Patio Gardening Update

Well, we had planned once again on making a trip up to Maquoketa Caves today. As of the 10:00 news last night they said we only had a slight chance of rain in the late evening hours today. By this morning, they had changed their forecast to thunderstorms & rain all day. Hopefully someday soon our crazy weather people will make up their minds...but in the mean time we'll just have to make other plans. So, we decided that a rainy day would be the perfect day to go bowling. Well, as it turns out, Monday is the only day of the week that our bowling alley doesn't open until 4 pm. Plans thwarted again. On to plan C. We changed our plans once again and decided to have a nice lunch at Fuddrucker's and then tend to our patio garden...isn't that what everybody does on a rainy day? :-) So rather than pictures of a trip to Maquoketa Caves I have for you instead a photographic update of our patio garden.

Our tomatoes have come a long way since our last garden update. They have now graduated to their hanging baskets:


We have a virtual forest of cilantro:


The basil has been a little slow-going, but it will catch up:


We also planted some pansies, petunias, and impatiens. These are the pansies:

Moose is Ready to Go...

...19 days left until San Diego. If only we were as ready to go as the cat is--he has actually packed himself in his cat carrier. We are so excited to come back, but there is a whole lot to be done between now and then. I have an x-ray practical on Wednesday, a huge insurance project due Thursday, in two weeks we have finals, and I have a job interview for a teaching assistant position on campus (I'm nervous! =)). All that and we still have yet to secure a suitable plant-sitter. With all we have left to do, 19 days can't come fast enough.

Rainy Day

We woke up this morning with grand plans to head up to Maquoketa, IA for a day of spelunking at Maquoketa Caves today. Unfortunately, our plans were derailed when we looked out our window and saw this:

A mighty thunderstorm. The rain doesn't photograph very well, but I promise it's there. Hopefully the rain will clear up sometime before the weekend is up. If not, you may have to wait until next weekend for Maquoketa Caves pictures.

In the meantime, have a great Memorial Day Weekend!

Fun Mailbox

Brett and I have decided that we are going to need one of these:

Teeny Tiny Town

On our drive home from Bushnell, IL this weekend we stopped to take a couple of pictures in the teeny tiny town of St. Augustine, IL, population 152. I took pictures of what I have determined to be the worlds smallest police department/fire station combo, and post office:

Bad Luck in Bushnell

We went to Bushnell, IL (about an hour and a half South of Davenport) this weekend because a friend of mine was having a bridal shower. So far, we have not had fantastic luck with our trips to Bushnell. The first time we went last February it was in the middle of a crazy ice storm and it looked like this:




Note the healthy accumulation of ice on the windsheild wipers... we actually had to stop to scrape the ice off the car halfway between Davenport and Bushnell. Obviously not ideal road trip conditions.

This trip the weather was beautiful and we had a really great time. Unfortunately, one of our tires decided to develop a (not so slow) leak last night. It needed to be replaced, but of course in a town of 3,000 people the tire shop isn't open on weekends. The good news is that when you are in a town of 3,000 people everybody knows everybody and our friend Derek was able to call the tire guy who opened up the shop just for us. Too bad our plans were foiled again when he didn't have the size tire we needed. I felt like we were in the middle of those 'car trouble in a small town' horror stories you always see in the movies. Luckily, the next big town over had the size tires we needed. $150 and a couple hours later we were on our merry way once again. I don't have any exciting pictures of our tire adventures to share with you, but we did see a giant tractor driving down the road:


Now that's something you just don't see everyday in Southern California.

Maybe we will have better Bushnell luck next time. : )

Fore!

...luckily, we only had to say that once...and nobody got hurt. : )

Brett & I went golfing today at the beautiful Credit Island Park in Davenport. We had a really good time. Today was my first time golfing. I actually managed to hit the ball almost every time. I'd call that a pretty successful first try at golf. Here are some pictures from our golfing adventure:






(That's the Mississippi River behind him)

Polyuria Puns, Part II

Just in case you missed Polyuria Puns Part I, click here.

Things You Never Knew You Wanted To Know About Davenport

Welcome to Part 1 of my blog mini series: Things You Never Knew You Wanted To Know About Davenport. I plan to use it to share with you interesting facts and history about Davenport and the surrounding Quad Cities area so that you can know more about the place we live.

Today I begin with the Centennial Bridge:

The Centennial Bridge is part of US Route 67 and it runs across the Mississippi River from Davenport, IA to Rock Island, IL. The Centennial Bridge was built in 1940 and was the first ever 4 lane bridge to cross the Mississippi. The bridge has since become a symbol of the QCA (Quad Cities Area). The 5 arches are designed to represent the Quad Cities. I know what you are thinking: Shouldn't there be four arches? Well, technically the Quad Cities are Davenport and Bettendorf on the Iowa side of the river, and Rock Island and Moline on the Illinois side. But sometimes (depending on who you ask) they let East Moline come and play too, hence 5 cities in the Quad Cities. I know. It's bizarre. But what do you expect? It's the Midwest. Sometimes it's like a whole different country. : )

"It's Go Time!"

Before we begin the story, here's some backstory so that the story can make sense: Polyuria is a condition that causes excess urination. Brett and his friends have learned about it in their physiology classes, and for some reason his friends decided to give that name to their softball team.

Now, on with the story:

Last night we went down to Credit Island Park in Davenport to cheer on our friend's team, The Polyurians, as they played on one of Palmer's intramural softball teams. The teams motto: "It's go time." In keeping with the theme of bad puns relating to polyurea, Brett & I crafted a sign to show our support for the team:



Stay tuned, as we plan to come up with a new polyurea pun for every game that we attend so that we may further fulfill our roles as official softball team cheerer-oners. Just don't ask us to throw the ball. : )

$100,000 Luggage Tags

...and "free" t-shirts to boot.

$100,000 is not an uncommon sticker price to pay to get the letters "Dr." in front of your name. Although, Brett and I would gladly pay a few dollars less in tuition and forego the myriad of free items distributed by the school. Free pens, t-shirts, key chains, and most recently, luggage tags are common giveaways at most school functions. In fact, it is pretty much common knowledge that the primary incentive for going to most school-sponsored events is the promise of a free t-shirt. Today, when checking our on-campus mailboxes Brett & I discovered that we had been gifted Palmer College of Chiropractic luggage tags... a sort of consolation prize to accompany the letter from the school saying "Oh, by the way, we are raising your tuition $437 per trimester, but here, have a 'free' luggage tag." I looked at Brett and said, "That right there is a $100,000 luggage tag."

Brett and Amy: Earning that $100,000 back one free t-shirt (and luggage tag) at a time.