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The Latest: Fall 2021

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A hot, dry summer this year gave way to a hot, dry autumn here in Iowa. I don’t remember many October days in years past with temps in the 90s. In fact, our sump pump unknowingly died somewhere amidst the summer drought. When the fall rains finally came, we got to enjoy some flooding in the basement. Ugh!

September is our favorite time at the lake. The summer crowds are gone and things are much quieter, yet the weather remains very enjoyable. After our friends left on Labor Day, we stayed to enjoy some time, just the two of us.

“Hevel. Everything is hevel,” says the teacher.

Other than that, the fall has been quite enjoyable for Wendy and me. Wendy continues to take good care of her 94-year-old grandmother checking in on her during the week, taking her to appointments, and helping her with her daily needs. I became a certified Enneagram coach, which has been fun. Business travel is beginning to happen again. I made a trip to Texas in October and made a stop at one of my favorite places on earth for some much-needed quiet time.

With our beloved Cubs tanking early, our attention turned to football. We enjoyed getting out to both high school and college games. Our friends, Kev and Beck invited us to enjoy the entire college game day experience complete with tailgating before the evening game. The Cyclones even won in spectacular fashion, which was nice.

One of the joys of living life with our dear friends is the opportunity to be part of their children’s lives. Wendy and I felt so honored when our young friend, Harry, told his parents that on his 21st birthday he would like to have his first legal adult bevies with his parents, Wendy and me. We started the celebration at two of our favorite local watering holes and ended the evening back at the Vander Well pub. Fun to be part of another one of the young man’s rites-of-passage.

I was blessed with some of the best college professors back in the day. For the last three years majoring in theatre at Judson College, my Theatre prof was David McFadzean, who was not only one of the best theatre people I’ve ever worked with but was also a personal mentor in so many ways. Dave got his break and has done well as a Hollywood writer and producer. I was pleasantly surprised to get a call letting me know he and his wife, Liz, were making a cross-country road trip and had plans to spend a night in Pella. They came over for dinner and we enjoyed such a lovely evening catching up, talking theatre, and swapping stories.

Meals with friends has been sort of a theme for us this fall. One of my oldest and dearest of friends (and Taylor and Madison’s godfather) has been back in Iowa to help care for an ailing parent. He and I have been able to meet regularly for lunch, and it’s been fun to hang out with him and his son.

The Vander Well pub has also been a regular gathering place for friends, which makes us so happy. Just a few weeks ago we enjoyed a fun night out with the adults. Dinner out with cocktails and nightcaps at the pub. And, Wendy got to sport her awesome new boots.

One of our favorite things over the past couple of years is charcuterie nights. Wendy is quite gifted at putting out an amazing spread. It was so much fun to host friends for an evening of trying lots of different things while we swapped stories. I especially loved the story of our friends who met and were married in three weeks. A few weeks before charcuterie night, we were honored to be in their home to celebrate their 50th anniversary and I was asked to lead in a prayer of blessing over them. So much fun!

In family news, we were blessed to add two nephews to the growing brood. Wendy’s sister Suzanna, and her husband Chino, brought Ian into the world. Wendy’s brother Lucas, and his wife Brooke, brought Owen into the world. We can’t wait to meet Ian when we visit Mazatlan in January, and we loved having Owen visit us with his sister Anya.

The Scotland crew have been enjoying their fall in the gorgeous Scottish countryside. Milo continues to love dinosaurs and Transformers. They had a great visit to the Natural History Museum. Milo is also enjoying Rugby Tots, which Ya-Ya and Papa think is the coolest thing ever.

The South Carolina crew is also doing splendidly. Madison and G were able to take an overdue honeymoon trip to the Dominican this fall. Our fur-grandchild, Bertha, had hip surgery and is recovering well. Hazel is growing fast, as well.

I’m writing this post from the lake. For many years we’ve enjoyed annual spring and fall weekends with our friends, Kev and Beck. Busy lives and Covid have kept us from doing so for the last couple of years so it’s nice to be enjoying a lake weekend together again. Last night we enjoyed a dinner invitation from friends Dave and Lola, who also have a place at the lake. Dave smoked some salmon and we spent hours at the table. I so loved Lola’s comment as we grudgingly accepted the fact that the evening needed to end: “We could sit here and talk non-stop for twenty-four hours.” Indeed. It was our kind of night.

Did I mention Wendy’s awesome new boots? Cheers!

Sunday Summary

The Latest 10-04-15

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Summer has turned to autumn. The mornings are crisp and cool. The late summer sun is strong, but tempered with the cool fall breeze. The trees are changing color and looking increasingly bare. Here in the Iowa heartland the combines are out and the landscape changes daily as fields full of tall corn are laid bare with the harvest.

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A few weeks ago we returned from our fall weekend at the lake with Kevin and Becky. While we were in Missouri there had been a big rain back here at home. And, I had been watering our fledgling lawn religiously. Early that week I was sitting in Vander Well Pub with Taylor talking about her day when I looked into the basement family room and noticed that a big pillow sitting on the floor was discolored. It was then that I discovered our sump pump had not been working and our storage room and family room were flooded. When our contractor came over to inspect the issue, he found that at some point the sump pump plug was not flush in the outlet. All he did was push it in and the sump started to work. It was not a good evening.

We had a lot of damaged photos, artwork and other belongings that were still boxed in the storage room from the move. Fortunately, our friend Brad responded to my text and brought over huge fans and a special machine for sucking up water out of the carpet/pad. I was up until the wee hours trying to dry things out. Ugh.

The Latest 10 04 2015 - 1The Latest 10 04 2015 - 4Wendy has been planning a new tat for a long time now, and had vowed to put it off until after the summer (You’re supposed to keep new tattoos out of the sunlight). She finally pulled the trigger and had a gorgeous phoenix inked onto her upper left arm. It’s a gorgeous tat. The phoenix, a symbol of rebirth and glory from ashes, has long held special significance for Wendy. I’m happy that she finally got it done.

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Last weekend was Pella’s Marching Band Festival. Des Moines Christian was marching, so Jody and my folks drove down for it. Wendy and I met them at the field to watch the band, then came back to the house for a quick bite. It was great to have them here and to see both Emma and Harry Roose marching.

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This past week Taylor received word that her Master’s dissertation had been accepted by Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. We uncorked a nice bottle of wine, made a special dinner of grilled salmon, and toasted her acheivement!

Yesterday we were in Ames. My dear friend, Megan, asked me to be honorary dad at ISU Dad’s Weekend. Her mom picked Wendy and me up early in the morning and we drove up to the campus. Megan has pledged to a sorority, so after picking her up at her dorm we went to the house for tailgating and games. We then walked to Jack Trice stadium and sat in the student section to watch the Cyclones beat Kansas. It was a cloudless day and one half of my face got nicely burned! It was great to see Megan and, as always, it was a privilege to be honorary dad.

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Wendy and I have spent the past couple of weeks finalizing our transition out of leadership with Union Street Players. There have been files to transfer, final reports to prepare, meetings with the new Board. Last night was the 2015 USP Award’s Night which was essentially our final major responsibility. Wendy planned the event and made several cheesecakes. I put together the year-in-review video and emcee’d the event. Suzanna came back from school to attend. Our friend Heather MacClennan came down from Des Moines with her trio to provide entertainment. Good time had by all (despite some maddening technical difficulties that just about fubar’d the entire evening for me).

Sunday Summary

The Latest 09-13-2015

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Wendy and I have spent less time at the lake this summer than ever since buying my folks’ place back in 2008. There are a number of reasons for the reduction in lake-time including our increased involvement in Tulip Time, our trip to Scotland to see Taylor, Taylor’s move back home, a new house that still requires a  number of projects to get settled and finished, my parents transitioning into a retirement community, three weddings in August, and Suzanna’s final summer home and launch to college. As summer wanes, we figured we’d better get in some time down south before it’s too late.

We headed to Missouri on Tuesday, Sep 1st. Wendy and I worked from the lake and did some much needed cleaning up before our friends Matthew and Sarah joined us for Labor Day weekend. Matthew and Sarah were celebrating their three week anniversary (one of the weddings in August) and since they didn’t take a honeymoon after the ceremony this provided them with a much needed getaway for the two of them.

As soon as Matthew and Sarah arrived we jumped in the boat and headed to Bear Bottom for an afternoon of sun and fun in the pool. It was a gorgeous weekend and Saturday was also spent in the sun, this time off the dock. We had a fabulous grilled steak dinner on Saturday evening followed by watching the movie A Little Chaos (highly recommend). Sunday morning was spent in some amazing conversation before our friends headed home.

Wendy and I stayed behind and enjoyed some time to ourselves, though we continued to work while we were there. We were hoping for more sun on Labor Day, but the weather didn’t cooperate. We laid out on the dock with our books under overcast skies until it finally began to rain. Later that day we both had an “Awww” moment when we got a text from Taylor saying, “You can come home now!”

The lake gets so amazingly quiet after Labor Day when all the summer revelers have left for the season and only the residents are left. We enjoyed breakfast at local greasy spoon, Chances R, on Tuesday morning. On Wednesday morning we took a nice cruise on the lake (we were the only boat out there) before grabbing pizza at Captain Ron’s for lunch and heading home where we found new sidewalks out front of Vander Well Manor thanks to G&B Concrete.

We got settled back in at home, and Wednesday evening was spent doing handyman duty as we had a couple of nightstands and a desk for Wendy’s office for which there was “some assembly required.” The nightstands were a cinch, but the term “some assembly required” was a bit of an understatement for Wendy’s desk which game in about a half-million pieces. Got ‘er done, however.

Suzanna came home from college for the first time on Friday. It was great to see her. She’s enjoying her freshman year at Hawkeye CC while living on the UNI campus. One of her friends from USP had a birthday party on Friday night and Suzanna came home to surprise her. Wendy and I enjoyed a date night at Kaldera with our friends Dan and Anna on Friday. As always, good food, good friends, and good conversation were a winning combination. We were among the first to arrive and the last to leave our favorite Pella eatery.

Taylor and Tom Coffee on the Patio

Taylor has been house-sitting again this weekend but came home for our routine family breakfast on Saturday morning. Wendy wasn’t up yet so Taylor and I sat out on the patio in the gorgeous early fall sunshine for coffee and conversation. So excited that Taylor has an interview for a job on Wednesday. More on that at a later date.

Dumping dirt for lawnThe one last major project at VW Manor is our lawn. We missed the window for planting grass in the spring. The result has been a muddy, weed infested, wasteland of a yard which I’ve told people was landscaped by the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  We’re finally getting that remedied and on Saturday morning Hackert’s had the black dirt delivered and grading began for what will eventually be an actual yard. Seeding should take place early next week.

Saturday morning was clean-up day as Wendy and I prepared to host the VLs and JPs for an Iowa-Iowa State football extravaganza with dinner following. The crew arrived around game time and we set up in the V-Dub Pub downstairs. Wendy and I, Cyclone fans, were outnumbered by black and gold but it was a good natured crowd 😉 At least it was a good tight ball game which kept everyone interested until the final couple of minutes when the Hawkeyes took the lead and the Cyclones imploded. Ahhhh, as a long-time Cubs fan I’m reminded that there’s always next year.

We ordered take out from George’s for dinner and enjoyed ourselves late into the evening.

Speaking of the Chicago Cubs, Wendy and are still excited about baseball in mid-September for the first time in years as our beloved boys of summer make a run towards the post season. Go Cubs, go!