Ahhh, Glorious Silence...

The house is quite. Nothing goes crash in the night, nobody falls off their chair at breakfast time, daddy can read his newspaper from start to finish without having to attend to some minor emergency in between the sports page and the funnies. You guessed it: we're kid-less. Thanks to grandpa and grandma, we've been granted a short reprieve from the daily pandemonium.

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but it's really nice to be able to carry on a normal conversation in the car.

Grandpa and grandma drove out last weekend and took the boys for what will be about two weeks by the time Andrea and I wander back west to pick them up again. They were very excited, and under the strictest of orders to be on their best behavior. Anthony repeatedly assured us that he would be a good boy: "I won't get into Grandpa's tools, daddy." We'll see.

So far the reports are good. Grandpa and grandma are holding out fine, the kids sufficiently worn out from the hotel swimming pools to keep from rocking the ship too much, and Rob and Andrea catching up on their sleep.

Thanks grandpa and grandma.

Sprouting Windmills

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that there was a new wind farm going in close to us. Boy, is there ever! We'd noticed a few sites where the windmills are going to be when we went out before, but we've been past there a couple times since and the dirt piles, access roads, and construction activity seems to be multiplying by the week. There are going to be dozens of the things in about a three by four mile swath of farmland and they're bringing in tons of material, and equipment to get it done. The boys and I went out again the other day to take a look.

This seems to be the steel support cage that is cast into a large concrete block which, I assume, forms the base for the tower.

The finished base. I don't know how deep the base block is sunk into the ground, but haven't seen anything yet that suggests it's much deeper than what is visible here. That doesn't seem quite right, knowing how tall the tower is going to be.

Just for a rough perspective, we met a couple of semis last weekend that were carrying the generator houses that sit on top of the windmills. We had to get off the road. The wide angle here doesn't quite convey the size of the generators, but they were big! I can't wait to see one of these hoisted a couple hundred feet off the ground.

Kindergarten: Done

Yesterday was Kenrick's last day of kindergarten. He learned a lot. Grew a lot. Still a squirrel.

His teacher was sad to see him go.


Anthony thinks he's ready for school too, but as you can see from the misspelled marker 'tattoo' on his arm he still has a hard time remembering his name.

Triathlon Survived

I finished the Galena Triathlon on Saturday in two hours, ten minutes, twenty two seconds - nearly six minutes faster than my time from the previous two years, but slower than my buddy Luke by less than a minute! Aaarrrrg! I started fifteen minutes behind him, and I knew it would be close when we passed a little more than a mile apart during the run - me going out and he coming back - but at that point the motivation to run faster than a hobbling plod just wasn't there. Oh well, much fun was had by all anyway.

Andrea and the kids were my official sponsors, and got a few photos.

Getting ready to go, pre-wetsuit. Not sure why Kenrick is looking so sad. Probably because I had to take his stylish yellow hat.

I'm probably the most excited about the swim portion of the race because for the first time I was able to relax a bit in the water and get into a good steady rhythm. I only paused few times to rest and look around, but didn't have to backstroke once! My swim time was much improved from last year. Must have been the lucky wetsuit!

This tri course is fun to run but not very spectator friendly so Andrea and the kids had to leave me at the start and drive to the finish (sixteen miles from the lake to Galena) before the start of the race. The next chance to take a picture was about an hour and half later at the finish of the bike ride as I entered the bike/run transition area.

It was fun to have them there cheering for daddy.

About forty five minutes and one monstrous hill later (two miles up, two miles down), Daddy crosses the finish line! I'm not really sure about this picture, it doesn't quite seem to capture my blazing sprint to the finish... I was sprinting, right?

Anyway, it really was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to next year and hoping to convince a few locals to try it with me!

Off to the Races!

This is the big weekend. I mentioned a while back that I'd signed up for the Galena Triathlon, and the time has come. We'll head up tomorrow afternoon and get checked in then run on Saturday morning. Swim, bike, run. It looks like the weather will be ideal for triathlon-ing.

I'm a little nervous, but excited too. I'm determined to beat my time from last year (which was 42 seconds slower than my first attempt!) and although I'm not in the greatest shape ever, I feel like I can at least do that. And I've got the "lucky wetsuit" to help navigate the ice bergs in Apple Canyon Lake - thanks to Don for letting me borrowed it - that's got to help.

So, I'll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck.

Corn: Part 1

The boys and I went for a drive this afternoon. This is what we saw.

That's corn, in case you didn't know, and that's what the Heartland is made of!

What we wanted to see was some construction on a new wind farm being built just 15 or so miles from our house, but the project is only just starting so there wasn't much more than a field office and some initial road work to access the places where the windmills will eventually be. I'll keep you posted.

While I Was Away...

I was in Iowa City all week for work, but found a couple of pictures on the camera when I returned:

Anthony seems to have taken over the family business.

The business of Talking to Grandma, that is. Serious stuff.

At least his finances seem to be in order...
Which is more than can be said for Kenrick. His account looks to be in the red already, not to mention upside down!

It was nice to be back in Iowa City. I got to see some old friends and had a chance to wander around a bit downtown. It doesn't seem all that long ago when we were there, buzzing around like the rest of the caffeine-fueled college crowd, but it's been longer than we want to admit. Anyway, we had good times there, but I can't say that I miss that scene; it felt awfully good to come home to our quiet little town and our quiet (sometimes) little family.