State Darts in Waterloo...

So me and the guys traveled to Waterloo for the State of Iowa Dart Tournament last weekend. It was another exciting time but the trip overall was a letdown because of the way we threw. This year we had high hopes and expectations for ourselves to throw well and maybe even bring home a state title. Alas, it was not meant to be.
In singles competition on Thursday, I won my first match but did have to come from behind to do it. It was a great feeling to win and know I wasn't going to be out in 2 matches. The next match, I ran into a brick wall. The guy threw lights out against me and sent me packing in 2 games. I took my last match to 3 games and lost on bullseye's. My singles competition was now over.
On Friday night, Marco and I were pumped to play our doubles match. Once again, we killed ourselves by throwing poorly. It was another short night for us. After all of us were eliminated, we went to the casino for seafood buffet. While there, we watched a man hit a $40,000 jackpot on a slot machine. This by far was the highlight of the night.
Our Saturday team started out much better. We won our first match (be it was from a 1st round bye) . But at least we were farther along on the winner's bracket. The first match played, we lost in 3 games. We didn't throw too terribly, but they were on fire. The 3rd game, Bob and I threw a 2.3 mpr. That's great considering we throw a 1.8/1.9 respectively. The other team threw a 4.17. There wasn't much we could do when someone throws that good.
So another year of state darts is over. Next year it is supposed to be right here in Cedar Rapids. Maybe throwing here will help us out. Maybe we just need to let go and not put so much pressure on ourselves to win it all. Oh well. On to next year.

20 days and counting...

Kailey has been potty free at night for 20 days in a row and received a baby as a prize for doing such a great job. She is so proud of herself.

We have a calendar hanging on the wall and each night before she goes to bed, Kailey puts a sticker on the previous day and counts how many days in a row she has gone without an accident.

UFC Unleashed...

So I pick up the kids after work on Monday and Jaime comes into the garage to help unload the kids. While I'm standing their, I can hear the dogs inside fighting wildly. I rushed inside and grabbed the two of them to seperate them. I noticed Rebel had what looked like some blood on the top of her head so I started investigating. Rebel got bit on the ear and was blood was dripping all over the kitchen. As she shook her head, the blood was splattering all over the floors, walls and cabinets. I called for Jaime to run in and help me as I was trying to hold Rebel still so she didnt track blood anywhere else. Jaime was able to put Sophie (my mother-in-laws) dog in her kennel so we could attend to Rebels cut. Luckily we had some "styptic" powder on hand and were able to get the bleeding under control. That lasted only as long as rebel didnt reshake her head.
While cleaning up, Jaime noticed that their was a chunk of black hair on the floor. We assumed that one of the dogs lost a piece of ear. Boy were we wrong. I looked over at Sophie and noticed a chunk of her face was torn off. It was like an "Indian scalping a white man". The bite took off the flesh and hair without making the wound bleed.
Needless to say that both dogs were kenneled the remainder of the evening and are looking to make full recoveries. We will make sure that we no longer leave the two alone without someone in the house.

What a beautiful weekend...

With record temps in much of Eastern Iowa reaching 20 degrees above normal, it was a perfect time to get the kids out of the house for some playtime this past weekend. Temps reached as high as 60 degrees in some areas. I think it was around 49 in Center Point. We took the kids outside to play in the snow and they were also able to ride their bikes as well. Here are some pics of them outside as well as us feeding the horses.

Super Bowl Sunday and my winnings...

We spent the evening on Sunday watching the Super Bowl at our friends "the Haley's" house. The kids played all night long and we enjoyed pizza, deer meat and the softest brownie's on the planet. I give congrats to the Steelers for their win even though I was rooting for the Cardinals.

I have to give a huge thanks to the Steelers offensive lineman who committed that holding penalty in the end zone in the 4th quarter. That safety along with their next touchdown put me in position to win the 4th quarter of my Super Bowl Squares pool that I ran. Once AZ had 23 points, It didnt matter what the Steelers did....If the Steelers would have tied the game at 23 all, I had 3-3, If they didnt score I still had 3-0, and even when Pitt scored to go up 27-23, I still had 7-3. In fact, even if AZ had scored on their final drive and won 30-27, I had 0-7. That safety was huge as it gave me many outs. So I obviously won the 4th quarter which was $150.00. Ooops, did I forget to mention I also won the 1st quarter score of 3-0 for $100.00

Yeah baby, thats right. I won $250.00.....Oh baby