~~ODNEAL FAMILY BLOG~~Port of Readlyn, Iowa

Some more river pictures. Louie & Bruce, Kevin and Ann, and Kevin kind of "mooning" the picture taker. Didn't realize he did that until I uploaded them!

Kris studying her can way too intensely and Helen with her big ass cup full of vodka/lemonade. And a picture of us gals sitting along the beach. It was a beautiful day to enjoy Saturday. Lots of fun!

Do not try this at home or unsupervised! Some shots from this weekend of Helen and I driving our houseboat. We took a nice ride Saturday night and had supper and a fire on the beach. It was a good time.

UPDATE: I just got to thinking last night about this post and I didn't word the Grandma comment quite right. No, they are not planning on having a baby anytime soon I just meant that they will finally be married and have some kids sometime!!!! Thought I'd clarify!!!! Yep, Cole and Ashley are engaged! He asked her yesterday at her Dad's house. They don't have a date yet but they are getting married. Yeah, I will be a Grandma someday in the near future. We are very happy for them and wish Ashley all the luck in the world. She'll need it! Just kidding Cole. You know we love you both!!

Happy 17th birthday Kyle. Hope you have a great day even though you are babysitting with Taylor. You can celebrate and have fun later! Did you figure out where Taylor is making you take her for dinner yet? Hope you guys have fun!

Taylor made Kyle a cake for his birthday. He even brought a piece out to our neighbors that stopped by to chat. Wasn't that sweet of her? I didn't even make him a cake!

Kyle and Taylor played some driveway basketball last night after supper. I think she kicked his butt!

I went outside last night around 9:30 and the sky was bright blue to the west of Readlyn. I of course had to get the camera and take a few shots. The one looking towards our house is kind of dark. It was very pretty though.

My sister-in-laws Diane and Sharon and myself threw a bridal shower for our niece Ashley last night. It was very nice and of course I had to be in charge of games so we played a few "lame" ones (well at least I thought they might be but was told otherwise!), served a nice light supper, and watched Ashley open all of her awesome presents. She was so funny-we made her go around the room and tell who each person was and how they were related or she knew them. She got so emotional doing that it was cute. I gave her a napkin and told her not to ruin her makeup. She even had me in tears talking about how her and Cole did everything together when they were little and we used to take her to the river all the time with us when she was little. She is a great niece and I hope her and Cody will be very happy!

Our high school football team scrimmages each year before real practices start at Wartburg on Sundays for a few weeks (I think five) so snapped a few pictures of Kyle on the field before my batteries in my camera went dead. It is fun to watch them play on that field. I did get stung by a wasp on the bleachers though and am still swollen up (allergic) and can hardly walk when I first get up from sitting. Hopefully it will be better very soon.

These are just a couple of pictures at the river last weekend. We had our "annual everybody's birthday" party on Dock 1 (dock that we are on) at the marina. It was a good time and there were a lot of funny and nice white elephant gifts. I happened to be very lucky and got a brand new candle that the couple that owns Sunrise Apple Orchards put in. Smells yummy (spiced apple pie I think)! The picture on the left is our friend Kris walking down the dock in the rain to our boat with their cooler. We sat out front on our boat for quite a while staying dry. It was a really nice weekend.

Yep, one year ago today I gave up cigarettes. Doesn't seem like it has been that long. My little counter thing on my computer tells me I've saved almost $3,000 in the past year. Wonder where it went? It also tells me that with the amount that I used to smoke (1 1/2 packs per day) would have been 10,979 cigarettes. Unbelievable. So anyways, yeah me! I swore that I would be able to find tons of pictures with a cigarette in my hand but this is the only one and it was on my cell phone. Oh well. Not very clear.

Snapped these pictures of Tyler while I was grilling supper last night. He was playing some type of baseball with the neighbor kid Damon. The ball they were using however was bigger and definitely softer than a baseball. Oh well, they had fun! Not sure what Ty's face is for-nice pose!

Gizmo acting like she's going to go after that bird on the feeder. She gets her tail going crazy like she is going to attack and just sits there watching them. Sometimes she even sits right under the feeder. Crazy cat!

This is our river dog Bear. Her owners call her "Traitor" because whenever they can't find her she is laying in our boat. I feed her Townhouse crackers all the time so I imagine that is why she likes me so much. We aren't really dog people but we lover her! Sometimes we even get to dog sit for her.

Yep this is Butch the office kitty at work. I've worked here 10 years now and she was here before me. I got her this bed but she won't lay in it unless it is up on the counter. Strange. Bruce will die when he sees that Butch made the blog. She sheds all over the place constantly so I always drag cat hair home with me! Oh well. Very glad that my cats do not shed like she does.

Here are some radishes out of my garden. I should have picked them earlier as some are pretty tough. Aren't the purple ones cool? Yum, yum.

Here is a rainbow over the Coop in Readlyn yesterday after the first group of storms came through. I don't think there was a pot of gold at the end though. Darn!

Manatee From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Manatees ( family Trichechidae, genus Trichechus) are large, fully aquatic marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. The name manatí comes from the Taino which are the original peoples of the Caribbean , meaning "breast". They comprise three of the four living species in the order Sirenia , the other being the dugong , which is native to the Eastern Hemisphere . The Sirenia is thought to have evolved from four-legged land mammals over 60 million years ago, with the closest living relatives being the Proboscidea (elephants) and Hyracoidea (hyraxes). [1] ***Kyle called last night and informed me that this picture I didn't include on the blog is a manatee right under the water. So I thought I'd better add it on to the blog with description! Sorry Kyle, but I just thought it was more of the dolphins!!

Just some more snapshots of our weekend. As I said the weather was beautiful. Had a great time with family and friends.

Well we had part of the whole crew from Colorado back and at the river this weekend. Only Barb, Kevin and the triplets didn't come back. Here are some pictures of Vicente (playing in the sand), Jordan (jumping off the houseboat) and Emily having some fun swimming (Emily with Uncle Jordan and playing in the sand), and just some other random shots of their crew. It was nice to see them but I think Grandma Joey definitely got worn out! Glad they got to visit and that we had great weather!