Christmas List

Well after talking to a Saltwater Aquarium specialist tonight... my wish list for Christmas consists of money for setting up a new tank the right way. I know it's not going to be right away, but I'd prefer to do it right this time.

I found a guy by the name of Dave Atkins that used to be here in Quincy, but moved to Springfield maintain the saltwater aquarium set up at the new Scheels.

http://www.sj-r.com/photo_galleries/x898076150/Scheels-salt-water-aquarium

That is a link to some photos and info about the tank he maintains. Pretty cool! This guy knows his stuff!

Easy shopping for me this year! lol

Christmas Names 2011

Hi All,

I've been meaning to post this along time ago, but you know how things go. Anyway, below are the names that were drawn for Christmas this year. I've heard rumors that it will be held in Quincy on New Year's Eve. So, if you have packages to mail please have them in Quincy in time. So, without further Ado, here are the names:

Name of Family - People they drew
Midget (Don) - Callie & Carolyn
Strackeljahn (Dale) - David M & Brady
Strackeljahn (Laurie) - Sara
Strackeljahn (Bryan) - Chris L & Eric H
Smailys (Tony) - Laurie & Val
Smailys (Eric) - Skyler & Nikki
Smailys (Julie) - Jen
Midget (David) - Sherry, Monica & Leslie
Edwards - Mackenzi
Humke - Erice S & Grandma
Ladeau - Julie, Chris S & Cruz
Helds - Bryan, Jon S, Hannah & James
Schonarth - Dale & Don
Altgilbers - Susan, Rocky, Tony & Jess

In other news, we are very excited at the zoo as our new 1 1/2 year Harbor Seals have arrived in Des Moines from a Vancover rescue facility. Their names are Ross (boy) and Meru (girl). Meru is the one floating on the white board and Ross is peaking over the side. We also opened our new and MUCH improved Sea Lion/Harbor Seal exhibit a couple of weeks ago. Strangely enough, the opening happened the day after our new seals had arrived. Let's see what else...Sassy & I are very much enjoying the new doors that Dad, with an assist from Eric, installed over the weekend. They look beautiful! We had some left over white paint and primer so I'm going to attempt to scrape the tirm on the windows that haven't been replaced yet. We'll see if I can manage to get that done before our first snow fall. Not a whole lot else going on right now. Talk to you all soon! Love you!

AAAAEEEEEIIIIIIIAAAAAAA!!!!!

Happy Halloween from The Asylum in Indianola! We took the opportunity to volunteer at the local haunted house on Saturday night. LA Dodger & hometown boy Casey Blake & his wife donated $1M to create the Indianola Youth Foundation and challenged the community to Match the Million. We are at about $920K- so almost there. The foundation will help improve the facilities & activities for Indianola youth. Great cause, great fun. Eric & Brady were in the fog room where they came out of the mist. Kenzie was in a toy room... caged. No surprise she quickly developed a whole spiel that included pitiful wailing cries for help. I was one of the zombie brides hidden in a dark corner and discovered I have a scream that Eric & Brady think could be sold. Guess I've never had cause to use it until now. Surprised at the number of people coming through that were about 50-60 years old. Sometimes it was hard to be scarey when you were about to burst out laughing. Two teen-age girls very seriously said, "Don't scare us, just tell out how to get out of here."

Happy haunting!

6th grade Pro Bowl

It was a gorgeous day to finish out Brady's 3 year Indianola Youth Football League career. In this league players are drafted as 4th graders and remain on the same 4-5-6th grade team all three years. It seems like yesterday when I picked him up from his first practice as a 4th grader. It was drizzley and cool. I pulled up to see them finishing out practice with up-downs in the mud and thought. "Oh, this is not going to be good." He came to the car, got teary and said, "THAT WAS THE WORST PRACTICE I'VE EVER BEEN TO." I reminded him of it this year when he was excited for the first mud-filled practice- to be nice to those 4th graders who might not yet have an appreciation for it.

You can see Brady running the ball, #10 in the yellow pants, blue jersey. He played QB and today got to do a lot of awesome passing. Although they lost 14-7, he had fun- for the first time having all of his buddies on the field together. There were lots of hand-ups, pats on the backs and giggling. I don't think they cared who won in the end. I sat by a bunch of mom friends and laughed as my friend Becky yelled to Matt- "GET HIM!" and I pointed out that it was Brady that she had instructed Matt to pummel.

Basketball practice starts this week and he is ready to move on to his favorite sport. Kenzie is working hard in tumbling with her first meets on November 5 & 20. She's thrilled to move up to sub-advanced in double-mini with a much more tricky pass.

The entire Held family has volunteered at the local haunted house next Friday as scarers. We'll let you know that goes. Pass the ear plugs. Kenzie found her Halloween costume. She is a "devil-fairy." I know you are not surprised and yes, this was pre-packaged and not of her own design. Although she declared it "perfect." Brady is yet undecided but he is thinking about being a banana.

Love to all,
Leslie

Kenzie Made the Paper

Here's a link to the article written about Indianola Tumbling's time at the Jr Olympics. 20th in the Nation for Kenz, way to go girl!

http://indianolarecordherald.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110818/INDIANOLA03/308180008/Local-kids-tumble-their-way-Junior-Olympics

Trial and Error...???

Saturday morning Bryan decided to begin working on his glaze receipes for donut holes. This weekend we did a trial with Amaretto flavoring and Choc. cappaccino flavoring. The title of this is trial and error for a reason... hehe

Trial - Amaretto glaze... Error - the glaze was made w/ alcoholic amaretto, it will be very good w/ a flavor syrup instead.

Trial - Silk Chocolate flavored coffee made with cappaccino machine... Error - don't pour hot coffee on the powdered sugar...

The amaretto is going to be good.. the coffee was good, but we need someone that really enjoys coffee flavor to give us a review. My coffee choice is a Mocha with a shot of carmel... so really it's so sweet and tasty and full of sugar and milk that I don't taste the coffee. LoL

If you have any ideas of flavors to use... let us know!!!

The summer we all "graduated"

It has been an absolute whirlwind since Dave and I retired and Hannah graduated. We took our first trip--to Quincy to celebrate the 4th of July, Dale's recovery from breaking his ankle, and the 118 degree heat index--and our second to visit our friends in Durango.

We stopped in Mesa Verde National Monument on the way to Durango and had a wonderful adventure. We had dinner in a fantastic restaurant that no one would expect to find out there in the middle of nowhere, and got up early to tour Spruce Tree House on our own and take off on an amazing hike to Petroglyph Point. It was a shady hike along the side of a canyon at that time of the morning. It would have been brutal later in the day. There was not a lot of elevation gain, but a lot of scrambling over and between boulders, up rough-hewn rock stairs. At one point there was an arrow pointing to what had to be a foothold. The obvious message--put your foot here, grab as much of this boulder as you can, and hoist yourself up. Dave never even batted an eye. Up he went. That new knee is priceless, just in case anyone is wondering.

We ended the day on a tour of Cliff House, the largest of the dwellings, with a Native American guide named Clyde who taught us about the symbolism of the Kivas. We are all much more closely related than we ever imagined. It was a beautiful experience.

On to Durango and then Bill and Diana's place at Vallecito Lake. Next post and photos to come.