Fun family weekend

My beautiful sister-in-law and brother-in-law came to visit this weekend with their 2 boys and black lab Maddie. Kids, dogs and parents enjoyed the visit.

Andrea, sweet daughter and I enjoyed an afternoon of shopping, then we came home for a BBQ before the boys/men headed to the Kernels game.

We had hamburgers, hot dogs, a yummy potato salad made by Andrea, baked beans, an apple salad and angel food cake w/ fresh strawberries for dessert.
I also made a lemonaid slush.
Slush recipe - http://rincessquiltandknitalotrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/06/slush.html
Apple Salad - http://rincessquiltandknitalotrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/06/snicker-salad.html.

There will be flood

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=174000&title=there-will-be-flood\

In case you missed this, check out the daily show coverage of midwest floods.

Ideas for my next project

I ordered yarn for this pattern, I love the trim! I love the yarn but the trim is too yellow so I will keep it for a future project and find new yarn in ivory to go with the trim. Very cute!

I will start this after the Lucy Bag. This will be my second attempt at a sweater, I will let you know my progress.

Donations from Maqouketa

My sweet sister-in-law in Maqouketa went out and asked for donations of water and baby wipes for folks in need in Cedar Rapids. It was such a wonderful surprise to see so many bottles water, gallons of water and baby wipes. She went to the golf course, the liquor store and Walmart in town. We will send out thank you notes to these businesses for helping us out. Dear son and I dropped off many of the supplies at the Red Cross Shelter at our high school. We kept some water for ourselves as we are still at risk of loosing water and it is scarce in our local stores.

Volunteer efforts at both the Red Cross Shelter/distrobution and the animal shelter are outstanding! Let's pray this effort continues.

Pet's helpers during dissasters

Did you know that the Homeland Security has a division for emergency pet shelter supplies? This came as a surprise to me. I wonder if Katrina led to this? This trailer was outside of Kirkwood.









Petsmart donated a truckload of supplies and they had a team of volunteers. I am impressed and will shop there more now.

Pets that are flood victims

Sweet Daughter and I went back to Kirkwood to volunteer today with the pets that are flood victims.

The dogs are boarded in the horse stalls, for now, I don't know what will happen later when Kirkwood needs to start using the barns again.

From what I can tell after volunteering for 8 hours, it is all volunteer and students from Kirkwood Vet tech that are doing most of the work once the pets get to the horse barn.

Some of the pets were pulled out of water filled homes. They are being very well cared for at Kirkwood, well fed (Science diet), well ventilated and big stalls.

Some of the dogs are very sweet.

This boy is the father of 6 puppies which came in with the mama and the papa. Very sweet puppies.

Many cats and birds are there too.

This boy was pulled out of a second story house, he was on the news.

He is a sweetie but very powerful, dear husband took him for a walk and he pulled hard and dear husband is very strong.

Daughter worked her buns off, I wish she would work that hard at home. I am proud of her.


It is shocking how many pets some people have in one house, 26 cats for one person, 17 dogs for another. many that have not been spayed.

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Somthing I never thought I would see in my neighborhood

A somber reminder that many are living in emergency shelters, this sign is on the corner of my subdivision, the shelter is at our high school

Kodi and the boy

Here is a sweet picture of Kodi and the boy. Yes, they are both spoiled and sweet.

Very Hungry .....

I worked on this quilt top this afternoon while taking a break from all the flood news.

Emily, don't let Eva see this.

Question to my quilting friends - any suggestions on how to quilt this adorable quilt?

I hate it when that happens

Have you ever been 1/2 way through a knitting project and figured out you didn't have enough yarn? I hate it when that happens! I am working on the Lucy Bag and figured out I needed more yarn, ordered it just a few days ago and even with the floods, knitpicks got it to me today!

Cedar Rapids flooding

Our city has been hit with a 500 year flood. These are pictures from our newspaper and our news station.

Although I watched the news at home all day on Thursday (I was home from work), I was not prepared for my commute Friday morning. The devastation of a city I have been taking for granted was wiped out by this flood. I did not grow up here but I have been in this area of Iowa for 16 years and it has become more a part of my heart than I realized until I saw this flood.


This is what I saw on my drive to work this morning from I-380 which is the only way to get through Cedar Rapids.








Many houses, businesses and churches under water.






It literally brought me to tears.

My dear husband and son helped with sand bags, fortunately the volunteer effort is great. This afternoon we went to the temporary animal shelter at the community college and helped with pet flood victims and animal shelter refuges. The animal shelter is flooded.

We are fine at our house, only impacted by a bad commute due to only 1 bridge over the Cedar River and bad traffic made worse by onlookers and a limited supply of water.

Sunday..... more of the same.... rain

Sunday started warm. We optimistically thought the rain might stay North of us.












Sweet daughter enjoyed having a friend visit all weekend. She finished finals on Thursday and is ready to start a great summer vacation!















The team got in 1 1/2 games before the weather turned nasty, again.

















The girls retreated to the van to keep busy watching DVD's.
















The storm clouds were twirling and lowering and the parents and ball players hung in there,

for as long as they could and finally the tournament was cancelled, too much rain!

Saturday's stormy weather

Saturdays baseball game was just about to begin when the tornado siren blasted. The restrooms were the tornado shelters. The clouds were rotating and it was nasty. It poured for about 10 minutes and the field was too wet to play. The only part of the trip to Muscatine that kept it from being a total waste of time was a quick shopping trip downtown to The Cotton Shop http://www.cottonshoponline.com/ and to Crazy Girl Yarn shop http://www.crazygirlyarnshop.com/.

We had relatives visit on Saturday to watch baseball. I made hamburgers, baked beans and coleslaw http://rincessquiltandknitalotrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/06/carlsbad-kristas-coleslaw.html

This recipe is different and delicious as it mixes coleslaw with apples. It come from California.

2nd place

The team got 2nd place this weekend. Last weekend was 3rd place, this weekend 2nd so I think next weekend championship!

3rd base action

Here is some 3rd base action. Caleb played center and 3rd base on Sunday, he pitched, played 3rd and cneter on Saturday.

Mother's Day baseball pictures

I found these pictures on dear husband's camera just now, they are from a few weeks back when the boys were in DSM for a baseball tournament. My dear Dad watched one of the games, he will be 88 years old this summer and a huge fan of baseball and his grandson. My sister from MO was in DSM visiting and she and my brother-in-law came to the game too! The weather was

cool and wet.

Garden early June

This cute chair I bought in a little antique store on the way down to Lake of The Ozarks to see my sister Judy a couple years ago.

We've had a lot of rain and not a lot of really warm weather, my garden seems to be behind schedule. However, a few blooms here and there still make it worth the work! The columbine I grew from seeds we bought in Colorado on vacation 2 years ago. I have not put as many flowers in pots as I usually do, I am spending money filling up my gas tank instead of my pots this year.