Packing Boxes

Packing has begun at the Vowles house. Four years of accumulated nick-knacks, furniture, portable adjusting tables, etc. is all being loaded up for our cross-country move.


With packing comes the predictable disorganized mayhem, but I'm pretty sure this is unavoidable. Please note that this is not the usual standard of cleanliness for my home. Please don't judge me. ;)

We are pretty much out of boxes at this point. We tried so hard to save boxes for this occasion, but many of them were damaged in the great basement flood of '08 when most of Iowa was underwater. We are going to try to score more packing boxes from the school tomorrow so that packing can continue. Now, if only we actually knew where all of these boxes are eventually going to end up... More updates to follow on that front. :)

No Rednecks Here

On our drive home from Bloomington we stopped to get gas at a Cenex in Middle-of-Nowhere, Minnesota. This sign was on the gas pump:


Apparently, due to the number of recent drive-offs, they "have went" to pay at the pump or prepay only. I guess somebody slept through their grammar lesson.

What's funnier, is that someone felt the need to correct this and took a pen and wrote "gone" next to the word "went."


I suppose idiots are everywhere. Fortunately, so are the grammar police. :)

Bloomington/Atlanta

Okay, so I lied. There were never any more pictures of Phoenix like I said there would be. It's really hard to take pictures of things when you are in a seminar from sun-up to sun-down. I know you'll forgive me. To make amends, here are some pictures from our adventures from last weekend:

Brett went down to Atlanta, GA for a Blair Upper Cervical seminar. He went down with his staff doctor at Palmer to get started on a research project they are working on that is going to examine the reliability of x-ray analysis. Yeah... He can explain it better than I can. Anyway, he had a good time and met a lot of great people. I did force him to take my purple camera with him and take at least a couple of pictures. Here is what he came home with:

Here's a shot of downtown Atlanta:


And here he is with all of his Blair peeps. Don't feel bad, I don't know who any of them are either.

(I apologize for the terrible picture quality. One of these days i will figure out what is wrong with that pesky little camera).

While Brett was in Atlanta, I was in Bloomington, MN with my co-workers for a chiropractic assistant seminar. We had a good time, but very little free time, so I was only able to get a few pictures. Our hotel was right next to the Mall of America. If you haven't been there before you should go. Sadly, there was not much time for shopping, but we were able to zip over there to grab a bite to eat.

Here I am with my friend and co-worker Amanda at a restaurant called Cantinas in the MOA:


They had interesting green rice:


And yummy enchiladas (even though they tried to contaminate them with chicken!):


From the restaurant you could see the amusement park. I really wanted to ride a ride, but there wasn't much time and nobody else was really interested. ;)

There was also this crazy Scrap Fest going on while we were there. There must have been thousands of women going from station to station creating all sorts of neat scrapbooking projects. That would have been right up my alley if I lived in Bloomington and had the time.

Greetings from Phoenix!

Hello All!

I just wanted to say a quick hello from Phoenix! Brett and I took a last minute trip to Phoenix for a seminar. We haven't had much time for pictures, since we have been stuck in a hotel conference room the majority of the time. Yesterday, we were able to sneak away for a bit to visit some of Brett's family that live in Mesa, AZ. I took a picture of some pretty clouds over the mountain.

...and of the clouds as the sun was setting.

...and of course of the family german shepherd, Jaylee.

More pics to follow.

Labor Day Weekend

Brett and I had a very nice, relaxing 3 day weekend. Saturday morning consisted of the usual lunch at China Cafe and grocery run. Later that day we headed over to Meggan & Dusty's. We went to Vander Veer park in Davenport to take some pictures of their adorable family:


Afterwards they were kind enough to have us over to their place for some delicious tacos. Brett of course made some of his famous salsa. YUM!

The next day we all decided to rendezvous at Scott County Park. I wish I had known about Scott County Park a few years ago, because it's really a neat place to camp/fish/swim/enjoy the outdoors. This time we all headed to the swimming pool, which was surprisingly un-crowded for Labor Day weekend. I really enjoyed the waterslides! Here's a pic of me going down the spiral-y one:


My timing was way off and the only slide pic I could get of Brett was just of his legs! Haha!


We also tried out the diving boards. Here is my one and only trip off the high-dive:


Dusty was much braver than me:


Since we were all together, we decided to continue Labor Day festivities and have a BBQ. It just isn't Labor Day without a BBQ!

Today was a lazier day, although it did involve 2 unscheduled trips to the grocery store (why can't I ever remember everything I need???). Brett took me to lunch at Lunardi's (a small mom & pop Italian place) and then we went to see Julie & Julia which was really cute and a lot funnier than I thought it would be.

All in all it was a great Labor Day weekend. :)

Just Because it's Tuesday

Here's a funny pic, just for laughs: