Where to Start?

Since it's been a month and a half since my last post, I don't even know where to begin. Well, let's see, I've been working. I've started school. I'm on a mission to get my teaching certification. Hopefully in about a year and a half, I'll be finished and can move on to bigger and better things.

I survived the floods of 08. That's what they're called around here. Of course, they didn't affect me at all except that they caused my daily commute to feel a little like driving through the lower circle of Hades. But all's well that ends well, I suppose. The flooding wasn't as bad as had been predicted and thanks to lots of new safety guards, they didn't do a whole lot of damage in Des Moines. Some areas got flooded pretty bad, but for the most part, we all survived relatively unscathed. I do have family that lives in and close to Cedar Rapids, but they were all spared from major flood damage. Praise God for that.

I celebrated Bodie's first birthday on June 8th. He was actually sick the day before his birthday, so instead of birthday treats, I took away all of his food. That did the trick, so the day after his birthday, he got all sorts of yumminess. I had bought some gourmet treats at a kiosk at the mall. He had dog bone shaped biscuits covered in icing and sprinkles. He got a treat that looked like a giant lollipop. It was actually a big circle of yogurt type stuff on a rawhide stick. The next day his poop was really really blue. Dark blue. It was pretty funny. And I got him these peanut butter and carab treats that looked just like a reece's peanut butter cup, with an icing paw print on top. He didn't get to eat them all at once. But every day I'd say "Happy Birthday Bodie" and he'd run over to where the treats were and shake his whole body up and down in anticipation. It was cute. I definitely spoil him sometimes.

Bryce and Blake came out to visit from June 21st through July 5th. Heather was here until the first Wednesday and then she drove back home. I took off work from the first Thursday through the next Friday. I went back to work only this past Monday, so I had a total of 11 days without working. We did so much that I actually will have to post that at a different date, so be watching for it. (I promise it won't take me another 1 1/2 months.)

I enjoyed my past week at work. It flew by quickly and today I participated in a mud volleyball tournament. Every year around this time, Ankeny holds a city-wide celebration call Summerfest. Our church started holding a mud volleyball tournament. This year was the 2nd one, but I believe they're going to keep the tradition going. They dug out 4 pits on the land of the future site of our church and filled it with water. There were a lot of people there this year. It's not just church members, either. There are a lot of just young people (and some not-so-young) from the community that take part. It's pretty cool. We got completely trounced. We played 2 games. The second one, this team got in because they thought it was their turn. But one of the games went a little long, so they were behind. They actually played after us. This really sucked, because they definitely looked like we had a pretty good chance to beat them. Instead we got a different team. And we lost. But we had fun anyway. The only things that sucked were 1: the amount of rocks in the pit. I was told to wear old tennis shoes. This didn't work, because they just sunk into the mud and made it hard to move, so I took them off and stepped on jagged rocks the entire time. And 2: it was so flipping cold today. Yesterday was in the 90's. This morning when we started at 11, it was maybe 70. At most. And rainy and slightly windy and it didn't get much better before our second game. And the water was cold. So, of course, I was cold. If I get any pictures of me covered in mud, I'll definitely post them.

Okay, that's it for today. Check back soon for pictures....