2 Weeks Behind! Again!

School is in full swing now, and I'm busy all the time! Here's a two week update, in reverse order:

I wore all black to school yesterday, mourning the Iowa State loss. The kids cracked up about it!

It's okay to eat french fries with eggs, right?

Lostttt.....

With my Hawkeyes...

All was well until halftime when I took pictures with a bunch of Hawkeyes! It was fun running into Bailey though! Also saw Scott & Benjamin after the game briefly.

The view wasn't bad!

I might be obsessed with wearing face stickers like a 13 year old girl.

Friendly rivals!

Ran into Jill! It had been a long time!

At least I had a fellow Cyclone with us...even with his creepy mustache.

And this lady let us crash her tailgate! It's good having Cyclone friends at work!

Kaci & I had a "dress-off" every day last week. Cardinal/gold for me, black/gold for her.

The fourth grade teachers pranked all of us Cyclone fans...black and yellow streamers, plus all those signs. I quickly covered them up with Cyclone duct tape and red streamers to replace the black.

Frozen yogurt & peanut butter is my fav snack currently.

Went to a Kernels game on Labor Day! Great end to the summer.

Pacino promptly tipped this over right after this picture was taken.

Maxine always needs a belly rub!

Ben & I enjoyed the ISU/UNI game. I enjoyed it a bit more than him since the Cyclones won.

Planted all these succulents...hopefully they survive.

And some fun pictures from work last Friday. Having friendly rivalries makes it enjoyable!

Painting

I've had this huge canvas for about a year, and finally got around to painting it. I wanted it to match my new bedroom colors. 

Start at the end...here's how it turned out.

What it looks like on the wall.

Circles!

I spray painted the background because it would've taken forever to paint it with a brush. I did this a few weeks ago and finally painted on top! I'm pretty please with how it turned out, but it does need a little touch-up.

Cats, Birthdays, Dogs, Books...

After using the same tennis racquet for the last 15 years, I got a new one! It was free as a reward with my bank points. Pacino seems to like it.

Thursday night we went to the Iowa Chophouse in Iowa City. They give you a special bracelet and it lets you pour your own beer from the wall tap! The food was amazing too!

Pacino was apparently bored while I've been gone at school...yesterday he got into the fake flowers again and dragged one of them to the bathroom. 

We opted not to play in the volleyball tournament last night because of the rain...

After hours librarian!

Playing Cinderella Uno.

Maxineeee.

Busyyyy!

School started up with teacher meetings this past week, so I've been very busy! Here's some pictures:

Biking and ice cream tonight! 

Sometimes he's just precious.

My new, large art project.

New glasses! 

I accidentally bought all of this at Michael's, when I really just needed the 'E'.

Float trip last Sunday! About 15 of us floated down the Wapsi, but we forgot a group picture.

This salad was amazing. And the friend mac & cheese was, too, of course.

Carly & I after garage sales and antique store shopping.

Painted this Scaredy Squirrel. 

We accidentally matched...Cyclone fans gotta stick together!

I cancelled my cable, and now stream tv through this little Roku box. I love technology.

I'm in love with my new license plates!

Celebrated this guy's 30th birthday party! Princess crown included.

And I did manage to play, but not win, a few games of BINGO at the sweet corn festival. 

Summer Winding Down

Finally got all the handles and knobs to finish my dresser. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

I also love how my little junk store find turned out. Pacino is in love with the fake flowers and has already tipped them over twice. 

These are from the alpine slide near Galena, IL. We were celebrating Sheryl's last day of summer before she went back to school! It was really fun. Hopefully we'll go back in the Fall when the leaves are pretty.

And of course, we ate at Gobbie's while we were there. Their food is amazing!

And we enjoyed a Kernels game to round out the day. It was a great game--we won in the bottom of the 9th!

My strange tomato plant has actually started yielding some tomatoes. Not many, but they are good!

On Tuesday, we went and did some paddle boarding. Plus got a Scratch cupcake! 

We had book club on Wednesday, so I spent some time on Monday reading outside at Coffeesmith's. 

One more real week of summer until I've got to be back to school!

Super Fun Days!

We went to Iowa City and did some stand up paddle boarding (SUP is what the cool people call it, which I'm not really). It was the most fun! I think we're going again this next week!

A before picture, just in case we fell off and sank.

Friday night, I won $13 for 13th place at the Volleys madhatter volleyball tournament. At a madhatter, you get randomly placed on teams, then get an individual score. There were over 200 people there!

This was at the casino in Dubuque. I'm pretty sure its a machine from the 90s that they pulled out since the Titanic exhibit is there. It stole my money, but luckily I won it back at the Roulette table.

This was the best food I've had in a long while: beer battered fried pickles, parmesan fries, and a burger with peanut butter & jelly plus bacon and pepper jack cheese. It was amazing.

King of the world! Or Queen of the Mississippi?

Me & Megan!

A new cat mug. Now I have 3.

We were pretty excited to go into the Titanic exhibit. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures in there.