Not since 2005

Iowa State family photo

We are excited to say that the Iowa State football team is 3-0 for the first time since 2005. This milestone is a reason to celebrate in the Volkmann household and for Cyclone fans across the nation.

We are especially excited to be living in the States this football season. We have been enjoying college football Saturdays and NFL Sundays. Well, Olivia, not so much. She would rather watch Dora, Blue Clues, and Super Why. I have no doubt that she'll learn the joys of football.

In case, you haven't been following ISU as closely as we have, here is a season recap, according to me. The first game was against Northern Iowa. It's a non-conference game that is always fun to watch in the state. We didn't catch the game, but we still wore our Cyclone gear all day, despite some strange looks in Maryland and Virginia.

Next was the biggest game of the season: Iowa Hawkeyes. I had low expectations after the one point victory against the Panthers, but being loyal fans, we proudly wore our Iowa State T-shirts.

Family photo at Sesame Place

We spent the day at Sesame Place, a theme park for Sesame Street fans located 30 minutes north of Philadelphia. Benny and Olivia were climbing in a huge net thing, when my sister, Colleen, sent me a text message saying that the game was tied. I told her the sad news. We were at Sesame Place. She kindly recommended that we find a television. Impossible in such a family-friendly theme park.

The game went into overtime (for the first time in the rivalry's history) and Benny figured out how to use my smart phone to watch the game. We took turns doing Sesame stuff with Olivia and watching the game. While watching in line to watch Elmo's World Live, we saw the final score, Iowa State: 44, Iowa: 41 after three overtimes. Incredible! We high-fived each other as the New York and New Jersey families looked at us as though we were crazy. We looked like a commercial for a smart phone.

Finally, on Friday night after little O was in bed, Benny and I watched the Iowa State-Conneticut game. Again, it was a nail-biter and down to the wire, but the Cyclones pulled it off. Final score: 24-20.

That takes us to where we are today: 3-0. We're planning to bask in this glory for two weeks. Iowa State takes on Texas on October 1 in Ames. Go Clones!

Gettysburg, Mount Vernon and a Pie

As promised, here is the rest of the visit with my parents. After spending a long day in Washington, D.C., we decided to head north to Gettysburg, Penn. In addition to seeing the best museum about the Civil War battle, we also took an informative two-hour tour of the battlefields.

Olivia stay with the group, please.

It isn't Gettysburg until you take your photo with a cannon.

 In addition to sightseeing, we also celebrated my mom's birthday.

Once again, we ventured down south, this time to see George Washington's home, Mount Vernon.

Olivia is unimpressed with Washington's dentures.

What's that sticker on Benny's T-shirt?

Martha and George's final resting place.

Olivia practices taking the oath of office.

Our final stop on this whirl wind tour of Washington, D.C.,-- Arlington Cemetery.

Olivia is a little annoyed with the daily group photo.

Mom and Dad may have been our first visitors, but I'm sure they won't be our last.

Summertime Reflections

It's Labor Day. The official end of the summer. Where did summer 2011 go? It flew by, with a few photos taken, many more memories made, and not enough blog posts written.

This summer, Olivia and I went to Gettysburg three times. Yes, the history nerd in me rejoiced. Our first trip was Memorial Day.

Now Olivia knows to say hi to Lincoln whenever we are in town. And I think I'm one more tour away from becoming a qualified Gettysburg tour guide.

We visited West Virginia, hiked a bit of the Appalachian Trail (saw two snakes that day) and ate three meals in three different states. It's a baby step when compared with Benny's friend Steve who ate three meals in three different European countries. Still I'm including this Volkmann goodie in the Christmas letter.

Benny ran a Warrior Dash (a mud and fire race) near Washington, D.C. Olivia and I cheered him on and kept our distance until after he showered.

Olivia and I planted a small garden. We forgot to water our garden. We killed our garden. (More on that later.)

We ate custard at the same ice cream shop as President Obama. We visited Washington, D.C., a handful of times. We attended a Fourth of July party. We attended a 40th birthday party. We ate more hot dogs and hamburgers in the last three months than we have in the last three years.

Colleen and Adam came to visit. (More on that later.) We visited the Volkmanns in Minnesota and the Kanns in Iowa. Olivia met her extended family on the Wille side.

Movie night with her Hoel cousins.



The whole Wille family.

 I baked more desserts this summer than I have in the last three years. I canned peaches with the help of Melinda and Andrea. (More on that later too.)

I bought a book about family trips to Civil War battlefields. We dragged Olivia to the Antietam battlefields with Jason and Melinda. History nerd rejoiced again.

Olivia licked her first ice cream cone. Olivia attended her first wedding. Benny went to his first Iowa State Fair. It was Olivia's first Iowa State Fair too. (more on that later.)

Summer 2011 may be gone, but it isn't forgotten.

Natural Disaster Preparations

First there was an earthquake. Yes, an East Coast earthquake. How often does that happen? Apparently not very often.

Then there was Hurricane Irene storming north along the coast last weekend. She brought heavy rain and howling wind to our neighborhood.

It started last Tuesday when I felt the house shaking at about 1:45 p.m. Huh, that's strange, I thought. I haven't felt that since Japan. It feels like an earthquake. But that can't be right or can it? Yup, definitely an earthquake. Olivia didn't even wake up from her nap, so I classified it as a small one.

Next on tap was Hurricane Irene, which was downgraded to Tropical Storm Irene by the time she reached our neck of the woods. Being in the mountains, we were far enough west (out of Irene's 300 mile reach) that we didn't need to evacuate our home, but we did need to fill our weekend locked inside the house during the storm. Being familiar with typhoons on Okinawa, I elect to stay inside during these types of storms.

Olivia suggested we bake "pink cupcakes" using monkey cupcake liners that she previously picked out at the grocery store.

Meanwhile Benny built shelves for our garage and then organized the boxes stored out there for me. (Something that has been on our to-do list since moving into the house in April.)

After naptime, Olivia was happy to wake up to freshly baked strawberry cupcakes topped with cream cheese icing. It was a productive hurricane day for the Volkmanns.