Nebraska Discoveries 7: Nebraska Popcorn & A Bright Spot in a Gray Day

22. October 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Today has been gray and rainy all day. Ugh.

Dave is in Michigan for a Google Earth conference. I’m jealous. I love Google Earth and would LOVE to learn how to write code for overlaying data!

So it’s just the boys and me tonight, so we had a laid-back afternoon/evening. We built Legos, ate macaroni and cheese for dinner, popped some popcorn, watched some Return of the Jedi, and had a video teleconference with FotoMom and her son Joey!

I have to share the popcorn experience with you. I picked up an ear of popcorn at the Arbor Day Farm.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

So this is it. About $2 from the souvenir shop.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

I like these instructions! So you can’t sue the company if your microwave explodes?

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

So here’s the popping bag.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

And here’s the popping bag with the ear of corn it in, per the instructions.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

The instructions say to fold down the bag THREE TIMES, which is what I do here.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

The shots of the corn in the microwave popping didn’t come out, but this is the product when it’s done. For starters, I popped this about a minute longer than your standard Pop Secret or Orville Redenbacher’s and it DIDN’T BURN! The first kernels popping sends the cob bouncing in the bag in the oven, which the boys thought was really funny.

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

A closeup of the cob — several kernels popped and remained on the cob. Cool!

From 2008 10 21 BigRedPopcorn

The finished product. The one cob gave us about 1 1/2 commercial bags worth of popped corn. Since this is about as pure as it gets, we had to season it ourselves. All I did in this case was drizzle 2 Tbsp. of melted salted butter on top. Perfection!

So the boys and I sat down and devoured this popcorn while watching the first part of Return of the Jedi. Then Maryann chimed in on AIM and we chatted for a few minutes. After all this time, I never got around to installing our web cam on our desktop computer…it’s a laptop webcam and Dave took the laptop with the software with him to Michigan. So we discussed letting our boys see each other and talk on the AIM webcam:

From 2008 10 21 VideoTeleconWithMaryannJoey

Joey and Timmy are showing each other their toy lightsabers. Joey’s is green (on the main screen) and Timmy’s is blue (on the inset screen). The laptop camera is on the left side of the picture, clipped to the left hand of my running trophy, which you can read about me winning here.

The boys had a blast with this — I put the camera far enough away on the desk that both boys could easily be in Joey’s field of view and they had the best time exchanging stories and telling each other how much they miss each other (awwwww….).

In a rare moment, I was able to get the webcam working in about 10 minutes…that’s the time it took to install the software and configure the video/audio on the webcam. Usually something goes awry when I’m installing new hardware, but tonight we were lucky — I figured I’d be jinxed for sure with 3 little boys’ happiness riding on whether the software installed correctly!

Nebraska Discoveries 6: Our Weekend in North Platte

23. September 2008 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 6: Our Weekend in North Platte · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

This past weekend we rented a camper from the Air Force base and drove it 280 miles west of here to the town of North Platte, Nebraska. They were holding their annual “Railfest”, this big Union Pacific Railroad/Town of North Platte celebration weekend. The UP sponsors everything, lots of fun for everyone. There’s a festival at the town park, plus lots of train-related activites throughout the rest of the town.

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

We visited several historic UP locomotives, visited the 8 story Golden Spike observation tower, and got to ride in a little mini-train.

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

 

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

 

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

For Sunday morning, I made arrangements for tickets for a bus tour of Bailey Yard, the UP’s classification yard. That was one of the most incredible experiences for any railfan, and even *I* found it impressive. Dave writes more about it here.

We drove home right after the tour, taking our times by driving east on U.S. 30 from North Platte to Grand Island (about 115 miles). This way we could parallel the UP tracks and saw at least 20 trains!

As for the camping, once Dave and I got over the initial shock of (a) requiring about 40 gallons of gas to get the camper from Omaha to North Platte and (b) everything you have to do to set up the camper at the RV campsite (water, power, leveling, starting up the fridge), we figured we’d have a relaxing weekend on our hands. I made a nice chicken and rice dinner with our dutch oven, then we toasted marshmallows and made Smores with the campfire.

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

 

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

 

From 2008 09 20 Camping_RailFest_BaileyYard_NorthPlatteNE

But at 1am Friday night, we were awakened by an alarm bell: the propane detector was telling us “no more propane”, although we hadn’t used any since dinnertime. Actually, a circuit board went bad in the 3-way power converter unit (which is what seamlessly transfers power from battery to AC for the onboard fridge, water pump and lighting)…so overnight the power switched from AC to battery and the battery died.

Dave and I did about an hour’s worth of troubleshooting, between 1-2 am Friday night…and gave up and went back to sleep angry. By Saturday, we just told ourselves we have a big hardened tent. Then we went on and enjoyed the rest of our weekend.

Nebraska Discoveries 5: Wild Sunflowers

05. September 2008 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 5: Wild Sunflowers · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Wild sunflowers are in bloom in E. Nebraska and W. Iowa. They’re just popped up all over the place, like how Queen Anne’s Lace pops up in PA and WV, and how wild thistle grows on the sides of the highways in NC.

So I pulled a Maryann and pulled over on the side of this country road while driving back from Toys R Us in Iowa and took some pictures.

This is what a single plant looks like…

And here’s a group of them.

There’s a HUGE field near Timmy’s preschool, I should get over there and take some pics soon before they’re over with.

813

03. September 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:


“What a strange number…”

Yep.

I’m one of the Box Top assistants for my son’s elementary school PTA. Aren’t I Little Miss Involved, huh? This was a good program to get involved in since I have a deployment in early 2009 that would mess up my being a room Mom or a PTA officer. Maybe next year.

Actually the group of us does a lot more than just the Box Tops for Education Program ($0.10 per label). We also help with the Campbell’s Soup Labels for Education (earn points, use points to buy supplies for the school), Tyson’s Project A+ ($0.24 per label), and Land O Lake’s Save Five for Schools ($0.05 per milk cap).

The school calls the entire program “Trash to Treasure”.

Every month, on the last school day of the month, each class turns in their accumulated “Trash” and the totals are tabulated. The class with the most labels/caps earns an incentive of some sort.

Jake’s class won for September, whoo hoo, with 534 items turned in.

Anyway, this week I picked up my sack of labels to clean up and organize. My task is to trim the Box Tops for Education (less excess around the label = less postage weight) and bag them in groups of 100. The sack I picked up was a gallon-sized Ziploc bag filled to the brim with labels. Whoa.

Yesterday I set Timmy at our kitchen table with Play Doh and other crafts while I sat with him and trimmed labels. You can see the untrimmed on the left, the trimmed on the right.

So I ended up with 813 labels trimmed and bagged. They range in size from 2″ x 3″ (like on a box of Toaster Streudel) to smaller than a fingernail (Pillsbury Crescent Rolls). My hands will be paying me back for this come wintertime — my hand pain has been a 24-hour cold front forecast for the past 3 years.

Trimming the labels I learned about the wide variety of products that have the labels, from Huggies to Caribou Coffee granola bars.

And I have to admit, today at the grocery store I was keeping an eye out for products with the labels…

…which is a corollary benefit to this program, huh? General Mills, Pillsbury, Kimberly Clark and Betty Crocker are steering us Moms-of-kids-in-school to their products.

Nebraska Discoveries 4: The Nebraska State Fair

02. September 2008 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 4: The Nebraska State Fair · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Today we paid a visit to the last day of the Nebraska State Fair in Lincoln. Unlike the North Carolina State Fair, this is somewhat smaller, mainly because most of the competitions are for youth, through their 4-H organizations.

The highlight for me was the demolition derby. We never made it to any of the NC State Fair ones, but I’ve enjoyed one at the Ohio State Fair, and Dave had seen both Ohio’s and Delaware’s. It won’t be long before we can make the circuit!It was in the low 90s, but we still enjoyed just enough animals, food, a tractor parade, demolition derby, games, and rides to call it a day at about 4pm.


We took our times driving back to Bellevue, taking U.S. Route 6 instead of I-80, and hoping to run into some BNSF Trains. We only saw this one on the trip back.

Nebraska Discoveries 3: The Pros and Cons

28. August 2008 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 3: The Pros and Cons · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

“So, Major Mom, how would you sum up Nebraska so far?”

I’ve gotten that question a lot this week. From neighbors and friends who have been calling to check up Dave’s surgery recovery.

So here are the pros and cons of Nebraska, and our new lives near an Air Force base.

Pros:

1.) Nice People. The people are SO NICE! Our neighbors wasted no time bringing us cookies and greeting cards, and offers to watch the boys when the movers were here delivering our stuff. In fact, today Dave received a card from his nurses at the post-surgery recovery ward at the hospital. Awwww…
2.) Cheap! The cost of living is much lower than what we were experiencing in the Raleigh/Durham area.
3.) Not as many SuperMoms here. There aren’t waiting lists for every activity/preschool/sports club that I’m interested in for my kids (yes, there was one for Jake’s soccer, but he still made it into the program and he was LAST on the waiting list!)
4.) No traffic to speak of. I don’t count the gate lines to get onto Offutt AFB in the mornings. And they aren’t that bad…not at all like Patrick AFB in 2002.
5.) Folks here drive the speed limit. I’m not sure if this is a pro or a con, since I tend to be an aggressive driver, this area has calmed me down quite a bit.
6.) Cheap gas. About $0.35 cents less per gallon than in NC (see CON re: gas below)
7.) We’re Near Our Local AF Base! The base gas station, commissary, exchange, post office and fitness center are all 10 minutes away. We’re renting a camper in mid-September from the AF base Outdoor Recreation center for cheap.

Cons:

1.) The endless corn and soy fields. While you might think, “Isn’t agriculture a good thing?”, I envision many of these fields are being grown for biodiesel and corn-ethanol. While I support our getting off of foreign oil reliance, I think other agricultural priorities (i.e., feeding people) are now taking a back-seat to it. That discussion is for another blog posting. You can read this for now.
2.) The cheapest gas here is the ethanol blend. This is why gas is so cheap here. The ethanol blend is a higher octane, so it sells as “Plus Unleaded”, but it’s $0.10 less than regular unleaded. A mindset shift.
3.) Odors. The STENCH in our neighborhood when the winds are coming in from certain directions. If the winds are from the south but light, we get the stench of the pig farm just south of here. If the winds are from the ENE and coming in at a good clip — 10 knots or more, we get the smell of some sort of rendering plant. I was checking my trash can on Monday when I was smelling what seemed like garbage — but really it was throughout the neighborhood (trust me, I walked around the corner and still smelled it).

Tangent: I remember living in Deridder, Louisiana in 1995-1996, I had a 20 mile drive northward to work every morning. I could forecast whether there would be fog at the Fort Polk base weather station when I arrived at work in the morning based on the smell I experienced when I walked out of my apartment. There was a paper mill to the west of where I lived — the stronger the stench when I walked out of my apartment, the worse the fog would be as I drove north in the morning.

I wonder if I will be able to predict the weather based on the smells here. Fun.
4.) Lines on the Road. The large intersections here don’t have lines painted on the road to tell you where to stop…and NO, this isn’t why I got into a traffic accident earlier this month! But no, no lines painted. I guess we’re on our honor to stop such that we don’t get hit by the cross traffic.
5.) The “N” is for “kNowledge”. There are NO major-league sports teams in a 3 hour radius of this area. So people have no choice but to root for University of Nebraska sports…sigh…and it’s fanatical here — almost as fanatical as Penn Staters!!! Many of the houses have block “N”s somewhere on it — sometimes it’s subtle, like a small block N on the front door. Sometimes it’s gaudy as hell, with a giant red-track-light-outlined “N” emblazoned on the fence.

This week is the Nebraska State Fair. While North Carolina’s is TOTALLY AWESOME, I’m sure Nebraska’s will be fun, too. Hopefully Dave is feeling well enough that we can go this weekend. Maybe we can see Styx in concert on Monday?

Some Good Nebraska News…

27. August 2008 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,


I got some good news today.

“FINALLY! You’re going to tell us something good that happened to the Vollmer Family in Nebraska?”

Now wait a second — I posted this a couple weekends ago.

“Yeah, but then you were hit with that flat tire on the bike ride over to watch the airshow itself.”

I know…I know…the move itself was better than the move from Florida to North Carolina, but some of the circumstances that have occurred just after the move seem pretty bad, huh?

Okay, okay…back to the point. I received some good news today. Jake is registered for soccer and he starts on September 8th.

When we first arrived here, I immediately started networking with other Moms in the neighborhood about two things: piano lessons and soccer leagues. Jake’s school and Timmy’s preschool is already squared away.

The piano lessons part was easy, there’s a piano teacher who lives right behind me! (Hi Alissa, if you’re reading this!) I hope to start Jake soon, but I’m not in an incredible hurry.

The soccer was a bit more difficult. Two parents told me that we were just a TAD late for Bellevue Soccer Club and Little Rascals Soccer open registration, but I could inquire about indoor leagues starting after outdoor soccer ends in November. I made a few phone calls…talked to a few other parents…and Jake’s future in soccer fell into two categories.

1.) He needs to be 9 years old for most indoor soccer leagues.
2.) He can go onto a waiting list for the local leagues that have already ended open registration.

Discouraged, I placed a phone call to the Bellevue Soccer Club representative to ask about how long the waiting list is. The gentleman was very nice and told me that if I acted fast…as in, within the hour, I could still get Jacob on the waiting list. He told me where to download the registration form on the web, and said to fill out the form and drop it at the Bellevue Soccer Club fields mailbox by 5pm (we were talking at about 3:50pm). At 5pm the coaches were going to assemble the lists and if there were still openings Jake might just make it.

So I acted fast. I had to pick up Howie from a grooming appointment anyway, and the BSC fields were on the way.

Today at about noon someone called to say that Jake made it onto a U6 team, please send the check to a particular address. Yay!

Jake is definitely nervous about starting in a new league, and an outdoor league, at that! He’s been playing indoor soccer since his 4th birthday. He’s really good when he isn’t under pressure, and is just starting to develop quicker decisionmaking. Unlike Dreamsports in North Carolina, this group will practice and play twice per week.

As for Timmy, aside from his preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ll probably get involved in a MOPS group in Papillion (the next town over to the west). They start up in September and meet on Wednesday mornings.

Nebraska Discoveries 2: Greetings from Cornhusker Country!

24. August 2008 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 2: Greetings from Cornhusker Country! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
Okay, I had been waiting to do this picture for some time — I wanted some nice pics of the boys in front of corn to welcome our fans to our new world. My car accident and Dave’s appendix, plus Jake starting school, kept putting this little mission in the back of my head.
Today I decided I could get the boys to a nearby cornfield this afternoon and try to get the sunlight correct for a nice photo to include in some of the “We’ve Moved” cards for those who don’t have computer access, such as my 95-year-old grandmother in FL.
Unfortunately, Jake was in a pretty bad mood, from lack of sleep last night, and it was tough to get him in the right mood to do this at first. The first photo was from about 11am, the one above was from about 1pm, on the way to the movies to see “The Clone Wars”. The movie was all right, from my perspective, but the boys LOVED it…full of action.

Nebraska Discoveries 1: The Offutt AFB Airshow!

18. August 2008 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 1: The Offutt AFB Airshow! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

We didn’t want to fight the crowds, so we watched the show from the levee of Papio Creek on the bike trail near our house. We had a great view of the Thunderbirds show, Dave and I have seen it enough times that we didn’t need the narration anymore 🙂

My Kindergartener! First Day of School 2008!

12. August 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

This was Jake when I picked him up from school today. He had a great day and is really looking forward to tomorrow.

I can’t believe my baby is in school now!

Jake gave a nice debriefing about his day, to include even the details of how he gave 50 cents to the lunchlady for his milk and she gave him 10 cents change :-). He also made a couple friends.

For those blogging Moms who have been showing off their boys’ super-cool backpacks, I’m going to show this picture! This is the LL Bean Junior Bookpack and it’s a perfect size and a fun, unique pattern. Jake’s backpack was hung up among a sea of Spongebob, Speed Racer and Star Wars backpacks. His definitely stood out!

Got the matching lunchbox, too.

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