Ode to the West Des Moines Library

I step out of my non-air conditioned car into the sticky humid heat of a late spring day in Iowa. I make my way through the thick air into the reprieve of shade provided by the building. As I relish the coolness the shadow provides, I notice the little square labyrinth of long benches and flower beds to the left, and the large pond not too far behind it. Cute, I think, and continue my walk toward the building. As I approach, the automatic doors slide open (Star Trek was so before its time), and I am greeted by a blast of blessed cold air. When it hits me, I feel as though the heat from outside is peeled from my skin and lies waiting there, just outside the door; it is not welcome here.

Mixed with the processed air is the scent. The scent any booklover would recognize, blind folded, as the scent of a used bookstore or library. The scent of paper that has been mixed with ink to become beautiful pros, masterpiece novels, classic reprints, and children’s books we will never forget. The scent that would make me feel at home anywhere.

I notice the spaciousness, the two floors, which is relevant only for one reason: it means lots of books. After obtaining my new library card from the very friendly librarian, I immediately search for my desired books. It takes me 5 minutes or less to find them, check them out, and be standing back outside the building with my heat suit on, pondering on which bench to sit.

I decide on the far bench, the one facing the pond, and take my seat. I now notice a fountain about 50 yards away at the end of the pond. I begin to read. When the wind blows, and it’s always blowing in Iowa, the spray of the fountain leaps the 50 yard gap and I can feel tiny pricks of coolness on my exposed skin. When the coolness fades I am reminded of my non-air conditioned car and the trip home I must make. I stand, make a path through the shade, and leave.

But I’ll be back soon. That smell and that pond will call me back

KENTUCKY!

                 

Last weekend, we took a little trip to visit our friends in Kentucky (that's them, up there... Brent and Amanda Sorenson).  Because they live in KY, we don't see them very often, so it was nice to spend some time with them.  It took 10.5 hours to get there and 10.5 hours to get back.  We left on Thursday around 5:30, after picking up the rental car (so nice to rent a car and not have to worry about your own!), and we left for home Sunday morning.  I drove most of the way there, which was nice for Chris because normally he's the one doing that.  He drove all the way home, though, so he got his share of driving done, too.

While in KY, we did a little hiking.  We went to a place called The Natural Bridge, which was exactly what it sounds like; a bridge formed from eroded rock.  It was quite large and very neat.  As I've said before, blogger sucks when it comes to pictures, so I'll do my best with a couple.  

All in all we had a great weekend!  We got to do some relaxing, some exercising, some visiting... pretty good vacation.  We decided we like Kentucky, too... me mostly for the sweet tea ;).  Alright... here comes my attempt at pictures (click them to enlarge):

Natural Bridge:

Amanda and Brent's dog Tate, whom we love:  

 

Oh!  And when we got home, I snagged my first successful pictures of lightning!:

Cool... I think it worked.  Ok, time for work.  Hope you are all enjoying the beautiful weather!  

Our weekend in a nutshell... a really big nutshell.

So, my dad was home from Iraq for 2 weeks, which was great! Chris and I wanted to spend as much time with him as we could, so this is what our lives looked like from last Tuesday to today:

Tuesday night: drive to Council Bluffs to visit
Wednesday morning (early): Drive back to DSM for work
Thursday night: Drive to Council bluffs
Saturday afternoon: Drive back to DSM
Monday morning/early afternoon: Drive to Omaha to visit the Victors, then to CB to visit the Rinaldi's
This morning: Drive back to DSM for work
(for a more detailed look at our weekend, skip to the bottom part in square brackets)

That's a lot of driving... but it was worth it :) And after all that you'd think, "Man, they probably won't want to drive at all for a month!" But... we're actually driving to Kentucky on Thursday night to visit our friend Brent, from college.

We are pretty excited about our little mini vacation this weekend to Kentucky. We've only been there once, for Brent's wedding, and we didn't get to spend much time there. Brent said there are some waterfalls near where they live, so we are planning on checking those out. Not sure what else we'll do, but I'm sure it will be fun! Plus, we really enjoy road tripping together, and we're renting a car so we don't have to worry about the miles building up on our own :)

Other things of note: We're keeping busy with youth events and road trips this summer. Between June 5 and August 7, we have virtually no free weekends. I take that back, I get back from a mission trip July 24 and we have nothing scheduled for that weekend. Unfortunately, the youth events I have planned depend on youth signing up for them, and I haven't had anyone sign up yet :( Hopefully that starts to happen soon so I can get some plans finalized.

Chris is still hard at work doing his two-jobs-for-the-price-of-one. Sometimes he gets pretty stressed, but I think he deals with it pretty well. We're just thankful he has a job. Went to lunch with one of my high schoolers (except she graduated so now she's not a high schooler!) and the waitress divulged that she was being laid off from her night job. No one is immune, and we are so grateful to have the jobs we do.

Welp, thanks for reading. Keep in touch and stuff.




[The last post talked a bit about the first two days (Thursday and Friday). Saturday morning we went with my parents to have breakfast at my favorite cafe ever (Mia Latte in downtown Omaha). We arrived to a sign which read "Closed until further notice." Sad!! I loved that place. There food was delicious, they had a billion kinds of tea, and the people were really nice. :( Stupid economy. Anyway, we skipped the breakfast thing since it was actually about 11:00 by that point and headed down to the Old Market for the Farmer's Market. Omaha's is really good, and there is always a ton of people there. We bought a couple pastries for "brunch," and then mosied on through the different tents of produce. After the market we went to a Mediterranean and an Indian food market shop thing (two separate stores, same strip mall), to get some stuff for my next book club meeting. We're reading "The Bookseller of Kabul." It's pretty interesting. Next we went to have a delicious lunch and then we headed home. My parents came out to DSM too, to visit my aunt.

That evening we went to a dance recital in which one of my 8th graders was performing, and it was pretty fun. Lots of neat dances. We left there around 9 and headed to my aunts for a bit of visiting before bed. Sunday was church/work as usual, followed by 3 grad parties. Then we went to my aunt's again and walked with her, my cousins and my parents around Saylorville Lake. Got in the pool after that (Chris did, I did not), and roasted hot dogs for dinner. Then we left my aunt's for youth group, after which we returned to my aunts for a bit more visiting. Monday morning my parents took us to breakfast/lunch at the Machine Shed (mmmm), and then we all headed back toward Omaha, at which point Chris and I went to his dad's for a little cookout. We were happy to see his family, as we hadn't in a while, and were happily surprised to find his grandpa there when we pulled up.

Later that evening we went to Chris's grandparents' house to retreive a disc his granpa had made for us. The disc contains some pictures and info for a family tree which Chris has been wondering about for a while. We haven't gotten to look at it yet, but we are excited to. We've already learned some interesting things about his family... Turns out, Chris's great grandpa invented the first road sander (truck that throws sand in winter)!

Spent last night at my parents, said goodbye to my dad who is heading back to Iraq tomorrow, and then went to bed. Headed home early this morning and now here we are...]

Another Update... Whoo!

And here we are, with a little time on our hands, so we thought we'd give you an update :)


A couple weekends ago we went to Cedar Falls for Shelby's graduation. It was pretty fun. We got to see the newly renovated Village Inn, which freaked us all out, and Chris and I skipped out on commencement to go visit another good friend we have in CF. We enjoy hanging out with Shelby and her bf Steve, and it was nice to see Shelby's family. Also, there was Brooklyn, Steve's basset hound, and she's really sweet :)


Early the following week my dad got home for R&R, so we have been spending as much time as we can with him and it's been really nice. It felt like Christmas yesterday when we were at my grandparents, because both my dad's siblings were there with their families and nearly the only time that happens is during Christmas (everyone is always so busy!). There were plenty of card games and snacks to be had, and my dad brought home several souvenirs for us all to choose from.
----------------------------------------------------

So, we started that post and then went to bed... and now it's Friday. I don't even remember what day we started that other one. Anyway...

I went with my parents to see Star Trek and that movie was awesome! Then last night Chris and I came to visit my parents and he and I went to see it since he hadnt seen it yet. Still an awesome movie. Now we are just hanging out at my parents house after helping them with some yard work (ok, Chris helped. I did some of my own stuff for work).

Not a lot has been happening in our own lives; not anything new, at least. Several of our friends have had exciting changes, or will have. Congrats to Jessz, Brittany and Elle on their engagements! We're really excited for our friends to experience married life, as we enjoy it greatly :). Also, Christy, Aimee, and Valerie are all very close to having babies. How exciting for them to be starting their families! Congrats to them as well :)

We have been really busy these last couple weekends, and it looks like our summer will be a whirlwind of busy weekends. It should all be pretty fun, though. I (Stephanie) have joined/co-started a book club and it's going well so far :).

Alright. I feel as though I'm draggin on and am really distracted at the moment so I will leave you with this: Kites rise highest against the wind.

My Planner

Welp, it's been a while... let's see if I can figure out what's happened since the last post (really, I lose track of time and don't remember what happened when... oops).

Gimeny!  What the heck has happened since April?  Ok, this is sad.  I literally had to go get my planner to figure this out...  Ok, here we go:

April 25:  My planner says "ISU."  This is in reference to Awaken's last performance of the season, which took place on the campus of Iowa State.  It was awesome, there were tons of people there, and in that tons of people was my youth group from Pella.  I loved seeing them all again and was glad they got to experience Awaken.  

April 26:  The next day, my planner tells me, was First Communion for both my cousin and Chris's.  Chris's cousin and her parents live in Minnesota, so right after Awaken (at 11:30pm), Chris headed north... or he was supposed to... I called him about half an hour after he left telling him to turn around.  He had left with my purse in his backseat, and in my purse were my keys.  In the end he didn't end up getting to MN until 3:30.  It was nice for him to be at the Communion, though, because it was his God daughter receiving it.  I got to see my mom at my cousin's First Communion, as well as all my other family members on my dad's side, so that was awesome too.

 

May 1:  Happy May Day!  This day says "Katie's B-day Party," but it was also the day I went to Pella to visit my friends.  I ended up staying there until around 10:30 because I wanted to see my friend in her last college theater performance.  It was really fun.  Chris went to Katie's party in Ames to represent the Starrs.  I was sad to miss that, but I can only be one place at a time. 

May 2:  "Jeannie's Bridal (lingerie) Shower"!  I got to visit with some friends again in Ames.  Before the shower, Chris met with a bunch of our guy friends from the Ames area and played a couple games of football.  He loved that.  His shoulder is healing well and he has pretty much no pain in it anymore.

May 4: "To Mom's."  After work Chris and I headed to my mom's house in Council Bluffs.  She is actually in California right now visiting her sister, but as her Mother's Day gift we decided to clean up her house a little bit.  It was pretty fun, and we always enjoy a nice road trip.

May 5: "Staff mtg Awaken."  Happy Cinco De Mayo!  We went to Ames again for our final staff meeting for Awaken.  It was nice to see all those folks again, and after taking care of some business we played a pretty fun game. :)

Now we're up to date, and here are some things that will be happening soon.  

May 8: "Tulip Time!"

May 9: "Shelby's Grad Party"

Yep... so now that our lives are centered around a silly little planner, we seem to keep pretty busy.  But at least the business is organized... I guess... Haha.  

SUMMARY: I'm not doing one this time... sorry folks.  ;)

All the latest...

Oh my goodness, what an exhausting weekend! Didn't get home from Awaken until 4:00 this morning. Woof. Woke up a couple times, starting at about 7:30, before actually getting out of bed. Went with Chris to the walk in clinic because he's been having a lot of pain in his shoulder since Friday. Turns out he has tendinitis. We're glad to know what the problem actually is, and are hopeful that the prescription Chris got will keep the pain to a minimum.

As exhausting as it was, this weekend was great. We had a "family picnic" with Awaken-ites on Saturday, which was a lot of fun, and Saturday night we got to stay in host homes. That is always such a great experience, and I really enjoyed my host family :) The drama went well, from what I could tell backstage, and there were tons of people there, so that was amazing. Even though we didn't get home until 4, we always have so much fun that it's worth it. Plus it makes for a good story/complaining point ;) Next weekend is our last performance for the season, and that is sad to me.

Chris has recently e-mailed the Waukee wrestling coach to see if he can help out at all. He really misses wrestling, and it's just not the same putting your 110lb wife in a cradle... Haha. He is quite excited, though, at the opportunity to work out with and help some of the high schoolers. He was so worried that he really messed up his shoulder and wouldn't get to do it, so I think tendinitis was an acceptable diagnosis. Hopefully Chris will be meeting with the coach some time this week to talk about what options there may be.

What else has happened? We had a great Easter... decided it's one of our favorite holidays. Then we decided we don't have to have a favorite because we like them all. Haha. I am going to be getting more hours at work, so that's exciting. And Chris got a promotion! I guess we hadn't posted that here yet. It's sort of bitter sweet because others got laid off and he got their responsibilities, but it is a blessing to us none the less. It does mean, however, that he is incredibly busy at work and has to work late some nights. Sacrifices have to be made sometimes, though, and it hasn't been excessive at all, so that's good.

My dad is coming home soon on leave for two weeks, so that will be cool. It so happens that he will be home at the same time that his sister and her family from MN will be around, so we might get the whole family together for a zoo trip or something! I love the Omaha zoo :). Anyway, by the time he goes back it will be half way through his total time over there, I think, so we'll turn the corner there.

My mom got us a new Thomas Mangelsen picture! It is called Winter Woodpile and matches the first one my parents got us, which is called Ermine in Trees. My mom works at the gallery in Omaha, so she gets a discount and Winter Woodpile was on sale, too! We love Mangelsen's work, and it's great to have some actual artwork to hang on our walls. Makes us feel all grown up ;). Actually, it made me feel all grown up when my aunt asked us to be emergency contacts for her children! Haha... such a simple thing, but I suppose it signifies that I am now responsible enough to take care of things if a situation were to arrise... it also signifies that I am the closest family to them. Hehe. :)

Let see.... oh! We made dinner for the Grulkes and Ericksons on Friday. I made gnocchi (potato pasta), and Chris made an Italian sausage, parmesean cream sauce to go with it. It turned out to be delicious! Gnocchi is pretty labor intensive, but not difficult, and it was really fun to make. So filling, too!

Worked at Pizza Ranch tonight to raise money for our summer mission trips.  We made almost $500 in tips alone, plus we get 15% of whatever the profit was for the night!  That's exciting :)

Well, that's about all I can think of for now. Oh yeah, I said I would do summaries of my continuously lengthy posts...

SUMMARY: Awaken is fun, Chris has tendinitis, we're both working more, new Mangelsen picture, we're all grown up, and Gnocchi is delicious.

Here is a video we made of a Bocce game we played with some of my high schoolers. Please enjoy it... we do. ;)

Photo Blog

You can tell a lot about someone by what's on their memory card.  I wanted to make a photo blog to share our memory card with you, but it turns out that Blogger is not the best option for this.  I decided the easiest remedy was to make a slideshow elsewhere and past it here. :)  Enjoy!