calling our insurance agent to file a third claim. Three claims in less than 3 months and none of them were our fault. Some companies have accident forgiveness, maybe ours has claim 2, get 1 free (more like, claim 3 get your rates hiked). Such is life, I guess.

Getting ready to have the drunk guy's car towed.

RAGBRAI 2010

Bill just finished his week-long bike ride across Iowa. RAGBRAI is an annual event here in Iowa. It always starts on the west side of the state, ends on the east side and takes seven days to complete. This year they estimate 20,000 riders participated. Crazy!

Here's Bill at the end; Dubuque, Iowa.

The route ends at the Mississippi river where each rider dips their bike tire.

Bill doing the tire dip.

The kids and I drove to Dubuque to pick him up. We toured Dubuque a bit, went to the aquarium and camped overnight. Sunday on our way home we drove across the bridge to Illinois and then to Wisconsin so we can add those states to the list of ones we've visited.

Overall, Bill had a great week. He rode over 500 miles and had a blast. Anyone interested in joining him next year? He's already wanting to put a team together and ride it again. Mark your calendars for the last week in July and let him know!

Is This Heaven?

No, it's Iowa! If you've seen the movie Field of Dreams, with Kevin Costner, you may remember this line from the movie. As part of our weekend trip we visited the Field of Dreams movie site which is in Dyersville, Iowa. It was pretty fun.

Dylan and Paige running the bases (notice the corn field in the background)