Scott's Blog

Hello all, this is Scott, Jenny has asked me to try my hand at writing captions for this weekends photos.

What a magical Saturday!

Our day began with a trip to Beaver Park Petting Zoo. Rachel's life long dreams and ambitions were fulfilled when she was given an opportunity to sit on a cement pig.



Rachel was eventually asked to leave the zoo after several of the chickens issued formal complaints against her for harassment.



Later in the day we made our way to Cherry Hill park where the girls were given a chance to blow off some steam!!!

Here is an action shot of Annabelle gazing longingly at a pair of random parents across the park, wishing they would adopt her.



At the park there were several uncovered power lines running along the ground. Flood damage has caused several safety cut backs in the city. Rachel's experience at the park was "electrifying" to say the least.



"Daddy, please make me puke."



After the park, we drove to Marion to Squaw Creek campgrounds, where Grandpa and Grandma Strang where camping this weekend. Unfortunately Jenny accidentally ran these deer over while trying to take a picture and drive at the same time.

Rachel is scheduled to start group therapy to deal with this traumatic event next Tuesday.

I've been trying to load videos of the girls but it takes forever just to load a 2 min clip. The first video is from Father's Day. Rachel is reading the card she made for Scott. Keep in mind this was just a few days after the flood.



This video is of Annie playing with Ruby. Her face lights up whenever she sees Ruby. It's obvious Ruby doesn't enjoy Annie very much but she'll let her do this for a few minutes.

Rachel PASSED her first swimming class last Friday. She did a great job listening to her teacher and paying attention during class. She put her entire head under water several times during the last week and she's certainly more comfortable in the water now. She started the next level yesterday and once she finishes that session that will be it for this summer.

The rest of the weekend was spent mostly at home. We had our little buddy Maclain's 1st Birthday on Sat night and the girls enjoyed swimming for a few hours. Sunday we bummed around and Scott took Rachel to playground at her new school. Rachel is so excited start kindergarten and I plan on taking her to do a little "school shopping" this weekend. I never thought the day would come when I would be taking MY kids to buy school supplies!!!!

Annie continues to work on her walking skills. I've caught her walking across the entire living room a couple times. I've tried getting her on video but it seems she does better when your not paying attention to her. I guess all that added pressure gets to her. She has her two top teeth coming in so sleeping has been interrupted the last few nights. Hopefully these teeth will come in quickly so we can all get some much needed sleep again!!

I took a few days off in August and we hope to take the girls to the Niabi Zoo before Rachel starts school. With gas prices so high we haven't ventured too far from CR this summer. The zoo is the perfect size for that age and we can easily see all the exhibits in one day.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MARK & KARA!!!!

Who-hooo...she passed!!!!

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I don't even know where to start with this one.

Go Cubs!!!

Ok, so Scott and I are not huge fans of any sports team or sports in general but we are fans of drinking beer and eating hot dogs at a sporting event! Our neighbors, Roger & Diane, invited us to join them this weekend to watch the Cubs play San Francisco on Saturday. Great seats, great weather and a great game. Thanks to Scott's parents for watching the girls so we could go!!








Fans from Cedar Rapids across the stadium
"Cedar Rapids Flood Victims Love the Cubs!!"

Here is a video of Annie taking a few steps last night!

Weekend Recovery in Progress

We had a GREAT weekend but now it's time to recover and get ready ready for a full week of work again. We spent Thursday at Kara's parents pool. This was Annie's first time in a pool and she LOVED it. She was content to sit in her inner tube and just splash around. Rachel put on arm floaties for the first time and she did a great job kicking her feet and swimming around. We spent the 4th in Cascade. We took the girls to the parade that morning and spent the rest of day playing at the farm. Scott took Rachel in later that night to see the fireworks in town. We went to Lake Delhi on Saturday with a group of our friends and the weather was perfect. We stayed up a little too late last night so it was hard getting up and going this morning. We are finally back home and Annie is glad to be back in her crib and Rachel is patiently waiting for Sam to get home so they can play outside.






Nice




Rachel & Abe

More Flood Photos

My friend Kara forwarded these images to me today. Most of these were published in the Gazette during the flood. This will give you an idea of how much water was in the downtown area.




Cattle deck party


House boats piled up against the Quaker Oats bridge


Image of downtown.


View of 3rd Ave

Happy 4th

I don't have any new pictures to post this week which is a first for me. I pulled up a few pictures from the 4th of July last year to post. CR will only have fireworks this year, no parade or Freedom Festival events. Everything has been postponed until Labor Day weekend. We were really looking forward to the Balloon Glow at Brucemore which is our favorite event. We will have all the more reason to celebrate at the end of summer and hopefully CR will be a little bit more back to normal. I took Thursday off so I'm looking forward to a long weekend. Hopefully we can enjoy some nice weather & fireworks back home.


The Kids Parade 2007. I was super pregnant
and it was super hot.


Rachel as her own float


Rachel & Cael

Balloon Glow - Rachel, Quinn & Shay