Life, Love, Laughter: Cherishing these moments....

Our weekend started together as a family as we all surprised Dylan when we all picked him up on Friday at school. He squealed with delight and came running as fast as he could across the play ground jumping into his Daddy's arms. This doesn't happen often that we can do this and it surly was a big treat for Dylan. It was precious. We headed out for a family dinner at the Oliver Garden, one of Dylan's favorites, YUM!
Saturday morning brought an early one for Brad. He was up and gone before sunrise. He is working on a huge project for work at the Coralville Dam. They are repairing the dam from wear and tare and a lot of the repairs are a result of the Flood of 2008. Brad's company made similar repairs to the Dam 25 years ago and that is the time the last repairs were made. As much as we missed him this weekend we knew the importance of the job at hand and once the water was pumped out of the dam there were only 10 mandatory days to make the repairs.
So Amanda came bright and early to watch Dylan and Dylan and I headed off for his first day of soccer! Dylan was SO excited to start soccer and even more excited that his best buddy from school Wesley and another classmate Afton are on his team! We dressed him in all of his soccer gear and headed out!

The first 30 minutes of soccer are practice, and that is practicing with the parents too! I was so excited to experience this with Dylan. We separated into teams of 10 and started working on drills. Kicking the ball back and forth, not using hands then onto dribbling and throw ins. Dylan and I both had a blast practicing together before he started practicing with his teammates. They then played a game of 'what time is it Mr. Fox' and whatever time Mr. Fox said it was they dribbled the ball that many times toward the goal. When the Fox said it was time for dinner, they all charged the Fox and kicked their balls in the goal. When Dylan's went along side the goal one little boy grabbed his ball and threw it into the goal for Dylan. Nice of the little boy but that = tears from Dylan thinking someone was taking his 'Hawkeye soccer ball.' As soon as he got the ball back in his hands he was happy! Oh lord!
Then the games began. Again the kids split into teams of 10. 5 put on yellow jersey's, Dylan being one of them. They play 3 on 3 and have 4 quarters. So 2 children sit out but each child plays 3 of the 4 quarters, their method worked perfect. Well to start off Dylan got hit in the nose with the ball. That brought quite a few tears and a bloody nose. The blood flowed and flowed but after it stopped Dylan was very hesitant on going back in. The parents who were acting as coaches kept coming over and asking him if he wanted to play and really trying to get him back involved, nope, this kid was done. I felt so bad for him because he had been having such a great time..... but that also turned into a big talk from Mom about being tuff and getting back out to play.
Lining up at center field after each goal is scored...

And they are off...

Sitting out after a bloody nose :(

So we will be back ready to go next week! He is excited to get to play with his Daddy next time and Mommy is excited to watch. I certainly cherished this first for Dylan and I loved being a part of it! We had a super fun time together and this was only the beginning.

The rest of Saturday was spent sadly watching the Hawkeyes lose to the Cyclones, taking a quick nap and then heading for a long walk and playtime at the park! We took full advantage of the beautiful weather and soaked up the sunshine! It was fantastic!

Sunday morning we snuggled and watched Remembering 9/11 and then got cleaned up for another afternoon of fun! Brad as I mentioned is working in Coralville on repairing the dam. So we thought what a perfect opportunity to take Dylan there and show him what kind of work Daddy does! Brad gave us pointers of where we could go and stand to see the best. So we picked up lunch on the way, stopped at the road side park inside Sugar Bottom, ate lunch and then headed off to the Dam. I had listened to Brad telling me about how he was working below water level etc and how many days it took to pump the water out, but apparently I didn't fully grasp it until I saw it in person. OH MY LORD, my heart starting beating really fast, my palms got sweaty and I wasn't too sure I wanted to see where he was working and actually how far below water level he was working!

On the wall on the right you can see the line where the water level normally is...pumps are pumping out excess water that continues to leak thru.

Normal water level at the line on the wall. On the left of the picture below you can vaguely see the bulk head they dropped in to stop the water, yet it continues to leak a bit thru on the right of the bulk head, hence the pumps which pump out that excess water. The first day he was working in 4 ft of water, by today a lot of that water finally pumped out and he was standing in minimal water. The bulk head is the only thing keeping thousands and thousands of gallons of water from rushing in, water normally fills the entire area up to the line on the wall.

So you can see the top of the red/white track hoe bucket down in the hole, yep waaaay down in the hole is where Brad is actually working.

At this point Dylan was very excited but we still couldn't fully see Daddy and exactly what he was doing, although we could hear it. The noise was LOUD, all of the jackhammering they are doing to remove the old concrete that they are replacing. So we headed to the top of the Dam for the full effect.

Yep, he is waaaay down there. The big track hoe you see in the middle of the picture and the bed rock showing that it is sitting on, that is all normally full of water. After the repairs are completed that area will all be full of water again until more repairs have to be made in another 25 years or so.

Brad spots us and is waiving to us! He is in the orange vest on the bottom left. Dylan LOVED that!

From here it doesn't even seem like he is that far down below normal water level, until you look at the pictures from ground level and see where the water normally is. It is pretty amazing the amount of water they are holding back so these repairs can be made. His crews are working around the clock 24/7 for 10 days straight to make these repairs. Once the water was pumped out there was an enormous amount of fish that was living near the bottom of the Dam. The DNR scooped those fish out and hauled them away. And we're not talking small fish either, one of the biggest ones they took out was over 6 FEET long! WOW! That is one HUGE catfish! He said there was an even bigger one than that in there but their temporary dike they build gave way at the start of the project and much to the DNR's dismay that fish got out. Darn...because who knows what type of fish it actually was and who knows how long it had been living in the bottom of the Dam. kinda freaky! And then the mini hoe you see in the bottom left of the picture, you know how they got it down in the hole.....from the crane! Oh my lord, they lift it down in, in the mornings and out every night with the crane! This was quite the learning experience for me.

The big concrete blocks you see in the picture (you can see 9 of them) they are jackhammering away the eroded concrete and will pour new concrete there. On top of other repairs, these are the main repairs Brad himself has been working on. Jackhammering for 12 -14 hours every day is not easy work.

We know Brad is working really really hard for us. It is not easy being gone away from his family for the weekend which is usually quality time. And these super long hours on a weekend are not typical. But we know this is a very important job that is important for his company and under very strict guidelines and a big time constraint. He is very much enjoying this experience tho, something new and different that may be a once in a lifetime opportunity for him. As I mentioned these repairs were last done 25 years ago. Thank you you Brad for working so incredibly hard for our family :)

After checking in on Daddy and showing Dylan all about what he does we headed home for some play time at our own play ground today! Dylan had a blast and as you can see he pretty much prefers this way of swinging...why...because he can go much higher and faster he says!

We even got Skylar in on the fun play time today and her reward....a nice big bowl of ice cubes and fresh cold water. She lives for a big bowl of this and it is pretty funny watching her eat them.