4th of July to present

Vance riding his Giraffe George around the kitchen. He wanted me to ride his dinosaur so that is what I am holding.
He had started out with both of them but left the dinosaur and kept riding George.
This is one of the buildings on the strip in Coralville that was hit by the flood. You can see the water line on the building now. It is crazy how high it was.
We decided to go have lunch with daddy while he was studying and this is how Vance wanted to  eat his corn dog.  Silly boy.
Vance trying to play with the sparklers. He loved the fireworks, except for the fact that they were really loud.
Coming down the slide.
We looked over and this is what Vance was doing. Can you believe it?
Showing us his candy that he went get during the parade.
So much candy.  he loved it.
He also went and got a water bottle. So cute.
Just a cute kid.
Clapping to the one man band.
Our friends Tyler, Elsha, and Ian with Vance before the parade started.
Our little family waiting for the parade. Vance was so excited.
These dogs were such a great distraction while we were waiting, however, they are HUGE!! That dogs face is bigger than my whole head I am not joking.  I can't believe Vance would even go close to those things but he loved them. They were super slobbery too.

Swimming lessons

Vance started swimming lessons last week and he loved them.  I knew after our trip to Arizona that he would do really well.  He is getting more brave with every lesson.  He loves to walk around and squat in the little pool so that the water comes up to his chin and bounce up and down.  He is really good at kicking as well.  His favorite activity would probably have to be jumping from the side of the pool into my, or daddy's, arms.  It is a really fun thing to be with him and I am so glad that we chose to do them this year instead of waiting.  Now everyday he comes up to me and says " Po poo?"  It took me a little while to really figure out that he was saying swimming pool and not the other thing.  The worst part about swim lessons is leaving the pool at the end.  He screams the whole way home and is grumpy the rest of the night.  But it is worth it I think because he loves it.

Vance throwing a ball.
He tried to catch it but it fell and splashed him. So much fun!!
Silly boy!
This is him squating down.  Pretty funny huh?
Another squat.
On the noodle when he put his face in the water.
He loved this exercise.
He really wanted to just kick and swim around when he was in the noodle.
And here he is climbing out of the pool, yes he did succeed, so he could jump into my arms.
Swimming on his back.  We are still working on it.
Pushing the ball around to get to know the other kids in class.
It is kind of dark but I think you can see us in the middle when he is jumping off.
Daddy's day for the lesson.
Just chilling.
Kicking his way around in the big pool.

The Flood

So thank all of you that have been praying for our area. It has been a tragedy but we are coming out of this as a stronger community. It is going to take some time to recover but we can recover and that is such a blessing. Thankfully our home was not in danger but we do know some families that have lost their homes so that is very difficult. I can tell you that I have never seen anything like this in my life and I will never forget it as long as I live. To see the businesses you go to and the streets that you drive on under water is quite a shock. I can't imagine how the owners of the businesses and the homes that were flooded feel. My thoughts and prayers go out to them at this time. We were given the amazing opportunity to go and help sandbag to protect some of those businesses and homes and what a blessing that was. There are so many great people in our community and I was reminded about that during this time. It gives me hope that the world is not falling apart. There are many good people that are willing to stand up and help and that is amazing. So thank you to all of those people out there, what a great example you are to me. Anyway, here are just some of the pictures of our area during the flood so that you can see it too.

This is looking down the Coralville strip.
There is the Pita Pit.
This is a picture of them pumping water of the bridge down by campus.
This is a street is Iowa City that is right by the river.
Here we are getting ready to go sandbag.
A bridge in town.
Look at the water at the Village Inn.
Us on a road in down town Iowa City.
The guys sandbagging.
A pile of sandbags that the boys worked on one day.
Some cars in a parking lot.
A carousel in a park that we used to go play in.  There is a train track that goes around it too.
A view of the Coralville strip from the air.
The Walgreens in the upper left and the Days Inn  in the lower right.
Another view with the Hardees in the bottom left.
The Wig and Pen restaurant.
The Sonic parking lot with the National Guard going in to check on things.
The University of Iowa Softball fields.
Taco Bell
The Hardees