Thanksgiving

All hands on deck....cooking at Grandpa's house on Wednesday

Traditional visit photo!

Thursday at Grandma's in Marion

 

Anna performing in the Veteran's Day Parade in New York City

 

Chinatown the day before the parade

Matthew went to the same parade 8 years ago.  I need to try to find the photos from his parade!!

Here is a video of the trip (put here so Anna can always find it!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lHwJJCEbeY&ab_channel=hohanshelt

University of Iowa Fencing Club

Carolyn joined the fencing club in her final semester at The University of Iowa.

Here is Carolyn at warm-ups...the look on her face tells you everything about her feelings about Fencing.  Everyone is so nice.

 

The touch swords, then elbows at the end of each competition.

 

Homecoming

 Once again the Band kids in Anna's class got together to go to Homecoming (and some band-adjacent kiddos).  Here is the photo-shoot.

JR Flutes

Fun photo

I am hoping to get a better copy of this one.

I love this one, even with the wind in her hair! (I like that part!)

Just the gals

On the Prowl! (homecoming tournament of kids)

 This is Homecoming week (Anna just left for the dance).  Earlier in the week they had games that groups of 14 kids participated in.  Each group has a teacher sponsor.  Anna's sponsor was Mrs. Hook (AKA leader of color guard and flutes)  So her group was Hook's Pirates.

     

My mom's family photo

 My cousin colorized this photo.  I just love it.  My mom is in the middle between her parents.  I can see where I got my face shape, oddly no one else in her family has the same shape as my mom and I do.  

Doesn't Anna look a lot like my mom?

                                                       

Carolyn's last "off to school" day

 

Ken took Carolyn to move into the dorms for her last semester.  She is pretty excited because she heard on Monday that she got the job as the marketing and social media coordinator for the department of Biomedical Engineering!  Her boss said, "Since this is your last semester, if there is anything special you want to get the experience of doing, just let me know."  Although it doesn't pay as well as her summer internship, it is probably a better experience to get the opportunity to do different aspects of marketing.

Joel has left the building!

8/16/23

We took Joel up  to campus to stay!  This summer he drove to Ames 5 x week, but he came home almost every night.  (He stayed a few times since he got the keys to his apartment.)  Today we left him without the car.  (I do have one more car load that I will take up tomorrow.  We could have fit it all if the girls and I hadn't made plans to visit Reiman Gardens.)  We took his roommates out to dinner after the trip to the garden (Joel had a bit of work to do in the lab before he could go out to dinner.)  Ken met us on his way back into town (he had been away on business, but was coming down I35 at just the right time.

 

Anna saving animals

Anna and her friend Aaliyah saved this kitten from almost certain death.  They saw it on the road, then a construction worker saved it from the street and put it in a ditch.  They asked him to retrieve it for them and brought it to Aaliyah's mom who often helps rescue kittens for the local animal shelter.  We baby-sat kitty one weekend. Carolyn's roommate, Rachel, came to see him and decided to keep him forever!  (Kitty went back to Aaliyah's house for a couple more weeks to get strong first, but he now lives in Iowa City.)   (Rachel and Carolyn won't live together this fall as Carolyn didn't want a 12 month lease, but might live together again if Rachel relocates to the Metro after graduation.)

Yesterday Anna called me on her way home from band camp.  She saw a dog in the road.  It was really close to our house, so Carolyn and I walked to where she was and we called the number on the collar.  It was a neighbor's dog, who had wandered off.  I had seen this dog before, but it was dark and he had just gotten a hair cut, so I didn't recognize it.  Very sweet pup!

 

other summer pics

Carolyn's garden produce!

Anna at marching band camp.  (Ken's shirt from college.  The kids always use this shirt for Hawaiian/beach days.)

Anna crocheted this.  amazing!

my niece Erin, her son, Ezra....they came to bring Rita (the dog) for us to watch they were on vacation!

This plant was made from 3 different Wandering Jew plants.  The purple was from Colleen (or my friend Sandy), not sure they both had amazing plants last year - Carolyn kept it over the winter and we started fresh with the ends this summer (it got a little scraggly).  The white and one that was solid green (you can't see) were from my friend Anita.  Carolyn is going to take to the dorm for her final semester!

 

More summer "vacation" photos

We sorted all the school supplies donated to our church for an inner city Catholic school. >16000 items (but we did count each pencil etc. as 1)

Saturday night after church

Sunday after church (Ken helped and took photo)

The wall tags went up on Monday at the school.  I could get in because I was helping with band uniforms.  (Carolyn, Natalie (in navy in top photo), Sophie (in gray in top photo) and Avery (not pictured) and Patrick (Carolyn's boyfriend) helped me put them up.)  Avery is in the Chaos group and Sophie's sister.  The B. family helped me with both the school sort and the hanging of the name tags.  Natalie even helped me cut and glue all of the Vortex name tags a couple weeks ago.   Anna was at marching band.  I am thrilled how these turned out and even more thrilled to have it done.  I went back on Wednesday night and had to retape many of the tags I had taped, none of anyone else's.  I was afraid we were going to run out of tape and I wouldn't have had project completion!

 

Joel moved into this apt August 1

Here he is with his 2 roommates, Will and Evan.  They have been friends since kindergarten and 1st grade respectively.  He and Will lived together last year and he and Evan have often shared a tent at scout camp.  I think they are compatible!!!

I am sad that he moved into an apt. (instead of a dorm) because I feel like he is less likely to come home.  His dorm was the size of a matchbox.

The good news is he already came home :0)  right after moving in!  He isn't really moving into his place for 2 weeks, but the boys shared a Uhaul, so he moved all the big stuff and much of the small stuff to the apartment.  He also works at a lab. in Ames, so he will be taking car loads to his apt. when he goes to work.

 

What I did on my summer vacation.

Wall nameplates for show choir.....Total number of nameplates...266 (not including showband...on the bottom, because we don't know those participants names yet.  I will add their names and "showband" and "2024" in the upper right corner when the time comes)

I hope to get these on the wall next week, during marching band uniform fittings.  (when the music hall will be open!)

Next year I will be taking down the level of complexity to be sure....more like the Spectrum tags, which were the easiest.

 

More on the great storage room/basement clean up

The Cricut computer is now in the storage room (aka huge work area).  This will help keep my office and the main basement area tidy, because I will try to keep the card making/scrapbooking to this room.  Loft goals have I.  

We are getting a new furnace and AC unit on Monday, so that really lit my tail on fire for cleaning the storage room.  I had to completely empty a huge shelving unit for the company to drill a hole in our basement wall to make our unit high efficiency.  I organized all those items so they will go back neatly on the shelf when the project is done.    

 I still have a long way to go, but I will make great progress this week, as Anna is at camp, Ken will be gone for several days and Carolyn and Joel will be at work a bunch.  (I only work 2 days this week because on Friday I will pick-up Anna from camp!)

Anna is a Jr Counselor at Catholic Youth Camp

 

Here is Anna with her best church buddy Ruth.  They have gone to camp together and are on the CORE team to help lead the Youth Ministry program at our church (with approx 10 other kids and our Youth Minister).  They have done VBS together since pre-school.