Once again I have gotten behind on the blogging.  So here is another post to catch up the readers of the Dungan Domain (both of you) with what has been going on lately in our part of the world.  This time the update covers the first five months of 2019.

January 2019

Happy New Year!

Dog Adoption: Samson

We’ve been wanting to get another dog to keep our older dog, Lucy, active.  I applied with a couple of local dog rescues and ask that they keep an eye out for a dog that was a Beagle-mix or similar.  One local rescue found a Harrier Hound that they thought might be a good fit for us (spoiler alert: he wasn’t).  We met Scout and, even though he was larger than we were looking for, decided to adopt him.  We re-named him Samson because of how big and strong he was.  He was a good looking dog, as you can see from the pictures below.  But he was just too big (about 65 lbs and not done growing) for our little 20 lb Jack Russell Terrier and they weren’t able to play together without Lucy getting hurt.  And he also had behavioral issues that would have required extensive time and probably professional training to remedy.  So after about 3 weeks of trying to make it work, we decided it was best to return him to the rescue and keep our eyes out for another dog that would be a better fit.  Here are some pictures of our time with Sam.

 

Jenna Dancing

One of Jenna’s favorite songs is Shake it Off, by Taylor Swift.  She asks for it all the time and dances every time she hears it.  Carol was able to capture her dancing on her cell phone.

Snow (again?!)

We got our first snow before Halloween, so by the time January rolled around and we were still getting large amounts of snow, we (adults) were pretty tired of it!  Grant and the dogs, on the other hand, didn’t mind the snow.

Random Pictures from the Month

Grant’s crazy hair, Grant cuddling with Lucy in bed, Grant and Lucy, and Jenna happy at dinner.

February 2019

Nate’s Birthday

I was forced to celebrate another birthday.  Every year I insist that we do not celebrate the anniversary of my birth and every year my wishes are ignored.  Actually, celebrating birthdays is a lot more fun when there are kids to help me celebrate.  Here are some pictures from my birthday this year.

Date Night: Concert

Carol and I were able to go to our first concert together in many years.  Our last concert was Elton John when Carol was very pregnant with Grant.  I was driving around Lincoln when I saw a billboard for a concert that I immediately knew I had to take Carol to, because it was one of her favorite artists:  James Taylor.  And he was going to be performing with special guest Bonnie Raitt, who I knew Carol also liked.  And let me tell you, they were awesome!  Here are some photos and a video of some of songs they performed.  I apologize for the poor quality of the video, but all we had was our cell phones and they didn’t do too well with the dark conditions.  The sound is pretty loud though, so you might want to turn your speakers down if you decide to watch it.

More Snow! (@#&^%&$!)

More snow in February.  Argh!

Random Pictures from the Month

Ice cream, Grant’s crazy hair, Silly selfie, and two Grant silly faces.

March 2019

Home Remodel Project

One of the things that we didn’t really like about this house when we bought it was the kitchen counters.  So we decided to get the old counters replaced with new granite counter tops.  And while we were at it, we had them replace the counters in two of the bathrooms to match.  Of course, projects always end up larger than you originally planned.  So we ended up with new sinks, light fixtures and paint as well.  Some pictures before and after the counter tops were installed are shown; the final product will be shown in a future blog post.

Carol’s Yoga Getaway

Carol enjoys yoga and has found a local place to take classes a couple of times a week.  In March, she’d planned to be away for a weekend to go to a conference, but the conference got cancelled because of (you guessed it) bad weather!  This time, there was some parts of the state that were expecting snow but there were large portions of the Midwest that were experiencing flooding due to melting snow and additional precipitation.  So instead of going to the conference, Carol found a place in Drexel, Missouri that was having a yoga retreat and signed up for that instead.  It is good for her to get some time away to relax, so we convinced her to stay at the lodge for two nights.  She seemed to really enjoy herself.

 

On the way to the site of her yoga weekend, Carol stopped to video some migrating birds that were taking a rest in some of the flood waters of the Missouri river.

Nebraska Flooding

While we didn’t see much flooding in Lincoln, my hometown of Beatrice had some flooding that resulted in the bridges over the Big Blue River being closed.  During the weekend that Carol was out of town, the kids and I went to Beatrice to see Gramma and Pa.  While we were in town, Grant and I went went with Gramma to check out the flooding.  Quite a sight!

Dog Adoption – Attempt #2: Daisy

I found another dog that I thought might be a good fit for our home pretty much immediately after we returned Sam to the rescue, but agreed with Carol that we’d take some time before jumping into adopting a dog again.  I agreed to wait until the snow melted and we’d gotten our new counter tops installed.  But once those things happened, I convinced Carol that we should schedule a meet and greet with a dog named Alice at a different rescue than we’d used before because she’d been available for a couple of months and I didn’t want to miss out on her.  We actually met both Alice and her sister Vera who were believed to be Beagle mixes and had been rescued after being abandoned in a field in Oklahoma along with a third sister.  We all really liked both Alice and Vera, but decided that we’d adopt Alice.  After much thinking and discussion, we settled on the name of Daisy for our new dog. Daisy has been a great fit for us and we don’t anticipate that we’ll have to return her.  She is a great size for our household and is super gentle with both the kids and our older dog.  While she also lacks training, she is much better behaved than Sam was.  And much quieter, which is a bit strange for a Beagle-mix.  Which we have confirmed by doing DNA testing.  She is 50% Beagle, 25% Plott Hound, 12.5% American Eskimo Dog, and 12.5% Shih-Tzu. Welcome to the family, Daisy!

Random Pictures from the Month

Happy Jenna, Silly Nate, Smiling Jenna, Silly Nate and Lucy, Stuff piled on Dada, Grant Selfie, Bunnies at Church, Silly Jenna, and Silly Jenna and Dada.

April 2019

Horse Riding Lessons

Grant and Jenna have begun taking therapeutic horse riding lessons.  They both really enjoy being on the back of the horse.  Grant has been able to “drive” the horse by himself through a course after learning how to make the horse stop and go, and turn left and right.

 

Holmes Lake Playground

We’ve been trying out different city parks and found that the play equipment at the park by Holmes Lake is pretty nice.

Grant’s First Recital

We bought Grant a Ukulele for Christmas and he has begun taking lessons.  He was able to participate in his first recital alongside his instructor.  Here he is playing Aura Lee, which is also the tune of the Elvis song Love me Tender.

Carol’s Birthday

Carol celebrated her 45th birthday this year.  Here we are singing to her and presenting her with 45 candles to blow out.

Stellar Teller

Grant was selected to be a 5th grade bank teller at his school this year. A local credit union comes to the school once a week and helps the student tellers take deposits from other students for their savings accounts. At the end of the year, all of the tellers from all of the different Elementary schools got to go tour the College of Business at the University of Nebraska.  One student from each school was selected as the Stellar Teller and Grant won the award for Cavett Elementary!

Easter

We went to see my Grandma Bonnie for Easter this year at the nursing home in Kearney, NE.  We hid some plastic Easter eggs and had her find them, like she used to do for us when we were small. We ate an Easter lunch with her and enjoyed spending time with her.

[Pictures Pending- waiting on family members to share them]

Random Pictures from the Month

Jenna on the patio, Nate with Jenna and Beckett, Grant and Daisy, Nate and Daisy, and Grant with an Air Conditioning Technician at a business in Beatrice that he toured and got an old AC to play around with (HVAC is a current interest of Grant’s)

May 2019

Fishing

While Carol was away for the day at her rescheduled conference, we met up with my parents at a lake between Beatrice and Lincoln and had a picnic lunch and then did a little fishing.  Grant caught his first Nebraska fish (and shortly after his second)!  He was the only one of us to catch more than one fish.

Kindergarten Music Program

Jenna participated in the Kindergarten music program this year.  Here are some pictures and a video compilation.

15th Wedding Anniversary

Carol and I have been married for 15 years now.  Unbelievable how quickly the time has gone by.  We were able to get my parents to babysit so that we could go out to dinner and a movie to celebrate our Anniversary on the weekend before the actual date.  We think this might have been our first movie together since 2012. Also, on the actual day of our Anniversary, Carol made a special lunch of Cheese Fondue.  It was lovely.

Grant’s Birthday Party

Grant turned 11 this year.  We were excited to be able to have Nana come for a weekend right before his birthday and spend a few days with us.  While she was here, we planned a birthday party for Grant and invited my parents, brother and sister-in-law and nephew, Beckett.  It was nice to be able to celebrate Grant’s birthday with everyone.  And Grant seemed to enjoy the day, even after it started off a bit rough.  A couple of hours before people were set to arrive for his party, he fell off the banister in the living room and hit his forehead on the floor – which caused a large gash and a fair amount of blood loss.  [You will note that he has a bandage on his head for the remainder of the pictures in May.]

Grant’s 5th Grade Graduation

There was a really nice celebration of the 5th graders graduating from Elementary school.  Each kid received a certificate from their teacher and then the kids walked through the school and all of the kids from the other grade levels came out into the hallway to cheer for them.  Then they came outside to receive applause from all the parents.  It was a pretty neat way to celebrate a milestone in their education.  Plus, they also got to eat ice cream, go bowling, and eat pizza at the park. A super fun last day of school.

Last Day of School

School is officially out for the summer.  Both kids had a really good school year.  Here are pictures of the kids with their teachers, Mr. Aken and Mrs. Williams. Also pictured is one of the aides that helped Jenna a lot during the year.

Random Pictures from the Month

A horse with a mustache, sharing a blanket for a movie, and pretending to drive a Jeep.

Random Video of the Month

Just because she’s so cute!