Lots of pictures for you!

I've got some more pictures for everyone! Here's some pictures of Quincy. These were taken a week ago - can you believe the water has gone up several feet since then? Tomorrow I'll see if we can get some good pictures as the river is going to crest tomorrow.

Last night we drove the motorcycle down to a drive-in movie theatre! Neither of us had been to one, so Keith thought it would be fun to go! He actually surprised me - I knew we were going somewhere, but I didn't figure out what it was until Thursday afternoon. We watched the new Indiana Jones movie. Here's pictures of me and the Ural last night:

Ack! Someone stole my pony tail!! And replaced it with Helmet Head!!

One last thing - today we planted a tree my brother Aaren gave me last summer - he had propogated the corkscrew willow in a college horticulture class. It lived through the winter in it's pot and now we have found a good place to put it. Also, this afternoon I picked my first Radish! It was quite hot. But good!

Flood

Just wanted to let everyone know, that even with the flooding on the Mississippi, we should be OK, as we live on the highest point in the county. :-) Keith's golf course is high enough, it won't be affected, though I've heard that if the levee breaks down below them, you can watch it from the shop and watch the trees just disappear...

The office I work at is only 1.3 miles from the River, but our Levee is at 37' and did not break in '93. The river is expected to crest at 32' (or that's what I last heard) - the same height it did in '93. The levee on the Missouri side is, I think they said 35', so if anything , it will break on the Missouri side. The road I drive to work on every day is closed at the moment, probably from flooding. I'll try to take a camera tomorrow and maybe be dorky enough to take pictures.

Lots of people are sandbagging - the parking lot for the Oakley Lindsey Center (where Keith's play was at...) looks like a beach. Lots of dump trucks of sand going every where around town.

We have two bridges going from Quincy, IL to West Quincy, MO. They shut down the one bridge, so they now have the one bridge - one lane of traffic going both directions. I have one coworker who lives in Missouri. Apparently after the big levee broke in 1993, the waters came within 7-8 feet of their house. Let's hope that some idiot doesn't break it again this time... Apparently some guy broke the levee in hopes of making sure his wife wouldn't come home that night. Yeah. He's supposedly in jail right now.

Obama was in town yesterday to do some wonderful PR work... I guess he filled a couple sandbags, but not much else.

Prince has a plant in Marion, IA - which is pretty much connected to Cedar Rapids. They are on higher ground and were OK, and most employees were safe as well. However, there was only one route for trucks to get in on Friday, but it was definitely better than none!!!

If you want to keep tabs on everything in Quincy, the NBC station here is http://www.wgem.com/

Catching up!

I just realized I haven't written anything here for over a month. Oops.

Anyway, we've been busy finishing up the kitchen. I've got one good day of touching up paint, and some cleaning and I'll post some pictures. It looks absolutely beautiful! We've also just got some finishing touches on the bathroom ceiling. Perhaps I should finish that this afternoon and clean it, so you can at least see that! It's cute!

We've also been working on the outside of the house. I have some flowers in baskets on the porch, so it doesn't loook so bare and sad. And at least when you look at the porch, your eye goes to the flowers before the peeling paint... I'm quite disappointed, though, that I don't have any hummingbirds yet.

We have had several birds at our regular feeder. We've found that if we feed Safflower seeds, we keep the starlings away and the Cardinals love them. So do the house finches.

I think the birds are staying away from my garden! I've got a couple tomatoes (one of which is blooming), a couple pepper plants - one orange and I've already got a pepper started on the purple plant! My onions seem to be very happy, as well as my radishes! I am very surprised at my success so far, as Reed seems to be having problems getting stuff in his garden (it was a really wet spring) and it's my first year for the garden, and I dind't amend the soil at all. I have a compost bin started for this fall, though!

Our yard is looking better all the time! We sprayed the dandelions and Keith brought home a roller to flatten out the bumps. It looks much better now.

Here are some pictures of Katie, Sarah & J.T. They were taking on Memorial Day. I think they get cuter every day! J.T. has gotten so big! He is starting to say things, but we can't quite get him to say "Aunt Karen", let alone "Uncle Knucklehead." This past week, they have been busy picking Strawberries! Amberley has got quite a patch! I took a couple buckets full and made some freezer jam. YUMMY!