The Smith Family Times

Return to Rob's World

(Rob:) Another awesome weekend in Rob's World (West). As the rest of the family was jetting to Minneapolis, I took a left turn and landed in Denver Friday to again meet up with my old high school friends (see the earlier Rob's World post from last week) and also see my sister and her family and then also go to the Broncos game Sunday night.

On Friday I had some time to kill so I knocked around Loveland, Colorado for a while. When I was young, from 5th grade to 7th grade, we lived in Loveland. I found some of our old favorite places:

Lake Loveland

Rialto Theater downtown, where I saw "Star Wars" the first ten times when I was 12 years old

City News bookstore- still smells like tobacco just like it used to when I was a kid

Cloverleaf Dog Racing track, where Suzanne and I used to help Dad with the dogs when he worked as a greyhound trainer back in the '70's

Skate Castle, where I had my first kiss! (Carol Yonker- 1978. There's a commemorative plaque.)

On Saturday I went up to Estes Park for the morning:

You know you're a tourist when you stop traffic to take a picture of an elk in Estes Park

Our favorite place to stay in Estes (now under new management)

Snow moving in

2 hours later- snow is here!

On Saturday night I had a nice visit with Anna and Betsy in Berthoud, CO, just south of Loveland. Anna is flying back to Sweden tomorrow after a 2 week holiday here in the US, so please have a good thought for her as she returns home to her family.

**************************************************************

On Sunday I travelled down to Morrison to Zanny's house. When I got there, Mitchell was in the bathtub, but he soon launched out into the living room for a naked "Uncle Rob's here" dancing:

Now clothed, reading with mama

Buckethead

B/W boy

Giving some lovin'

Last night Zanny and I decided to brave the elements and go to the Broncos-Raiders game:

Snowy and cold (17 degrees F)

Crazy Xmas lights-on-horsehead fan

Rob and Zanny

Go Broncos!

Click HERE to experience the snow and to hear Zanny yelling!

Snowing harder

Harder still

Snow causing Zanny to have vertigo

At halftime it was getting pretty cold and we decided to head home. The Broncos ended up losing the game by one point, but I did get to see my favorite player Rod Smith (#80) catch the longest pass of his career for an 85 yd touchdown, which is nice.

****************************************************

I made it back home this afternoon after barely making it through traffic to the Denver airport in time. It feels good to all be together again! Here Tessa Jean is trying to conjure up some snow. She says that if you wear your pajamas backwards, draw a green "X" on your left hand, and sleep with a spoon under your pillow, then snow will surely come. Looking out the window just now, it looks like she might be right!

Happy Second Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving travellers

(Susan): We survived travelling on the most travelled weekend of the year! The kids were great, the flights easy and there were no long lines. We had a wonderful weekend full of turkey, baking cookies and warm spiced cider. the snow on Saturday morning at Uncle Tom's was clearly a sign to get that tree up and those outdoor lights hung. We loved seeing the new addition at Uncle Tom's and the new house at Uncle David's. What a great place to visit. Tonight I am thankful for family and easy travels, a leg that is three and a quarter inches longer and Suzanne. She is crazy enough to be headed to Invesco Field with Rob to sit and watch an outdoor nighttime Bronco game in Denver snow with Rob. Thank God I am not there, the heat is on, and we are about to start decorating for our big Christmas party next Saturday night.

Uncle Tom and Aunt Lisa's new addition

Slumber party

Tom and Lisa's backyard is screaming for some Christmas lights

Thanksgiving Scrabble and turkey carcass

The hostess Aunt Michelle cooking something

Our buffet line (the scalloped corn was clearly the best!)

The girls waiting for dinner

Nate and Sam have some tickle time

Kat lounging

Ava wearing her fairy wings

Uncle David waiting for the Vikings to come on

Uncle David and Aunt Michelle's backyard with a pond and covered bridge (see Kat and Tessa?)

Thanksgiving

(Rob:) Today we're thankful for:

• Our friends Kelly and Steve, who invited us over to their home this afternoon for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with their kids and Steve's parents from Iowa (thanks, Kelly!!)

• Family recipes, like Herzberg family apple squares:

• Comfort food, like green Jello with pears in it and Ocean Spray Cranberry sauce:

(FYI: Cranberry "sauce" MUST be served in perfectly circular discs that retain the impression of the can, and do NOT under any circumstance garnish with cottage cheese)

• The fact that no one was hurt in my car accident yesterday:

• Body shops.

• All of our friends and family, and for safe traveling tomorrow!

Snow Day

Snow Boy

(Susan): Happy Thanksgiving! This mornings blog is our pictures from yesterday as we all fell asleep on the couch last night. In fact, Sam slept there all night. Yesterday morning while I was blogging Sam woke up downstairs, looked out the window and deided to get himself dressed and go outside. He came up to the office with his sweatshirt and jeans on, boots (no socks and on the wrong feet), hat, and one glove. He was so excited and so CUTE!!! We did get things corrected a bit and the kids went out without breakfast even and built a snowman coming in only when their fingers got cold. They had hot chocolate with marshmellows for breakfast. What fun! Rob's car got a tow to the body shop and all the patients got taken care of at work. We are so glad to be on a four day break. Today we go to my friend Kelly's house for Thanksgiving and I have to take dessert. I better get to peeling those apples for the Herzberg famous Apple Squares.

Mom, where's my other glove?

Excited to go outside

Tessa wearing my boots so pictures compromised by my stocking feet

The elves will have to come back and fix the tree

Tessa and friend

Snow Girl

Maybe when the snow melts the lights will magically rise back up the tree

"It's Beginning to Look Alot. . ."

(Susan:) Okay, so maybe we hoped and prayed a little too hard! Six inches and still coming down. The kids are still asleep but will be delighted when they wake up. The picture of the tree above was taken minutes after I pushed Rob out of the driveway twice, where upon he got stuck on the street to be pushed again by another motorist and then the worst, he slid through an intersection down the block and wrecked his car. He is okay and has walked back home and is having tea in the kitchen waiting for a tow truck. He will have to take my car which is currently over in Ruth Ann's driveway since her car is in the shop and who knows what I'll do. Stay home and play with the kids? Some folks are without power as this is our usual heavy wet snow with lines drooping. So far we have power, but it is still coming down.

We had Christmas lights, now they are laying on the ground

Remember the yucky peeling radiator? Now all new and shiny and sitting in the hallway. If the power goes we will hopefully be able to quickly hook them up and have heat via the gas boiler.

"Oh the Weather Outside. . ."

Is Frightful!!

(Susan): We are hoping beyond all hope that it will snow. It is mid 40's and the precipitation you see in the Christmas shot above is a fine mist of rain. We will continue to pray for frightful weather. Thanksgiving weekend was always a storm of some sort growing up in Minnesota and we need a little of that here. I am not one to try and compete with Rob's World. He spent five hours on that blog last night. Brought a little tear to your eye, didn't it? It did mine.

We are chipping away at our short week. Tessa has her third book report of the quarter due tomorrow so we spent the evening making a collage from magazines and catalogues, clipping pictures and letters to represent "Ramona the Pest." Tessa thought it was great fun and predicts every kid in her class will do this for their next report. Good old fashion fun, I say. I ended up finding several items in catalogues that were slated for the recycle bin. Not a bad shopping spree after all.

Tessa is looking forward to seeing her family in Minnesota. She wants to leave Wednesday night after I get home from work. Sam says he is looking forward to going to the library. He says this everytime I ask. Maybe we should take him. He had a joke falling asleep tonight: Knock, knock. Who's there? Catsup. Catsup who? Catsup who plays in a lake of flowers! He thinks it is pretty funny.

Practicing tennis against the garage

In the early Christmas spirit

Sam wanted to show his new ornaments from Hy-Vee

Tessa and her Ramona collage

Abbey and Gusling

Snowflake Christmas-thans-a-mums

Rob's World

(Rob:) There's a glorious place Susan likes to call "Rob's World." It's not so much an actual geographical location as a state of mind. MY mind, to be specific. A magical, mythical place where the days are filled with Rocky Mountain climbing and the nights are spent sipping Millstream beer by the fire while strumming Tom Petty songs on a Taylor acoustic guitar. The Hawkeyes and Broncos win every weekend and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (with special guests from beyond, Sam Cooke and Eva Cassidy) provide the constant live soundtrack to the non-stop bliss.

This weekend, thanks to my beautiful, intelligent, and infinitely understanding wife, Susan, I was able to take an extended visit to Rob's World- (one that will require a monumental blog entry to do proper justice.)

Welcome to my world!

**********************************************************
Friday after work I drove to Des Moines, where I was able to reunite with two dear friends from high school whom I hadn't seen for over 17 years:

Here I am with Anna and Betsy (Anna is on the left) at a downtown brewpub. Betsy's mom Arleen was also with us and played photographer for this shot. Back in 1981, Arleen and her husband Bob welcomed Anna from her home in Sweden to Carlisle, IA as a foreign exchange student for the year. I was one of the first kids she met after arriving and we became good friends. We did a pretty good job of keeping in touch for a while after she returned home in 1982, but lost track of each other for many years before reconnecting recently via email.

It was wonderful to see Anna and Betsy again and we had a very nice visit and tried to quickly catch up on the interim years. It's comforting to know that, as middle age inexorably creeps in, there are old friends out there that you can reconnect with as if no time had passed at all. As we sat in the bar talking and laughing I felt like we could just as well have been at the lunch table back at the Carlisle High commons 23 years ago.

Anna showed me many pictures of her beautiful family and brought some thoughtful gifts all the way from Sweden for Susan and the kids. It was hard to say goodbye at the end of the night, but I'm going to meet up with them again next weekend in Colorado when I journey to Rob's World West to visit my sister Zanny and the Denver Broncos after Thanksgiving.

****************************************************************

On Saturday, my dad, our friend Guffey and my brother Cody and I travelled to Iowa City to see the Iowa Hawkeyes play the Wisconsin Badgers. We've been going to Kinnick Stadium for the past 28 years to watch the Hawkeyes, but this game ended up being one of the best ever!

Here's Dad and Cody getting ready to leave for the game, with the tailgate full of food and beer:

"Tailgating" is an important part of the gameday ritual. It has recently evolved from just drinking a lot of beer to grilling out and eating food (along with the beer.) We arrived at the stadium 6 hours before game time and Cody got right to work flipping pancakes and sausage:

Delicious! It was pretty cold and windy Saturday and I hadn't dressed warmly enough, so Dad and I went to the Hawk Shop and did some shopping. I got a new stocking cap and we both got some cool fleece mittens:

For reasons unknown, Dad was wearing some camouflage boots. This made for a very disconcerting sight whenever he stood with a foot in the grass: Freaky!

The Smith Boys

The Hawkeye Express bringing game fans all the way in from Coralville (5 miles away)

Guffey, Cody, me and Dad killng more time at the Melrose Market, which was an actual grocery store when I went to school in Iowa City but now is an open air marketplace for cool Hawkeye items (more on that later...)

Another game of "Where's Grampa's foot?" for the grandkids back home:

When it was finally game time, we walked into Kinnick and found our seats. The "walk in" is an important part of the whole Hawkeye experience for me. You walk through the gates outside the 75 year-old brick stadium and enter the building. You walk into a short tunnel that ramps up to where the seats are. The tunnel is pretty crowded so it's a slow walk, a little dark and the sounds are muffled and you are filled with anticipation of what is to come. Will they win? Will it be as exciting as back in 1981 when they beat Michigan State to go to the Rose Bowl, and actual roses rained down from the press box overhead at the end of the game?

You reach the top of the ramp, and now you can see the flags of the eleven teams in the Big Ten conference flying atop the other side of the stadium, and behind them right across the street, the hospital where you were born (again, this is Rob's World.)

Then, as you reach the top of the steps, you can now see the field, and the marching band is just about ready to come on. The scoreboard reads "Are You Ready For The BOOM?" and then with a single bass drum beat the band marches in from the north end zone, led by a high-kicking drum major and a baton-twirling Golden Girl:

And Herky is there, too:

I understand the whole experience might seem sort of silly to the outsider, but for me, it's one of those rare times in life when I know without a doubt there's nowhere I'd rather be.

Before the game began we learned that, because Michigan lost to Ohio State, Iowa and Wisconsin would be playing for a share of the Big Ten conference title. The crowd was whipped into a frenzy before the boys in Black and Gold finally appeared from the locker room. Most teams enter the stadium running really fast in a single-file line, but the Hawks do it in a big "swarm" like this:

Click HERE to see "The Swarm"

The Hawkeyes fought a close game and overcame a couple of early mistakes to lead by one touchdown at the half, but in the second half our stifling defense and high-flying offense was just too much for the boys from Wisconsin, who seemed befuddled by our brilliance:

Click HERE for an inspirational presentation of the Iowa flags!

At the end of the game, we had won 30 to 7! The place went nuts and the fans stormed the field!

Click HERE to see the fans storm the field!

The stadium is slated for renovations this year and the south end zone scoreboard will be torn down, so this is the last score it will display, along with a picture of the Big Ten Championship trophy, seen here being presented to Coach Ferentz:

Click HERE to see the Big 10 Champs trophy presentation!

After the game, we lingered to watch the bedlam and soak in the moment, and I have to admit a couple of tears were shed. It ranks in the top 2 or 3 games I've even seen, and it occurs to me that this would be a good time to thank Susan again for allowing me to go on this incredible trip (Thanks Dearly!)

We made our way back to the car and grilled some steaks and onions while the traffic cleared out. Hee's a cool shot of Kinnick Stadium at night:

Awesome!

*****************************************************************

Back home, Susan put the kids to work on a gingerbread cookie assembly line:

Very tasty, and the kitchen smells like Christmas already!

***********************************************************************

(Warning: Deep philosophical blog entry ending ahead!)

As I sit at my desk, warmed by the glow from my new neon Hawkeye (straight from the Melrose Market), I've been thinking about something Dad said on the way home. We were listening to sports talk radio and Dad was providing me many helpful driving tips. We all agreed that we had been fortunate to be able to attend such an awesome game, and Dad added that it was that much more special because he got to experience it with his three best friends in the world.

Just when you think you've got the old guy figured out as a slightly grizzled, traffic-intolerant dude who sucks at music trivia, he comes up with a profoundly sincere and heartfelt truth that puts a lump in your throat and a new clarity in your head about life's meaning itself.

I thought back to two weeks ago when I was touring Belgium by myself, isolated by language, and how even though I saw some great architecture and had a good experience overall, in the end it was an empty one because I didn't have anyone there to share it with.

There are so many unavoidable hardships thrown our way in life. War, disease and other circumstances beyond our control take us away from the people we love too often. The human connections we are able to make amidst the chaos, whether with your closest family or with long-lost friends from 4500 miles away, are what feed our souls and make life real.

In Rob's World or anywhere else, too!

When the Cat's Away. . . .

Santa's elves were here!

(Susan): Sshhhhhhh. . . . don't tell Rob. Maybe he won't notice that the Christmas decorating has begun. The outside of the house is well on its way and a trip to Target tomorrow will probably complete our outdoor project. We will then begin the inside work and plan to make gingerbread men too! I bought Rob some gingerbread tea today to try and put him in the mood (he has turned into a huge tea drinker). He should be on cloud nine after another Hawkeye win. He called this evening and said it was the third best Kinnick moment of all time. The kids have been, well kids. I get a break tomorrow (Sunday) as I have to work in the morning. Then I will be able to have the Friday after Thanksgiving off. Hoorah!!! I would actually vote to just skip all the overeating, get Chinese and go directly to the tree farm. We'll see if I can talk Scrooge into it!

Tessa looking good at tennis lessons

Now you don't see him. . .

Now you do!

Here's a little picture I like to call Nightime Iris in November!

We Love the Weekends!

Tessa and Sam playing outside

(Susan): Aye carumba, we made it through another busy and long week. Rob's hand drained pus and improved with proper antibiotics and he did get his tetanus shot at his wife's encouragement (doctors, you just can't tell them anything!). Tessa got to dress up as her favortie book character on Wednesday and had a jeans day on Friday. These are always exciting days for her. Sam played and read as is his daily routine. We are talking alot about Christmas. He is also very excited about his upcoming birthday and asks quite frequently if this month is his birthday. We noted the three Christmas trees on Aunt Zanny's blog (I'm jealous). Rob won't let us put one up until after Thanksgiving, but we are having his group Christmas party here on December 2nd and this basically leaves no time to decorate. He is off to Iowa for more football this weekend and next weekend we are off the Minneapolis to see Aunt Michelle and Uncle David's new house and Uncle Tom and new Aunt Lisa's newly remodeled house. I think we will have to decorate the staircase or something today. We are off to a school showing of the Incredibles and tennis lessons. . .

Neighbor's old greenhouse, note far end where bomb shelter hidden (Tessa hit a tennis ball over the fence so we had no choice but to go over with the camera, right?)

Spooky large room with pipes for water or gas

The new bathroom is coming right along (west wall with shower)

Dogpile on Mom!

(Rob:) Or maybe "catpile" would be closer to the truth. Susan has a magnetic effect on small children and cats as is evidenced by this photo taken during "Survivor" tonight:

The bathroom project is moving along: we now have drywall up in the hall way and closet:

Exciting!

This weekend: Hawkeye football road trip for me, tennis lessons and generalized chaos here for Susan and the kids. Go Hawks!