Tomorrow (June 28th) marks the 95th birthday for my Great Aunt, Dagmar!

For those of you who know her, you know that the term “95 years young” really does apply…she is certainly a spry woman. She is like a 3rd grandmother to me and I have lots of childhood memories of being with her…she gave me a spanking when I was just a toddler for running across the road without looking both ways first…and I have never let her live it down to this day! Anyways, even though she doesn’t have a computer and probably doesn’t even know what the internet is, I wanted to post in her honor and wish her a very happy 95th year…and many more. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAGMAR!

We had a couple of pretty crazy storms at the end of last week. I was at work for the downpour on Thursday, but wasn’t so lucky to be inside on Friday. Anya and I got caught in the first part of the storm when we were coming out of Target…we got drenched and she thought it was hilarious! The whole way home she kept saying “wet mommy”…isn’t she observant (since we were both soaked to the bone!) We made it home just in time to see the winds pick up and it was pretty scary looking for a few minutes…Jason was sure we were going to lose one of our big trees in the back, but luckily we didn’t. We were glad for the rain as our grass and plants were looking pretty desperate. The intense heat is back today, so we have been laying low in the house and staying cool.

We had a busy weekend. Saturday morning, we went to the downtown farmer’s market with our neighbors, Paul & Lois. We had a great time with them and Anya was in her hayday watching all the people and commotion going on. After the farmer’s market, I headed up to Ankeny to go to a baby shower for Noel and her new baby boy, Rex. She had a great turnout and got alot of great baby gifts and Rex was so good the whole time.

Yesterday we went to church in the morning and then spent a lazy afternoon watching the Cubs and napping (well, the girls napped anyways)! Last night we met with the elders of our new church as we are officially becoming members next month. We didn’t have our church small group last night as we normally do because some of he couples were out of town for the weekend. So, we are meeting tonight and having pizza…Anya is excited.

Potty training is moving along. She likes sitting on Elmo (what she calls the potty because her potty ring has Elmo on it!) She had a good weekend and stayed pretty much dry the whole time except overnight and during naps. She still doesn’t understand what all the excitement is about everytime she goes on the potty, but eventually it will sink in. Until then, every 45 minutes we have an appointment to sit on Elmo!

In other Anya news, she is working on mastering the “ABC’s”…she does pretty good until she gets to the “L-M-N-O-P” part–then things get alittle muttled. But, she loves singing it and we love hearing it….sometimes I can’t believe how big she is getting that she can already sing songs like that. Man time flies…..

Anya had a big day on the potty today…she went “pee pee” twice and “poo pee” once….what a big girl! Who knows if today was a fluke or not, but at least it gives us some encouragement! Keep your fingers crossed for our potty training adventures and we will keep you posted!

We hope every Father had a great Father’s Day yesterday! We had a quiet day around the house…we went to church in the morning and then spent a quiet afternoon not doing too much of anything. Since it was SO hot out, we did manage to get Anya in the pool AND she really liked it.

At first she wasn’t so sure of it, but by the time we got out, so was doing “motorboat” and blowing bubbles and jumping up and down! It was alot of fun to watch her have some much fun!

Otherwise, this weekend we planted some hostas that we inherited from Steph Cathcart who recently did some new landscaping at her house and had some extras she didn’t want and Jason built us another new shelf for the garage to store more of our “stuff” that we just can’t live without! The shelf looks great and it has really helped us get alot of the stuff we had laying around on the floor up and out of the way. I don’t know why we ever thought a 4-car garage would be big enough for us….we should have went with a 5 car garage!!

Last night I made roast and potatos for Father’s Day and then we went and got ice cream for dessert. Anya loves eating ice cream cones and she managed to get more in her mouth than on her shirt, so she did pretty good.

Here is a few more pictures of Anya in the swimming pool. I have a feeling we will be spending a lot of time this summer running back and forth between Anya’s two new favorite things….the pool and the swing!

Getting caught up with work a bit this afternoon and listening to a radio show regarding Fathers and memories. It makes me think back to growing up as a kid with a near perfect childhood. Dad was always involved, putting in time with 4-H and helping coach all the sports I loved to play. We spent a lot of time taking grounders in the driveway and out in the machine shed, which converted into an indoor basketball court (as soon as we backed the skid loader out) and he always made sure that my sister and I had our hogs shined up just right for the County Fair. He gave me room to grow up on my own, but I knew he was never too far away. Thanks Dad.

We had another busy week and weekend around here with visitors for several days. On Thursday, Papa Ron and & Aunt Joni came to town so that Papa could go to the World Pork Expo and so that Aunt Joni could spend some time spoiling Anya! They stayed Thursday night with us and left late Friday afternoon. We had a fun time grilling out with them on Thursday night and Anya loved having the extra attention. Grandma Barb also came Friday night to spend the weekend with us and left early afternoon Sunday. It was great having her here also and, as usual, we put her to work helping us get a few odd jobs accomplished around here.

Friday night we had a family BBQ and ended up having between 30-35 people attend and it was so much fun. Jason made a pork loin on the grill and then everyone brought delicious side salads and desserts…it worked wonderful. Jason even got the opportunity to light up the fire-pit and we roasted marshmallows and made smores…it was alot of fun and the kids had a blast roasting the marshmallows for all the adults. We had a great time seeing everyone and celebrating the arrival of summer…the summer months are usually so hectic for everyone, so this was a great opportunity to hang out before the summer gets too crazy!

Saturday after we hit a few garage sales, my mom helped Jason & I with a few odd jobs…we put up a lattice screen to hide our garbage can and filled up the bladder pool we got for the backyard for Anya to splash around in. Hopefully we will continue to have some hot days to warm up the water as it is pretty chilly right now!

This week, Jason also got his early father’s day present…a flag pole. He has been wanting one since we moved here (almost a year ago) and he finally found the kind he wanted. It looks great outside in the yard and we are proud to fly the american flag & hawkeye flag (big surprise there huh…?)

Well, Anya is about due to wake up from her nap, so better get a few more things accomplished. Here are a few pictures of our weekend fun.