Hawkeye Saturday!

Football season kicked off this weekend!!! One of my favorite times of the year. Katie, Grandma and Grandpa and I headed south to Kinnick Stadium to watch the Hawks in their season opener. It was very hot and Katie was very grumpy during the game. We did not get any breeze where we were sitting and it was miserable! Fortunately, we found the one (?) place to buy ice cream cones and that really helped. That and the Hawks won!!! I'm not sure how the Hawks are going to do this year.... there were some really fun things to watch on Saturday, but difficult to see how we'll do when we play a tougher opponent.

Our Hawkeye is getting bigger and bigger and bigger! He's still a pretty good puppy although this week I caught him sitting on my big chair watching TV (he's not allowed on the furniture - at least I think!) I guess he didn't remember that I was home!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Just sitting at my desk watching the sunset..... JUST kidding! My computer is not working, I had a cord go bad, so I'm using my work computer. I don't have any pictures saved on this computer to share with you and I just couldn't blog without visuals.... so, I "borrowed" this picture.

The week is slowly winding down. So far Katie is really enjoying her new teacher and riding the bus to school. It has gotten progressively worse trying to get her up in the a.m. but I kinda expected that. Tomorrow is a "Spirit" day, so she gets to wear a Holy Family t-shirt and jean shorts to school instead of her uniform. The kids think that this is such a treat. I was tempted to get her a Notre Dame t-shirt just to see how far this "spirit" day would go, but I decided that Uncle Matt and Uncle Kent would never forgive me.

Speaking of Uncle Kent, Katie called him tonight and left him a voice message, "Go Black jacks"!! She was supposed to say "Go Jack rabbits" because Uncle Kent is rooting for Maine on Sat. Oh well, I'm sure he understood what she was saying.

I found out today at work that we are officially moving to our new long-term temp location on Sept. 23rd. I found out from one of the probation officers who got an email from the Court administrator. We will be at this location, the Palmer building for the next year probably. At least we'll all be together, juvenile court, the juvenile clerk of court, juvenile county attorneys and juvenile probation officers. It's going to be noisy and crowded, but we'll make it work.

Time to take Katie and Hawkeye for a walk. I hope everynight that I will wear them out so that they go to sleep well for me. So far it only works on the dog!!

First Day of 1st Grade

Katie started first grade today!!! Yesterday we went and met her teacher, Miss Wienecke. Miss Wienecke is a brand new teacher from Dyersville (where Grandma Shirley is from).... She's very young and this is her first year of teaching. Could be an interesting year....

Katie got up and around very well this a.m. She was so excited to ride the bus to school for the first time. I was not as excited and I made a copy of her bus schedule and put my name and phone number on it in case she got lost. She goes with the neighborhood kids to the public school where she switches to another bus to go to her parochial school.

She had an early out today and she reported that all went well and that she had a great time today in school, although she did not win at BINGO. I guess they are starting them early aren't they???

We'll see how she gets up the rest of the week. She is not a morning person and she has to be on the bus at 7:21 a.m. It's going to be interesting.....

The Gambler

Katie is having a great time in Dubuque with Grandma Shirley and Papa Dale. I got a call from her tonight telling me that Grandma took her to the Mississippi River Museum and Casino and that she won $11 gambling! She was so excited! I asked her if she was going to take Grandma out for a pop, and she said, "No, I'm saving my money for a (Nintendo) DS". Wanna bet that she doesn't make it home with the money???

Weekend in Minnesota

We finally got to go to Minnesota to see Matt and Jen and the kids in their new home. The move north has been pretty hard on all of the kids. They don't necessarily want to see each other ALL the time, but they want to be ABLE to.... It was fun to go and see them at their new house.

Katie had spent all of last week in Cherokee with Grandma and Grandpa (and ALL her cousins) while Mommy had to work. She has reported to me that she got to see everyone in Cherokee that she is related to... So, on Friday night, Dad and Katie met me at Dudley's Corner (where Highway 3 and Interstate 35 intersect). Katie apparantly was completely worn out because Dad reported that she slept all the way. By the time I picked her up, she was ready to go. We got to Matt and Jenny's about 10 p.m. Friday night. The kids were asleep when we got there, but they didn't all stay asleep.

On Saturday, we took the kids to the Mall of America! Aunt Kel agreed to let them get their faces painted before they started riding the rides. I have forgotten how much harder it is to take five kids to the mall as opposed to just one!

On Sunday, we went to the Renaissance fair. We had lots of fun and there were lots of people to look at.... I told Matt that it was a haven for old hippies and young goth kids.... By far the best part of the day was the fencing. Katie and I had to leave about 3 p.m. I took Katie to Dubuque to continue her whirwind travels before school starts. She is going to be at Grandma and Grandpa's this week before coming home to start school next Tuesday!

Frankie is really into Star Wars right now. I got to hear about an hours worth of Star Wars trivia on Saturday morning when we were snuggling! Did you know that when you are playing with your Star Wars figures that you can NEVER have enough Storm Troopers!! Really!!

Like his big brother, Andy wanted to have Darth Vadar painted on his face. Guess who's Darth Vadar lasted the longest? Unfortunately for Frankie, the first ride he went on, his "tatoo" fell off!

My beautiful blue eyed girl of course wanted blue flowers around her face!

My girls with their faces painted. Marilyn chose pink eye "feathers". Don't they look so precious

This lucky guy didn't have to have any face paint. He's really changed the most since I last saw them. He's walking and talking more and more. He doesn't get a lot of "personal" space, but he holds his own!

Andy and Jenny riding on Blue from Blue's Clues.

Carl wanted so much to be able to ride the rides with the kids. I was watching the kids on the "Frog" ride and when I looked down at Carl this is what I saw!!

All four of the big kids on the ride.... Andy, Frankie, Katie and Marilyn

Here I go Aunt Kel, I can walk if I want to.... I'd rather just stay low and out of the way most of the time!


My boys!

What a group!!! I love this picture. They are having so much fun together!

Matt eating a big * turkey leg at the Renaissance fair.

Here are the kids watching the fencing.... They were really into this sport.

Katie, Frankie, and Marilyn all decket out to fence. The goal in this fencing was to pop your opponent's balloons. Doen't they look like Mickey Mouse???
Round one: Frankie versus Katie. These two have had "issues" for years and we thought that this would be really fun to let them work it out on the field.
Still going at it.
Round two, Marilyn versus Andy. This was the cutest match of the day. Poor Andy didn't know quite what to do. They sparred, but neither of them could pop the balloons of the others. Andy at one point started to run away, and the crowd went wild. By the time these two were finished they had gathered quite a crowd.



Round three: Marilyn versus unknown man. After sparring with Andy, Marilyn got to have some taller competition. She really went to town. She may be little, but she is fiesty. When she won, they had her pose with her foot on her opponent!! She was grinning from ear to ear!

Simonsen Golf Tournament

What can you say about this picture....???

Mom, Kent and Kerry getting ready to tee off.....

He's not only the winner, but he looks good doing it.....

The winner and not the winner!

Perhaps the reason that Mom didn't win is clear in this picture..... She should've cut back a bit!

Yesterday we had the first Simonsen Golf tournament.... We played out at Quimby golf course and we played three holes of a best shot, three holes of 2-ball, and then three holes on our own with our score being the lowest. Then we played three holes of on our own with a new partner. We switched partners again and played three holes of best ball, and finished with yet another partner and played a 2-ball. It sounds more complicated than it really was, but we had fun. Kent shot 79, narrowly defeating Glenn by a stroke. Dad won the "practice" ball coming in a stroke higher than Kerry.

Guess Who I Met????

We've been doing a lot of work out at the Kirkwood campus. Apparantly Greg Stokes (one of the famous Hawkeye twin towers) works for Kirkwood athletic department. He was gracious enough to pose for a picture with me... too bad my hair looked so bad!! It was awesome to meet him because I told him that I remember watching him and Michael Payne and Steve Carfino when I was growing up. This was the highlight of my day!

Here's what you've missed....

Matt and Jenny came for a visit with the kids. We got to go to High School Musical however due to the flooding it was actually held at a high school and not the theater. Poor Carl was the only one that didn't get to go. He was looking pretty cool about it though.

We are really getting used to Hawkeye. He is the BEST dog ever!! I think that I won the dog lottery. He is so calm and obedient. He actually listens better than someone else that I know - Katie! He goes to bed without a fuss. We are starting to get into a routine and things are really going well. I probably know four times as many neighbors as I did before he came to live with us. He's sure a friendly dog!

Aunt Kerry came to visit and she and Katie painted my craft room. I was a little nervous about Katie painting but it really turned out nice!

Work is going so-so. I think that we are going to be out of our offices for at least a year. We are going to move back downtown to another "temporary" office. We are either moving next week, the week after or in September - depending whom I talk. It's frustrating.

Katie has finished with t-ball and it seems as though her summer is almost over. She is still travelling quite a bit - going to various relatives. So far this summer she has only been to day care nine days. I don't think she has any idea how lucky she is to have some many people willing to come and "spring" her from day care.

I promise to post more on the blog - especially now that I have a new USB cord for my camera!!

Katie the Queen of T-ball

These are some pictures of Katie's first t-ball game..... I still cannot find my camera cord and cannot upload any pictures. But, I wanted to share that tonight was a t-ball night. Katie did really good again tonight. I thought that she fielded the ball really well. She also figured out tonight that if you bat last in this league that you get a "homerun" because you run all of the bases. Such a smart little competitive girl!! Just like her mother (and grandmother, and great-grandmother, not to mention several of her aunts and cousins......)

P.S. Katie named this post!

Happy Fourth of July - a little late....

Katie spent the weekend at her Dad's and she was lucky enough to have Grandma and Grandpa Kaufman come spend the holiday with her. She and Grandpa went fishing and she was very excited to catch her first fish. Grandpa didn't do so bad either.

Then after fireworks Katie got to do her sparklers. As you can see they were quite the hit!

Introducing Hawkeye..... I probably have lost all of my marbles, but here is the latest addition to the Kaufman family. Little Hawkeye joined us on June 30, 2008. He's a good puppy. I'm not sure how good I am at taking care of him, but I guess I'll learn fast. Hawkeye is a second generation labradoodle, which is supposed to be a low-shedding, hypo allergenic dog. He'll grow to be the size of a regular lab, so about 50 - 70 pounds. Wish me luck!!

This weekend was not so great for me. I ended up getting pretty sick. I slept most of the day on Friday the 4th and figured that it was just my body crashing from all of the stress and flood stuff going on here. On Sat. I was just as tired and again I couldn't get the energy to do much at all. On Sunday, my knees and wrists hurt so bad and my skin was all splotchy. I determined that it was time to go to the urgent care center where I was diagnosed with Fifth Disease. Apparently, according to the doctor, this is an illness that children more commonly get (although not Katie). He went on to say that this disease hits women the hardest. I completely think that he's right. My only remedy is to rest and to treat the symptoms.

Katie and I are on vacation for the next two weeks. We are having a stay at home vacation and we cannot wait!!

Back to Work - Sort of

Well, I went to work yesterday for the first time since the flood. We were "displaced" and landed out at the Linn County Detention Center with some other "refugees". We were confused, overwhelmed and uncertain about what or how we were supposed to do our jobs. We have approximately 1600 open cases and not one file left. But, as my co-worker Lance said, we have to try and get back to normal. We did manage to have one court hearing yesterday - which is truly amazing!!

It is basically a jumbled mess however. I was told yesterday not to come into work on Tues. by my supervisor. Our office manager stopped by at 9:30 p.m. last night (and Dad startled her) with supplies for me to deliver on Tuesday to work. I just had to laugh. So, I'm going to work today, but don't know how long I'll be a "necessary" employee and needed....

After spending the day at home with Grandpa Mark, Katie was exhausted. She must've played outside the entire day. She did not like some of the things that I had to tell her. I don't remember exactly what made her so mad, but after serving her time on the mat she got up and got busy drawing on her white board. She's slowly learning to express her anger. It made her even more mad when dad and I burst out laughing.

A day on the Greens...

Katie and I just returned from a week away. I had the Spring Iowa County Attorney's Conference at Lake Okoboji and Katie spent the week with Gma and Gpa Simonsen. We both were lucky to be away from all of the devastating flooding in Cedar Rapids!

On Friday the 13th, Katie, Gma Kathy, Uncle Kent and I went golfing in Quimby. Katie was able to get out for a couple of holes as well and play some golf. She played all of hole #6 and despite the photo evidence, she reported her score for that hole as 1... in fact, all her scores for the nine holes were 1... Uncle Kent asked her how come she was beating everyone and she replied, "because I'm better than you!"

We came home Sunday and had no trouble getting to our house. We brought Gpa with us incase there was trouble... Fortunately our house was completely spared. My work office is completely trashed and it will be quite awhile before we get back into the Courthouse. The National Guard is on full alert and are patrolling Cedar Rapids keeping everyone and thing safe. I'll let you know more when I hear more.