Let the Summer begin!!

Nathan had his first full day of 'regular' work yesterday! He worked 13 hours, from 7am to 8pm, so he left around 6:30am and got home at about 8:30pm. He said that once the project gets underway that they will be working from sun-up to sun-down. That makes a long day, for him and I! But we knew that going into this and that is the reason why we are here...get us that much closer to building our house! Speaking of that, we are getting bids from sub-contractors to get an idea of the cost of building, so if you know of anyone who is skilled in a certain area and wants a chance at a bid, let me know and I will email them our blue prints! Here are a few pictures taken this week.....

This is where Biggie rides when he gets tired of walking (he REALLY likes it under there!) and this time, he fell asleep....

The playground that is a block away...there's more to it but I couldn't get it all in one picture :)

This is by where Nathan is working, just to give you an idea of how wet it still is. When everything is so saturated...there's no where for the water to receed to! They are just doing stuff that they can do without going into the ditches (hauling poles, etc)

The new waterpark in town that is 1 block from our place. They are open every day of the week and have music blaring, so we can hear it from where we are at. There's kids ALL the time riding bike around here in their swimsuits and we know exactly where they are headed :)

This thing is cool....its this bucket that fills with water and then tips over and obviously splashes alot. The little cones things behind it whip around with water in there to, getting whoever wet that is nearby.

We don't see too many kids on this slide, actually I've only seen one girl go down it for all the times that we've walked passed it already. The water coming out of it is super fast and it's almost straight down, so I think it's too much for the younger kids and pushes them too far underwater when they go down it....but it sure looks like fun to me!

This pic was taken the first couple days we were here, that is why it is so wet...but here is an overall pic of the park, although it looks much more impressive in person...you'll just have to come and visit!!!

Lots of people in there...it was 82 degrees and sunny!

Happy Father's Day!

Well, here they are....my 4 favorite guys on this planet!! They all matched with their white shirts and army green shorts, it was SO cute! And to my surprise, I was able to snap a wonderful picture of all of them!! Aren't they HANDSOME?!?! :)

We spent Father's Day in the following way:

In the morning we made a trip out to the farm to get milk! This is the closest we have been to a farm to get milk so far! It is about 10 miles away. They have a great set-up, milking about 150 cows. They have mostly holsteins and jersey with some other breads that I can't remember :) One thing interesting that I learned was that since they have been certified organic (since 2005) they haven't had to have the vet out at all!! Their cows stay really healthy and if one happens to get sick, they give it garlic and other natural stuff!! Maybe more people should learn something from the cows...think about it....they EAT ORGANIC hay and food (not sprayed with pesticides and junk) and they DON'T take any antibotics, and THEY ARE NOT SICK!!! Hmmm...go figure! Only if HUMANS could learn more from the cows...!

After the farm, we got a surprise visit from Nathan's parents! (They called before they came but it was when they were already on their way!) They got to our house around 2 and left about 7:30. It was a nice afternoon, we played cards and had supper and then went for a walk and made a quick stop at the park before coming home.

Hope all you father's out there had a great, relaxing day!

Anyone have a solution??

Okay, I seem to have a little bit of a problem.....We made a clothes line from our deck and the first time I hung clothes out there, it was so windy and the clothespins were so cheap that the weight of the clothes pulled the pins apart and they broke or fell off, leaving my clothes either just hanging on by one pin or they fell down. So we came to the conclusion that we needed to get those 'old fashion' clothespins that just have the slit down the center so the wind couldn't twist them apart. Well....I was at a garage sale a couple days ago that had a whole basket of these 'old fashioned clothespins for sale!! So I scooped them up and proudly brought them home showing Nathan my sweet buy! Since today was an extremely nice, hot and sunny day, I thought it would be a great time to do a load of laundry and hang them out to dry. Well, the good news is the pins worked great for keeping the clothes on the line and we had no problem with them breaking!! The bad news is that the pins left big brown spots on our clothes!! So I'm asking if anyone knows why they would be doing that?? Is it because they are too old and the wood is starting to wear off of them, or is it because maybe they haven't been used in a while so they are dusty and need to be run through some water before I use them again, or what?!?! Thankfully it was a dark load but there were a few lighter-blue stuff that have some nasty marks on them. I would appreciate ANY ADVICE anyone would have on this matter....thanks!!

Can we be normal, please??

We are enjoying being back at our own place and getting a little bit of 'normalcy' (if there is such a thing with us!!) Nathan called his supervisor today to see where he is supposed to show up for work on Monday and the supervisor said that they aren't working until at least Wednesday!! That's 2 more days that we can enjoy having Daddy home!! It is just still so wet around here that their work can't be started yet. We heard tonight that Mason City might have to shut their water off again too! It's crazy.... This job was supposed to start on June 2nd and now it is maybe going to be starting on the 18th, so they will have to work lots right away to get caught up.

We rented a movie last night and I just have to say that I miss Luverne's movie prices... :( It was a whoppin' $3.50 to rent a movie!! We are not used to that. Luverne was the good 'ol $.50, but what do ya do I guess??

I am starting to like Garner more than I did a couple weeks ago. It is starting to feel more like "home" (although it won't come close to Luverne!!) and our apt is suiting us just fine! We just giggle a little when we have to kick the fridge shut to close it and when our oven door falls off, but we know that we are making these sacrifices now so we can have a better future!! (and stay as a family in the process) Those things do really make us laugh though....oh, and 2 of our burners don't work (AND they are the front two!!) so that's not too fun....And I'm sure that it would be a sight to see when we are trying to walk/jump/skip over to the places in the floor that don't creek (super loudly!) when our kids are sleeping so we don't wake them up...but all in all this place is just peachy :)

For those of you who like to camp and maybe would like to visit us as well....we hear there is a great campground in Clear Lake (next town over) and it's right on the water so that would be something worth checking out!! Also, Clear Lake is a very touristy town in the summer with tons of cute shops and a nice big central park and stuff like that.

OH, and one more thing....WE'VE GOT MILK!!! :) We were able to get a hold of an ORGANIC dairy farmer in Garner (praise the Lord!!...and thank you Google) who has agreed to let us get milk from them!! We haven't been out there yet but plan to go tomorrow. I will make sure to let you know how it goes. We feel very blessed that there is a source for us to get milk and that it is close by! We need to find eggs yet, but I hope the farmer's wife would have an idea for that since the farmer had no clue. Also, there aren't any organic products of anything at our local grocery store so we have to get all that from Mason City when we go there.

Grab your hammer, I think we need to build an ark!!

We went for a walk around the town the day after all the flooding and every driveway pretty much had the same thing at the end of it....LOTS of soaked carpet, padding, rugs, furniture, etc. It was amazing at just how many houses basements were flooded!! House after house after house had piles of garbage sitting out! There were LOTS of sump pump hoses draining down driveways and onto the street, most with water gushing out of them! We couldn't do anything buy feel bad for the people.....(Oh yeah, and we saw dead CARP in the parking lot of the grocery store! They were huge!...like mini whales! It was from the river over-flowing and them swimming around the flooded area and then getting stuck when the water started to receed...interesting..)

We heard that Mason City (about 15 miles East of us) got about 10 inches of rain from that last big rain fall to give a total of 20 inches in the past couple weeks! Mason city's water was shut off due to flooding, which meant all the restaurants and stores were closed b/c of the unsanitary conditions without being able to wash your hands, etc...so no toilets could flush, no showers, no water was running..period. It was pretty bad! Plus to top it all off...we got ANOTHER 3 inches of rain last night!!

One kinda good thing that came from all this water was that when Nathan went to work on Monday, they told the crew that the whole operation is going to be shut down for the week b/c everything is flooded and there'd be NO way of getting into the fields (which are pretty much lakes as of now!) So Nathan has the whole week off!!! And to make things even better, he got PAID for the whole week too!! He has NEVER received paid time off, so it's been a treat to have him home and still be getting paid!!

Since we have this whole week with not too much to do, we decided to make a quick trip to St. Cloud on Tuesday, and we were at my parents house by 3pm. We wanted to get in a quick pontoon ride before the rain came! (My dad just bought a pontoon a couple weeks ago so we needed to test it out!) The boys LOVED it!!....even "I'm scared of the water" Caedmon was walking all over the place and throwing leaves into the water! We were very impressed! My mom's cousin Sylvia from Washington state came to visit so she was at my parents house too. It was fun to see her since it's been a good 8 years since we've seen her!

We didn't do too much else in St. Cloud (besides looking at the finished road out on the development and visiting the chiropractor) and we left by the morning on Wednesday. On our way home, we thought it would be fun to stop by our good friends house, Wade and Michelle, who live in Hanover (by St. Michael/Albertville) for a couple hours since it has been a YEAR since we've seen Michelle and the kids! Wade has stayed with us in Luverne while working in Sioux Falls, but it was nice to see him again too! Once we started gabbing and enjoying each other's company, we were convinced by Wade to stay the night! We had a wonderful waffle breakfast this morning and we left shortly after that! It was a great time!

Sylvia and Brayan (doesn't she look like my mom?!?)

Giddy up cowboy!

Lovin' the pontoon....except it was COLD!!

One of the endless piles of carpet.....

People's stuff being aired out

More 'reckage'

The loading dock at the grovery store!!!

More...


and more....

When it rains, it pours!!

Well, we just got back from driving around town and taking some pictures of the crazy amount of rain we got! Garner got about 10 inches of rain last week and right when it started to dry up, it rained and rained yesterday, last night and today. It's actually still raining out now but not as hard as before. It poured, and I mean down-poured all afternoon....straight down, no wind...just a heavy heavy rain for hours! The pictures pretty much speak for themselves.....(reminder: where ever you see water, it is NOT supposed to be there!)...no these are not picture of lakes that are normally there :)

This is our welcome sign in front of the golf course....(notice the light is underwater)

Someone's backyard....

Water gushing from someone's yard OVER the curb and into the road

Feed mill place.....

Used to be a planted field.....

Used to be grass.....

Parking lot of Alco's

This is why our grocery store is closed today....and probably will be for a while....

Some other business.....

Wanna buy that truck?

From our deck looking into our neighbors yard....

The road going to the grocery store....

The golf course...what a mess!!!

More golf course.....

One more golf course picture....

Hello Garner!

Much to my surprise, Nathan and his crew finished their work last night and they were able to come home today! That meant that I also finished the last things left to do in Luverne, turned in my keys, and left there around 11:30am. We were back in Garner 3 hours later and Nathan followed us in the house 10 minutes later! It couldn't have been better timing! The boys were SOOO excited to see their daddy and I was SOOO excited to have my husband back!! We had a nice supper here and all the kids are in bed. I just thought I would post an update quick and let you all know that we are all here in Garner getting used to our "new" place. Nathan has the weekend off (which will probably be the only weekend this whole summer) so we are going to enjoy eachother and being a family before he starts work on Monday. I'll post more later but for now I'm going to go hang out with my husband :)