Getting Back to 'Normal'

It's been over six weeks since Laura and I have felt like we were living at a normal pace. Let me back up (and post a few pictures) and revisit the activities of our busy summer.

First things first, we finished shingling the old house at the end of July. That took a good amount of our late spring and early summer to complete - mostly on weekends and occasionally a Friday evening as well. We had to replace some of the boards that were damaged by hail and we even rebuilt a small segment of roof connecting the stairs and entryway. We believe we built it better than it was originally designed (now knowing the flaws) and so far we have been right.

A few days later we moved into the old house and basically just dumped our stuff in the house. The last few days were a little crazy - Laura had to work and Emryk and I were moving boxes in the evenings (ok, so I was moving boxes and trying to keep track of Emryk). We moved out of our apartment and literally went straight to Cheyenne to spend a long weekend with Laura's parents. We spent a few days at a Game and Fish cabin in the Laramie Mountains about 20 miles south of Laramie Peak and evens spent a day hiking to the top of Laramie Peak. If you have driven the stretch of Interstate 25 from Cheyenne to Casper then you have seen Laramie Peak - it's the large mountain near Wheatland and it rises 10,274 feet above sea level.Returning to Kearney we faced a very dirty, very messy house. Laura did an awesome job cleaning the kitchen and getting it ready for us to use right away. Between work and all the beautiful evenings we spent outside or trying to get in a little exercise (running or ultimate frisbee) we didn't get much cleaned during the week. We basically worked in small segments and got one little thing done each day. We are still actually trying to get the house organized, but at least we have the living room and Emryk's room cleaned and usable now - along with one bathroom and slowly working on the second.

August 8th & 9th I played in an ultimate frisbee tournament in Council Bluffs. A buddy from high school and college that I used to run with had some connections to get my brother, Rylan, and I on an Omaha team and get some quality playing time. We had a lot of fun, but the first day of the tournament the temperature was over 100 and there was a 25+mph south wind that really took a toll on us. I alone lost 13 pounds on Saturday - no joke. I wouldn't have believed it, but I went from 192 to 179 - that might have explained why we were feeling so bad on Saturday evening. We drank a lot of water during the day, but the heat and all that running really put it to us... We were pretty tired, but we refueled for Sunday and finished 3 and 3 for the tournament.

Skip ahead a few weekends and we suddenly found ourselves at the end of August. Since Memorial Day weekend we had been wanting to go to Davenport, Iowa and see a GPS exhibit but we simply didn't have the time. The drive alone was 500 miles and we didn't think Emryk was ready for something like that... After our trip to Cheyenne a few weeks prior we discovered Emryk was quite the passenger and didn't mind riding in the car as long as we were able to get out of the car every hour or two and do some exploring and walking - no problem, we always have a geocache we can grab! With just a few weeks remaining before the exhibit closed (Labor Day weekend) we decided at the last minute to go. Saturday afternoon we arrived at the Putnam Museum in Davenport and spent the afternoon going through the GPS adventure maze and learning about GPS technology. The museum also had natural history exhibits and local history of the area along the Mississippi River - very neat and different than the history we see in Nebraska and into Wyoming. On our way back from Davenport we stopped at a little town outside of Iowa City called West Branch. Little to our knowledge, we discovered it was Herbert Hoover's boyhood home and his Presidential Library is located there. We spent the hour before sundown walking the grounds and learning about the area. We made a mental note to return someday and see the area during business hours - that's right up my alley.

That ended August and took us right into September and Labor Day. Once again we found ourselves traveling and on the move, but we always have a good time on Labor Day because we canoe in the Nebraska Sandhills around Mullen. This year we canoed on the Dismal River, a challenging river by canoe standards (perhaps one of the most difficult in Nebraska) and we had eight canoes in the river. We canoed the river and then spent the night in Mullen with my grandparents. On Labor Day we loaded up the mower and went north of town to mow at the cemetery where my great grandparents are buried. It's a little secluded cemetery nestled in the Sandhills, up in the hills, away from the highway, a nice quite place...

Finally, the weekend after Labor Day was the 6th Annual geocaching picnic at Fort Kearny and the Bootlegger Night Adventure Race in Kearney. We went to Fort Kearny for lunch and to picnic with over 100 other geocachers. We spent early afternoon chatting and seeing new faces and a few friends. We were recognized for reaching 2000 geocache finds and received a milestone geocoin to mark our 2000 finds. We accomplished that goal back in March when we visited my sister in Twin Falls, Idaho. We always have a lot of fun and geocaching events, and this was another good time.

We had to leave the picnic early, so we could get ready for our adventure race that evening. We didn't know much about adventure racing, but from everything we heard, it was something we would enjoy and we always like a little competition, so Laura got a few friends from college that ran cross country and I had a team of guys and we spent Saturday night racing 34 other teams around Kearney. Let me tell you, it was a blast! We had about 12 miles of bike riding and about 5 miles of running, but in between we had challenges that we had to accomplish before moving on. Running around in the dark with a flashlight is a lot of fun, especially when you are racing other people and trying to read a map while riding your bike!! Our team, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, finished in 3:26.17 - we took some bonus pictures along the way we were able to subtract 6 minutes (2 minutes per bonus photo - maximum of 3) from our time to give us a grand total of 3:21.17. We finished 3rd in the mens short course and ten minutes later, the first womens team to finish was Laura's team. They won the womens short course and really impressed us - especially after we found them about a quarter mile off course at one time and going in the wrong direction! They really made up a lot of time in the running portions.

That basically brings us to the present and we still have a lot of cleaning to do at the house. We also need to cut firewood for the winter. We have a small amount of wood ready to get us started for the cold weather, but it would be wise to find some downed trees and start cutting! Hunting season is under way and that means football season is here too - when will I find time to get anything else done!? Maybe instead of writing up such a long blog I should be getting something done.......

Until again

-=Nolan=-