No Apology - The Case for American Greatness

I have never written a book report on my blog nor do I intend to, but after reading Mitt Romney's book No Apology I must encourage others to read this book.  I believe everyone should read this book.  Yes it is written from a Republican perspective but it is an American perspective that I think true Americans need to read.  Yes I have heard negative comments about the book but don't let that stop you from reading or stopping just because you don't agree with everything he says.  I am not saying I agree with or support all that he wrote but I believe it is well worth reading the entire book and then committing to your part to help our great country.

Oh How the Years Fly By

Our first had her birthday today. We won't discuss age at this point as they have been good years.  I returned home from the military in Okinawa a couple of weeks after she was born so this is one of my first pictures with Lisa.

 Eileen is holding Lisa on her blessing day.

Just one of those cute pictures

What great years they have been watching her grow and mature into a daughter we love and enjoy being close to.

Can't tell you what she was saying as there was too much noise and I was trying to get a picture at the last moment.

Continuing oh so Minnesota - in this case Austin

It started raining Wednesday afternoon by the buckets and continued all through the night.  We heard there was flooding north of us so thought we would be in trouble here too. So Thursday around noon we went to see if there was sand out for sandbagging but didn't see any.  The news that evening was about flooding all around us but not Austin.  Then Friday morning Amanda called and said the schools were closed because of flooding, she thought she could get to her school to do some work but she could not find any streets open to the other side of town.  We called our friends where we had gone by the day before and they said they had sandbagged late into the night and were just watching it for now and did not need any help.  The pictures were all taken of areas in town where you would not see water normally.  Flooding closed several businesses in town but very few were damaged.  In 1978 Austin had two 100 years floods two weeks apart and it seems like that has been happening every couple of years since.  The flood controls put in place the last several years have helped reduce the amount of flooding in some areas.  This week Austin received $5 million to build berms and flood walls so hopefully we have seen the last of the floods in Austin.

The white building is the back of a gas station surrounded by water.

A park that used to be housing but flooded too often.

Jordan's Backyard about six inches higher than their basement floor.

There is normally a small pond for ice skating in front of the building

Off in the distance is the band shell

The band shell normally no water to be seen as the river is across the road behind it and much lower.

Oh So Minnesota

We woke up the other morning to a 46 degree walk and then 67 for our evening walk which was really quite nice for walking,  Then the next morning we woke up to 57 degrees and our evening walk was 84 and very humid.  While warmer weather is nice especially this time of year it isn't going to last but Mother Nature is doing a great job making every day more beautiful.

School Board - No More Meat Clever

Monday night I went to the School Board as they were discussing filling the vacancy on the board again. This time the entire board agreed on the recommendation made by the Superintendent. It was good to see the entire board agree on Dave Ruzek. I know Dave and he will be an asset to the board. There was a side benefit to attending as a proposal was presented to make the Austin High School colors, nickname, crest, mascot and logo official. Basically there was little change from prior history but now it is officially in the records. The mascot changed slightly by removing the meat clever he carried and allowing modification for each sport such as the hockey one in the picture or putting a tennis racket in his or her hand for tennis. It was fun to see the many years of history at the high school now made official.

Jr Master Gardener 4H Dinner

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Two weeks ago we had the missionaries for dinner and our four grandchildren wanted us to come to a 4H dinner where they were showing off their talent growing vegetables under the 4H Jr Master Gardener program. We finished dinner just in time to go to the 4H dinner - not really ready to eat. They show cased salsa, soup, baked vegetables and zucchini cookies. Not being a salsa person I cannot comment on it but I tried the rest and they were quite good. The baked vegetables were very delicious. According to Lisa: "They weeded, learned about healthy eating, made several items including, jam, salsa, watermelon cooler, several salad dressings, and more things with the harvest they pulled out every week. They harvest one crop and planted another. They sold the surplus at the farmers market to raise money for a shed and met many new and different people there." They also had to make a presentation at the dinner about a part of the program and it was fun to see each of them present. Qatar was quite impressive and will be a good public speaker. Qatar was busy when I took the pictures so he is not included.

Count Chocula and More

Qatar and some of the cereal

Gunnar's 17 Birthday

A few weeks ago one of our chain grocery stores had a special with General Mills cereals.  When Eileen went to the store she was able to get 6 boxes of cereal we eat (not the ones in the picture) for just about zero dollars.  Then that evening my daughter called and asked what I was doing as she was at the same store and her son had found out that if you bought the two cereals in the picture they were giving money back and her car was possibly going to be full with no room to take her son home.  Well I was going to be in the area so I said call me if you need me and she did.  When I arrived I put 8 cases in my car and she finished filling hers and we went home.  My grandson is a senior and he wants to win the high school food drive this year, so he decided to go back again that evening and besides all the cereal in the picture and more - Gunnar, Qatar, Zeke, Cenny and JT came home with more than $500 in cash.  We were all worried that someone was going to get in trouble over it.  But then this week the manager of the store told Gunnar that they were going to run another special if he wanted more - no word yet though if they will be giving any cash back.

Fall Has Sprung

On our walks each morning we have been enjoying both the great reduction in temperature and the changing colors of the trees. Of course with the falling temperatures and the beautiful Fall colors comes another reality - Winter is on it's way, but after this hot humid summer, I am enjoying the cooler temperatures and the beauty nature gives us and ignoring the inevitable.

The pictures are not the best but when all you have with you is your phone what can you expect. The first picture was taken a few days ago when the sky was the most beautiful blue and the second today when there was no blue.

Family Picture

A major part of our Family Reunion in July was to take a family photo. Try to get a great photo of 33 people especially the youngest ones - luckily we had a great photographer and we got some really wonderful pictures. Of course we wanted one great picture so that requires taking the best of each picture and combining together into one. I have a fairly good program for doing that but my skills do not quite match the power of the program. After many tries we had this one printed in an 8" x 18" print which turned our really good so we are now sharing our 33 2/3 family photo.