World's of Fun by day. KC Royals game by night.

Scott spent last week in Kansas City for work. The kids and I drove there after school on Friday to hang out with him over the weekend. On Sat. we got up and went to World's of Fun. I was having a pregnant day so didn't ride on many rides. The weather was nice and the kids went on a majority of the rides that were their size. Reagan likes the thrill rides....Brett prefers to go on things that he can "drive".

After the theme park we headed to the KC Royals baseball game. George Brett is Scott's favorite baseball player and Brett's namesake. They ended up losing, but the experience was worth it. Both kids said, "WOW", when we walked into the stadium/field area. Good times.

We came back home to Iowa City on Sunday and then attended the ice cream social at Brett's preschool. He'll start school on Tuesday and is very excited to go to Ms. Ali's house two mornings a week. Reagan loves Kindergarten...as I predicted, and adores her teacher...a true blessing.

Take care.

Museum of Natural History

Since Rea didn't have school today we adventured to the Museum of Natural History that is on the University of Iowa campus. We learned about the Indians and creatures that used to live in Iowa. We also learned about native wildlife and their habitats here in Iowa. They have a mammal room that displays all sorts of stuffed life sized animals from moneys, to zebras to a moose and swan. The kids were a bit taken back but thought it was cool. There is also a fossil area which is were they saw skeletons of mammals, from rats to humans to a whale, which is in the photo. Reagan appears to be supporting some attitude, not much new there. They both said they liked it though and want to go back and had a lot of questions. Reagan is very interested in Indians. The first photo is of a sloth. They were a bit afraid to stand by the railing even....too funny. I guess sloths lived in western Iowa over 9,500 years ago...Rea says that's a long time ago, before even I was born..........hilarious.

Reagan's first day of Kindergarten

Here is a picture of Reagan on her first day of school. I managed to hold myself together, as did she. She was off of school today, but goes back tomorrow and Friday. She had a good day and is eager to learn the rules of Mrs. Smith's classroom...we'll see how we do abiding by them!! No, I'm sure she'll be fine. It was strange to not have her around on Tues. Brett was really missing his sister. He starts Preschool on Sept. 2. Here is a picture of her before we left the house, at her table at school and one of Brett after we dropped her off. Poor boy.

Def Leppard

A group of us went to the Def Leppard concert at the state fair on Sat. night. They put on a great show. I got a bit tired of standing, but enjoyed it. Pour Some Sugar on Me was the only song I knew all the words too, but I knew the chorus line to quite a few others. Scott and my sister were rockstars and sang most of the songs. The band Everclear was the opening band and they did a nice job too. The fireworks after the concert were beyond awesome. In the pic is my brother, Adam, Scott, me and my sister, Amanda.

Adventureland

My sister and I were going for Mom's of the year and took our kids to Adventureland on Friday. The weather was perfect and the kids were pretty well mannered, which helped a lot. The kid's enjoyed all the rides. Brett did freak on the frog hopper ride that goes up and down, a promise of ice cream made all of the pain from that vanish quickly, thank goodness. We did quite a few rides and did the water park too. The kids were thinking we were pretty cool by the end of the day!! However, when we got back to my sister's we were both beyond pooped and the kids were wired. We lost all cool points when we said it was time for bed. The fame was nice while it lasted.

Iowa State Fair 2008

One great thing about being back in Iowa is getting to go to the infamous Iowa State Fair. Scott and I were able to take the kids on Aug. 8th, which was a Sat., so VERY crowded, but a good time. We enjoyed seeing all sorts of farm animals. Brett was positive we were going to see elephants, luckily Scott spotted a statue of one in a park and showed it to him and that was good enough. Reagan of course turned to me and said, "see, Brett was right, there are elephants at the fair." Aren't kids wonderful...

Besides seeing animals we saw many exhibits and ate, and ate and ate. I love fair corn dogs and the lemonade so I had those....a couple of times. We snuck some cheese curds in too, oh and a root beer float. It was hot, but we all had fun.

Grandmas

We haven't been back to Story City for a couple of months so made sure to visit the great grandma's two weeks ago when we were there. We visited Grandma Vera (my Dad's mom) at the nursing home. We kept her busy while we were there. We brought Candy Land to play, Brett and she played some catch and Reagan read her a book she's been working on. We had a nice visit. Grandma Vera loves to hear Brett's latest "sayings" and antic's. Reagan enjoys riding in Grandma's lap for a wheelchair ride.

We also visited Grandma Mary (my Mom's mom). She had just the right candies in her candy dish, as always, and has a closet full of fun toys. The toys are from when we were little kids, which most aren't made any more so the kids think they are some new great thing....whatever works!!

Speaking of Grandma's we also celebrated Grandma Debbie's (My mom) Birthday at the Hickory Park Restaurant on that trip. Someone told the waiter it was her Birthday so all the waiters and waitresses sang to her. The grand kids got a kick out of that!!

Random Schimtzness

One of Brett's birthday gifts was a fishing pole. Scott has been taking him out each night and they practice casting. Reagan takes a turn too. She does pretty well for having not been fishing in awhile. I was impressed. They were pretty sure I probably didn't know how to fish so I had to prove them otherwise....stinkers.

Let's see, what's been happening here. Reagan is finally letting me work on reading with her some. She realized the neighbor girl can read some words and wondered how that happened....practice my dear child, practice. So we're practicing more and have created a word book of words we've mastered.....granted, it's a small list, but it's forward progress. While convincing her to sound out a word last night we sat there silent, she then pipes in with, "I've got nothin' ". Scott and I laughed for a good while on that one.

She seems to be classifying herself into stereotypical "groups" these days, such as girls can't do this and boys are faster and better at that. I felt the need to tell her that I used to be faster than the boys in school (elementary school that is). She was amazed. Hopefully, she soon realizes she can accomplish whatever it is she puts her mind too. I'm bracing myself for a year of changes for Reagan as she enters Kindergarten in two weeks.

Brett is Brett, 100% boy. He just had a well child check and is in the 50th percentile for his age, so no complaints there. The Dr. thinks his eyes shift so that on top of the tear duct issues we've had in the past we're off to see the Ophthalmologist. I'm pretty positive his eyes don't shift, but it's an illusion due to his having a wide nose bridge like mine. We'll see what he says when we go in Sept.

We've put away the potty chair as we've decided he's good enough at going that he can use the big one like the rest of us. .....if only he could pull up his own pants....we're working on it. Sorry to get graphic but this I have to share. This afternoon he yelled from the bathroom, "Mom, I can't see if by butt is poopy because my head's on backwards." I could only laugh. Hilarious.

I'm good, feeling pregnant and still pretty tired. The OB nurse called yesterday to say that my blood tests showed my thyroid isn't working fully so she perscriped some meds to control that and we'll re-check it in 6 weeks to see if the dosage has to be adjusted. I spoke with my general practitioner today and she summoned the test results from the OB and agreed with her diagnosis and plan of action. Usually those with hypothyroidism have to medicate for the rest of their life. I'm secretly hoping it's the pregnancy and things even back out after they arrived. It could be the answer to why I've felt like I've been hit by a freight train even since before getting pregnant. We'll see.

Scott is good, busy with work, as usual with this duty. We've got a few small trips in the works and he doesn't know it yet, but today I compiled a to do list for the house so we can get things moving before the babies arrive and before we have to sell in 2 years.

We got to see my brother's last baseball game the other day since the game was near our house. Here is a picture of Reagan, Brett, Jana and Tyler watching Adam run the bases. He's number 17, on third base. He had quite the cheering section. Tyler figured he was so close to them being on third that he should be able to turn and talk to them. Too funny. The ended up losing their two games, but Adam recieved a scholarship from the American Legion, which was exciting.

Kalona

The kids and I visited Kalona, IA the other day. It is an Amish community 17 miles south of Iowa City. We visited the cheese factory there, in the picture Brett is holding a bag of cheese curds we got while there. They enjoyed watching the cheese being made.

Next, we went to the historic village there and got a tour of how things used to be. The kids were amazed by the lack of a TV, running water, and the idea of outside bathrooms. The liked the one room school house. They got to sit at the desks and then ring the school bell. We saw lots of things like an old farm house, church, general store, train depot, and post office. We also saw a lot old tractors and and old fire truck which Brett thought was super neat.

After the museum we went to a bulk type general store with kerosene lighting operated by an Amish family. They don't use cars, but a horse and buggy, one was in the parking lot when we got to the store. The kids were in awe that that was their car!! I don't think they really believed me until we passed two families riding them on the road on our way home that day. We had a fun day and took a step back in time, which is OK sometimes. I bought the kids cookies for the ride home so they wouldn't complain every time I pulled over to take barn pictures, my new pet project!! I'm sure Scott's glad he missed that!!

Scott's fishing trip to Canada

Scott went to Canada with his Dad and brothers in June. Here are a couple of pics from his trip. One pic of the Schmitz men (from left, Jeff, Mark, Philip, Scott, his dad, Tom, in front), one with Scott and a Walleye and another of him with a Northern he caught. We're anxious for him to cook us some of his catches, it's surprisingly good and the kids enjoy it too.

He came back a scruffy bearded outdoors man....a sexy alternative to the clean cut Marine look I'm used to. The fantasy didn't last long....he couldn't stand it and shaved and cut his hair. Also, we were off to Hawaii the next week so he had to change modes!!