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)

Short and cute

Yes, the title does describe Paige, but it also describes her new haircut. I decided to make it easier on the both of us and cut it short. Here's some before and after pictures:

What we've been up to.

We've been enjoying our summer so much the blog has been neglected. So here's a quick attempt to get you caught up.

Bill: took the summer off from teaching classes, it has been so fun to have him home more this summer, we've been spoiled. He's currently participating in RAGBRAI (registar's annual great bike ride across Iowa). He and about 15,000 other participants will spend this week riding across Iowa. He's been training for a couple months and was way excited to go.

Jen: just finished teaching a short set of summer piano lessons to a few students. Is gearing up for the 20 students she'll be teaching starting in the fall. She is also gearing up (more mentally, than anything else) for the 5 hour drive with the kids to Dubuque, Iowa this weekend to meet Bill at the end of RAGBRAI. Should be loads of fun!

Dylan: just finished t-ball and had a lot of fun. Enjoyed being a junior paleontologist at the dinosaur/fossil camp he attended. Has been having fun at the pool and really enjoys the water slide. Is about to lose another tooth, getting ready to start 2nd grade, and celebrate his 7th birthday.

Paige: is still keeping us on our toes with her busy-ness. Is working on potty training and makes it to the potty before she needs to go about 50% of the time. It's a work in progress. Has started physical and speech therapy which she really enjoys (more on this in a later post). Looking forward to starting preschool in the fall.

Liam: just had his 9 month check-up. He's in the 25th% for weight and the 75th% for height. Crawls like a champ, is walking while holding onto furniture and drooling like crazy (as you can tell by the drool dripping off his chin) but still, no teeth.

So there's a quick run-down on what we've been up to. Busy, busy, busy -but having a great summer!