Today is the first day it really felt like summer: 90 degrees, high humidity, burning sunshine - and a cool breeze across the fields.  Cold front moving in on Wed. to bring night temps down to 60's - sigh.  Last night we finally saw "Pirates...at World's End" at free movie night for Adventureland employees.  What more could you ask - well, Wed. is Floats and Sundaes during break time.  Who can pass up dairy products and real root beer?  We must rev up our exercises if we're going to have this much fun!  Today was breakfast at Prairie Meadows and a stop at the poker machines before we did errands and household chores.  Never a dull moment around here.

Thunderstorm came through last evening; our weather station recorded a 29.8 mph wind gust but the local station reported gusts up to 55 mph with hail and tornado to the south of Des Moines.  More wind and rain today in forecast then a weekend of sun and 90's.  Go figure.  Staying busy; nothing special.  Summer arrived at 1:06 p.m. in Iowa; 2:06 in eastern time zone...

It's Tuesday again and Paul is at table tennis.  I'm avoiding cleaning and sorting.  We met Connie Lee for lunch at Gateway Market; good friend, good food, good shopping.  Check it out at www.gatewaymarket.com  Also plan to watch the Hy-Vee Marathon on July 15th;  it happened this weekend in downtown DesMoines around the capitol and Gray's Lake; I hope they show some of the sights in the area.  We were working together in Frosted Lemonade on Saturday, a very warm day - a busy one.  There were 9300+ guests in the park; I left the register only a few minutes and Paul was handing over lemonades:  636 lemonades in five hours (127.2/hr; 2.12/min); 204 water bottles (40.8/hr; .68/min).  Sunday we had time to talk, drink, and relax since the guests numbered 3500+ and only 214 (42.8/hr) total items (30.8 lemonades/hr).  But enough of the statistics - you get the idea.  Some days we work really hard, others not so much.  Weekdays are still pretty slow - guess families are not on vacation yet; gas is down to $2.73/gal.   Days are long: first day of summer coming up and tomorrow is the summer solstice - longest "day" of the year.  Enjoy whatever you are doing these fine days!

Paul reminded me that I forgot to mention the courtesy we have encountered.  Children of all ages and adults, too, say "please" and "thank you" very easily;  patience is also a virtue both waiting in line and driving the highways.  If you haven't experienced Iowa, you really should visit some summer - unless you like cold weather.  We've found that our tolerance this far north should be limited to June through early Sept.  Oh yes, it's Tuesday - breakfast at Prairie Meadows but we stopped with $1 to the good at the casino.  Visit to chiropractor, groceries, laundry, and Paul is now playing table tennis.  Beautiful day today. 

So how many states are getting the Richardson for Pres. commercials?  Let us know by email.  By far his commercials are the best.  Those of you who surf really need to check the iowavotes webites;  imo there is good information out there.  It's amazing that there is so much going on in a state of only 2.9 million residents.  BTW, the World Pork Expo is going on at the fairgrounds here in DesMoines this week with pig races featured on Thursday.  Check it out at www.DesMoinesRegister.com  - which is a very good newspaper.  Sat. was a very busy day; we worked together in Frosted Lemonade and sold 1.07 lemonades per minute (64.6/hr); but only 19.4 bottled waters per hour.  Sun. was not as busy, possibly because it was overcast and not as warm; 27.8 lemonades/hr and 4.8 waters/hr.  I just have to do these calculations: the math teacher in me wants to know...  No, we did not count each one; the register gives the totals when we cash out.  The things one can learn being a 'carny' for the summer.  You guys just don't know what you're missing.

If it's Tuesday it must be 55+ breakfast buffet at Prairie Meadows.  It has been a beautiful day - before wind and rain the next few days.  Sound like a broken record here.  All is well here.  Enjoy the new pictures.