What I Did Last Summer

Yes, that is me and yes, that is historic Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  As part of a fundraiser for Special Olympics - Wisconsin, I was able to repel down the side of Lambeau field, making the "Ultimate Lambeau Leap!"  It was quite the experience for someone like me who has an acute fear of heights.  After training inside on a one story repel, we went up 7 floors in an elevator, up a flight of stairs to the rooftop and finally up a steel ladder to the top of the elevator shaft to start the repel of 140 feet.  Never was I even given the chance to back out which is good, because had they asked, I may have not done this.  Watching beforehand really scared me!!  Fortunately, we were working with a professional team who repel into hard to reach places for a living.  They are highly trained and safety conscious people who always made me feel safe. 

Safe and sound at the bottom!

Been a year now...

Well, it's been a year now since I have written in this blog. Reason being: I am either too busy with life events or not sure what to write about. As I explained to a friend, rural life is enjoyable to an extent. It is nice and quiet but it is also that: very quiet. Life moves slowly and tends to follow routine.

So, I would be willing to write about my some areas of our rural life but what to know what my readers (if there are any) would like to hear.

Let me know.....

Finally finished!!

After two years, we finally have everything on the outside of the house finished. I will put in a bunch of pictures here so you can see the final product:

The plants are small and need a lot of growth but they are low maintenance and will grow quickly I am sure.

As a reminder, this is where we started (seems so long ago!):

Our Winning Special Olympic Teams

Congratulations to our Waupaca Special Olympic Basketball teams! Our A Team (on top) brought home a silver medal and our B Team (on bottom) brought home the bronze from the Wisconsin state tournament last weekend. As unorganized and underfinded that our program can be, this was a great moment for us. Thanks also goes to our coaches: Aaron, Joel, Clark, Carrie and Tom for all their hard work and dedication. It paid off in medals this weekend!

Home in snowy Wisconsin

After a 5 days of beautiful weather in Texas, we got to come home to this:

About where we left it but a new layer of ice on top of everything. Hopefully this new year will be less snowy than the past month has been. Maybe Mother Nature will take pity on us.

Here are some images of our time in Texas:

This is a waterfront area near Phil's home with restaurants, shopping, amusement rides, etc. It sustained quite a bit of damage from Hurricane Ike but they are working hard to rebuild. The tall blue tower in the far right used to be a ferris wheel. Most of the cars were either destroyed or disappeared during the storm but they plan on having it reopened by March of 2009.

Our other big trip down there was to visit Space Center Houston museum, which also includes a tour of the Johnson Space Center. One of the items on display (outside) is this Saturn rocket. This was built to be Apollo 18 but the program was cancelled prior to it's launch. The rocket now resides in Houston for public display. Amazing how large it is. I could not even get it all in one picture.

The Wall of Water

Now that I can post pictures, here is the proof that we made it to Houston. This is the "Wall of Water" in downtown Houston. It stands 64 feet high and pours 11,000 gallons a water per minute over the wall. Pretty cold when you get near it since it is in the shade and the spray goes pretty far from the fountain.

As you can see, not a snowflake in sight and plenty of sunshine. Forecast is for more today. I hear it is snowing, again, in Wisconsin. Somehow, I don't care. I will when I get back but for now...

Here is the gang of "kids" we had with us for our trip to downtown Houston. Notice mine in shorts; they could not wait to get in those.

Today is Jeff's 18th birthday. I now officially only have 1 child and 2 adults. Here is the birthday boy having breakfast; his favorite pancakes.

More tomorrow....

Finally in Houston!!

As of 4:30 yesterday afternoon, we have made it to Houston. Short story this time but here it goes:

1) While waiting in St. Louis with the weather cool but sunny, they announced that our flight was once again delayed. This was the ONLY flight leaving that was delayed. We tried not to panic since we had a 3 1/2 hour layover in OKC. They later announced that the plane was having issues at Midway and that was causing the delay. Once again, Midway was getting in our way. After a 2 hour delay, we finally got on our plane.

2) With optimism at it's very highest, we reached OKC with time to spare for the connection. After eating lunch at Sonic (my very first time) we finally got on a plane to Houston. Sorry, so excitement here, we actually made it; we even landed early.

3) As we waited for our luggage, Phil arrived to take us the last leg of our journey. As the bags rolled by, we pulled two of our three off quickly and waited for the third. It never came. The Southwest staff at Hobby were very nice and took all my information and told us the bag would be delivered sometime today; as soon as they found it. Phil took us to his house for a wonderful reception with family and a cold glass of Door County wine.

4) I received a call at 8:45 that they found the bag and would deliver it by 12:15. We started a bet on what time the bag would actually get here. Congrats to Shelley who correctly guessed 12:20 on the dot. Pretty much what we expected from Southwest at this point.

5) So, since we missed two days here, we have rescheduled our flight to Friday from Wednesday. Hopefully the weather will be good and we can fly that day; though getting stuck here would not be that bad.

I'll let you know.....