The Lieslands

Last week we had the opportunity to go to a Barack Obama campaign rally here in Des Moines. We debated whether or not we wanted to go because we knew it would be very crowded and there would be a lot of waiting. Both of those things turned out to be true, but it was well worth the trip.

We ended up getting a great spot, about 15 feet from the podium. I couldn’t believe how close we were! The kids did a great job waiting and it was a lot of fun to hear the president speak. It was amazing to be so close.

Afterwards he was shaking some hands in the crowd not far from where we were. I was holding Mari and thought maybe I  could get her in the mix for a high-five. We made our way over and accomplished our goal. He continued down the rail not far from where we were so I picked up Andrew and took him over for a high-five as well. When I turned around Susan was standing right behind me with Elliot so I grabbed him and called out ‘Barack, do you have another high-five?” “I got another high-five,” he replied, as he gave Elliot a high-five. That was pretty exciting!

As we were headed out the door a reporter stopped us to ask a few questions and take our picture. We answered a few questions and headed home to try to get the kids to calm down and get into bed.

After the getting the kids to bed some more things started to come our way. I was checking the Des Moines Register website for pictures when I saw this article – http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/05/24/obama-in-des-moines-high-fiving-the-president/ . I also have the PDF version.

I couple minutes later we got an email from our friend the AP who sent me previews of a couple of pictures of Mari and Andrew. They appeared in various locations the next day.

We were bummed to not have a picture of Elliot, but the next day I saw that Barack Obama’s facebook page had a few pictures posted from the event, including one of Elliot.

A couple of hours later, it was the main photo at the top of his facebook page.

I thought we were done, but this past week we got a video from a friend who said that Elliot’s high-five was in the intro to a weekly political talkshow:

6/19/2012 – Still not done. We just got a link to this video from a friend:

8/6/12 – Elliot’s Picture Appears in a Campaign Email

It has recently been brought to my attention that an important life event is missing from our blog: Susan is pregnant! We found out in January that we are expecting our fourth child (or third sibling, for the kids). We are all really excited and ready for a new addition to our comfortable life.

Susan has been feeling good lately, and growing. She has been feeling the baby move for a while and last night I got to feel it for the first time.

Elliot and Mari had their dance recitals this weekend. They had a good time and really enjoyed being on stage. We don’t shoot video at their actual recital, but I do have videos from their dress rehearsals.

Bonus Video – Hope and Anna’s Dress Rehearsal

Yesterday morning we looked out to see that a tree frog was hanging out on our hummingbird feeder. We are not sure how it got there. We let it hang out for a bit before the kids moved it to a tree.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of visiting Lin & Hap’s house(s) in Fairfield, IA. They have a couple of acres they are developing. They have built several houses, which other family and friends live in. They collect rain water for drinking and cultivate several gardens, including a nice greenhouse.

The kids had a great time playing with Hap & Lin’s grandkids and overall we had a great visit and Earth Day Celebration.

I have been hearing about geocaching for a while now and this morning we got the whole family out to learn more about it and to try it out. We had a good time and when we got home we were excited to get out and find a cache.

Susan left this morning for another week-long training in Boulder, so it is just me and the kids this week. We started off with a busy Saturday:

1. Dropped Susan off at the airport.
2. Picked up bagels and ate them in the car.
3. Stopped by the Sports Authority to get a new grip for my tennis racquet, which I think I may have put on upside-down but it works.
4. Went to the park where the kids played with the Reagens while Nate and I played tennis.
5. Home for lunch.
6. Hike with Andrew’s Cub Scout den at Walnut Woods State Park, including a fair amount of time playing in the river.
7. At this point the boys went home with Nate and I took Mari and Hope with me to Costco. Elliot is spending the night at Mimi & Papa’s and Andrew is spending the night at the Reagens’.
8. We finally made it home and I threw the girls in the bath while I emptied the car and made dinner.
9. Dinner.
10. Cut the grass.
11. Dessert.
12. Books
13. Bed.

Not too shabby. Hopefully it will slow down a little from here.

Our 2012 NCAA Tournament brackets are ready to go! This is the first year that Andrew filled his out all by himself.

March has never been so kind to us and we are going to do our best to enjoy it!