Paper Chain

Angie & Madeline made a paper chain today, counting the 45 days left until we leave for England. We're getting excited.

Peace-
Matt

(PS - Angie's passport arrived. What a relief)

Happy Camper

We'll move Angie's home office back down into the basement today. She will be much happier there. I put carpet down there yesterday.

Abby heads to Catholic Youth Camp today, for the week. She's excited to go. We're excited to have her there. We all need a break from each other.

Peace-
Matt

Midsummer

Long time no blog. Sorry for leaving you all wondering. The flooding in our basement never got worse that what's shown. Thank God for that. Here are some photos of the flooded fields. I'm hearing that the corn crop in Iowa has sustained many billions of dollars damage. Some are calling it "Corntrina" in reference to Katrina. Silly.

If you look at my 2/10/08 post "40 days", you'll see the same concrete columns that I've shown in the photo above. Comparing the two posts, you can see how high the river is now. It's amazing.

Summer has been very busy. Alex has her permit and has been driving all over. We need to find her a car soon. We're both sick of taking her everywhere. She needs a job too. Her social life is expensive.

Abby and Madeline stay home most days and get pretty bored at times. When they're bored they bug their mother, who is supposed to be working during the day. When they bug her she gets frustrated. When she's frustrated, we're all frustrated. Summer has been LONG for her. When the basement flooded, I moved her office upstairs. I need to get her back down in the basement before she loses her mind.

We're counting the days to our England trip. I hope Angie's passport comes soon, it's the last piece.

Peace-
Matt

Ark

We've had a crapload of rain the last few days. Our basement has been getting water since early Friday morning. This is the first time we've ever had water in our basement. It's pouring into the sump pit from the drain tile. The sump pump has been running every 45 seconds or so. The drain tile has never had one drop come from it since we've lived here. It's got us on edge. If the power goes out, or the pump fails, or whatever, we'll have a foot of water in no time. We've put everything up. Angie is down there wet vaccing as I type.

We thank God it's not worse for us though. There are plenty of folks in town that have it much worse. Cambridge is flooded. This is the worse it's ever been according to some very old locals we've spoken with.

Time to build an ark I guess.

Peace-
Matt

Scrappy

Madeline is a heck of a ballplayer. She watches every move the ball makes and chases it down. Most of the girls on her team are typical tee ballers, their minds are somewhere else and they'd rather play in the dirt. Not Madeline, she's serious. She told me her coach called her "scrappy".

Peace-
Matt