Allison - Flight Zone Toptracer Driving Range

March Madness Winners

Jason spent a total of 22 hours working on the pool. He thought there might be some other numbers nerds out there so here are some stats. 2195 total correct picks 372 Unique individuals with at least 1 correct pick 120 individual winners 85 people with 10 or more correct 13 people with 20 or more correct 4 people tied with 23 out of a possible 30 games Iowa teams played a role in the highest and lowest numbers of correct picks. The first game set us off to a poor start with only 6 (traitorous!) people picking UAB. However, our 5th game had an overwhelming high with 145 people picking Iowa. Sean Kirkpatrick, who accurately picked 23 games correct wins the special “unluckiest person in the pool” award for not having any of those 23 games score him a prize. $10 Most unlikely name award: April May June Best basketball name award:Jimmy Hoopes Most cursedly difficult names for me to type awards: Rick Demuynckm, Adam Kalwishky, and Stephanie Schnoebelen. The “FIRST” award (aka, Toad’s biggest fan award) goes to Kolby Starr who almost always had the first pick in each round. Introduce yourself when you come out. Taking the family and kickin butt awards: The Thompson’s (not necessarily related) Mark, Scott, Sommer and Todd had a combined 53 correct picks. Perhaps more astonishing, the Young’s, Timmy and Jeremy had an amazing combined 42 correct picks If you find your name misspelled, Jason apologizes. His typing is not what it used to be. We all wish you could ALL win something because we appreciate you playing. The winners: Alphabetically by first name $10 WINNERS A’s Adam Sondag, Allison Judge, Allison Piper, Amy Gould, Angela Veenstra, Ashley Rungee, B’s Bethany Schemmel, Bill Fratzke, Bill Odom, Bill Porter, Brad Jackson, Brett Godwin, Brian Charleston, C’s Casey Gloege, Charlie Folsom, Christian Rundle, Courtney Bower, Craig Keith, Curt Malaise, D’s Daniel Burke, Darell Butcher, Daryl Sackmann, David Blair, David Webber, Deb Townsend, Denise Hopkin, Dwayne Campbell, E’s Eric Tappan, Ethan Scott, G’s Greg Funaro, H’s Heather Benesh, J’s Jacob Rodenberg, James Flanagan, Jana Bower, Jared Paullin, Jason Schlitz, Jayme Marquart, Jeff Buehler, Jeff Loneman, Jeff Yoder, Jen Bonnichsen, Jennifer Morrison, Jeremy Olesen, Jeremy Vande Noord, Jeremy Young, Jesse Hanson, Jim Byers, Joe Eilbeck, Joe Gahman, Joe Yang, Joel Newman, John Ehlinger, John Haines, John Mitchell, John Walker, Josh Elmquist, Josh Schroyer, Josi Shepherd, Justin Bonta, K’s Karla Lanser, Ken Reed, L’s Lindsay Weigel, Liz Gibson, Lorin Rickabaugh, Lucas Iburg, M’s Mark Wood, Matt Sheets, Matt Ziska, Mike Bunch, Mike Cook, Mike Raitt, N’s Nick Loiocomo, R’s Ron Ehlinger, Ronda Finch-Shinogle, Ryan LaRosee, S’s Sara Wright, Sean Kirkpatrick, Shelly Krauth, Sommer Thompson, Stephanie Schnoebelen, T’s Tamara Harter, Theron Vanderflute, Timmy Young, Todd York, Tony Dierson, Travis Hartman, Troy Cook, Tyler Abels, Tyler Veenstra, Tyson Bos, W’s Wade Den Hartog, Z’s Zeke Campbell $15 Austin Miller, Carol Van Dyke, Jason Karaidos, Jeremy Siglin, John Eighmey, John Gordon, Jon Ault, Kolby Starr Lana Nickell, Matthew Kizer, Matthew Risberg, Ryan Hohanshelt, Sandi Starcevich, Scott Coe, Scott Thompson, Tammy Peterson $20 WINNERS Ashley Elizabeth, Brad Feldman, Bud Simpson, Carlene Hohl, Carrie Burns, Dawn Pewick, Travis McCuen $25 WINNERS Brandon Buckner, Dennis Davitt, Kurt Witte, Steve Armstrong Congrats to all and THANK YOU for participating. All winners may pick up their gift cards at the clubhouse. All gift cards must be picked up, at Toad Valley, before May 31st. There is no cash value. Gift cards may be used for ANYTHING that Toad Valley sells; golf, minigolf, food, drink, merchandise, lessons etc. Thanks again!

Trains. Planes. Automobiles. And Greg Norman.

Golf Course

My trip to the NGCOA conference for 2015 can be summed up in four words. I Hate Ice Storms. Get ready. This is a long tale of Allison and Theresa’s Great Adventure. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Our original flight was to take off early Monday morning which would have put me in San Antonio around noon leaving me enough time to attend my board meeting and time for my speaking engagement. Sadly. Dallas got an ice storm which caused them to cancel over 1,000 flights including my own. I called the head conference director for the NGCOA and told her that I was going to have to cancel. The earliest American Airlines could get me into San Antonio was on Wednesday night. Yeah. That wasn’t going to work since the conference would be over by then. In my defeat, I went over to my sister’s house for supper and broke her the news. She looked at me and said, “Wait. Does this mean you won’t be meeting Greg Norman?” It was sad, but true. In true big sister form she claimed that there must be a way! She got me thinking that maybe I should try different cities to fly into around San Antonio. I found a few flights, but they were well over $1,000. I like Greg and all, but not enough to spend my son’s college fund. I called my sister-in-law, Theresa, who was traveling with me and told her to unpack. The trip was officially off. Sulking the whole way home from my sister’s, I thought maybe I could fly out of another airport. I got on the computer and managed to find a flight out of Kansas City that was going to fly into Houston. The flight was only $100, so I booked it and a rental car to drive to San Antonio. I called up Theresa and told her to stop unpacking! Greg Norman. Here we come!! It was at this time that the true nature of my insane family began to take shape. Our flight out of KCI was set to take off at 6:00 a.m. Because my husband needed to be back in time to take our kids to school at 6:30 a.m., we foolishly decided to drive down to KCI at 11 p.m. at night putting us at the airport around 2 a.m. and leaving my husband enough time to get back home in time to take our kids to school. That’s right. My husband is officially Husband of the Year. Theresa and I arrived at the airport and tried our best to sleep in the super comfortable (sarcastic font) airport chairs. At 5 a.m., we went through security and began the process to get on the plane. When we didn’t begin boarding right away, we knew there was a problem. Our flight had been delayed until 8:00 a.m. This seemed strange to us since the plane was clearly parked at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, that plane was meant to go to Dallas and had been grounded (because of the ice storm) which caused it not to have its routine maintenance done on it. Through a series of unfortunate events and scheduling mishaps, the crew arrived at 8 a.m. to pull the required maintenance. That meant that our flight didn’t even take off until 11:30 a.m. Thankfully, the airline graciously gave us all $7 vouchers for lunch. That afforded me about a teaspoon of hummus and 1/2 of a carrot. The good news is that I have never met a stranger, so by the by time we were ready to board, I had about 200 new friends. I had also been awake for about 29 hours at this point, so my filter had long since left. In our family we make drug related jokes. Is that normal? Don’t answer that. For instance, when our house caught on fire a few years ago, my husband often told people that it was caused from me smoking crack in bed. Obviously, I would never do something like that, but it makes for a funny story. One of my new BFF’s from our hours of bonding in the airport had asked a group of us if anyone had any aspirin. I happen to carry Aleve in my purse, so I offered some to him. I handed over the bottled, then casually mentioned that I had laced it with only a small amount of cocaine. That got a good laugh, but he looked a little uneasy. Turns out I really know how to pick friends because he was a police officer for Las Vegas. Since I managed to stay out of jail, I guess he was cool with my joke. My lack of sleep had clearly caused a weakness in my filter. We boarded the plane and traveled to Houston without incident, however, we were going to be cutting my speaking engagement very close. When we landed, there was yet another series of unfortunate events including stalling on the tarmac and the realization that we had to walk an obscenely long distance to get to our rental car. It was quickly becoming apparent that I would, indeed, miss my speaking engagement. Because I’m my father’s daughter, I gave it my all and drove around 90 miles per hour from Houston to San Antonio in the outside chance I could get there to fulfill my obligation. I couldn’t drive any faster because we had rented a Chevy Spark and they start to rattle once you hit around 91. We pulled into our conference 15 minutes too late for me to be able to fulfill my speaking engagement, but just in time for the opening reception. They had some great food there that are commonly found at golf courses. You know me. I had to give it all a try. Plus a band called, Cactus Country. Theresa and I spent the following day at the Hill Country Golf Club and attended the Golf Industry Show.

Remember the Alamo!

Golf Course

Theresa and I recently traveled to San Antonio to attend the National Golf Course Owner’s Conference. While there, we had to check out the Alamo. It is San Antonio after all. Before we headed over to check it out, we had some lunch with fellow golf course owners. Katherine Jesmek who owns a family golf course just outside of Chicago and George Kelley who owns Stevinson Ranch in California. The Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio is one of the coolest places I have ever been to visit. It was a completely other city just at the basement level. Here’s a shot of it at night. After we attended the Golf Industry Show, we decided to check out the Alamo. It was pretty anti-climatic, but we were happy to say we saw it. Once I saw this hotel, I couldn’t stop singing the Davey Crockett (King of the Wild Frontier) song because I like to embarrass people. Normally it’s my children, but in this case, it was Theresa, my sister-in-law. We walked around the garden area which made Theresa happy. She’s a Master Gardener and we haven’t seen green grass for several months, so this reprieve was welcome. They had many really interesting looking plants and trees. After wandering around, we discovered a wishing well, so Theresa made a wish. She wished she had worn tennis shoes. I didn’t tell her that her wish wouldn’t come true since she said it out loud. Oh well. It’s the price you pay for style and beauty. How about you? Have you ever been to the Alamo? I forgot to get any pictures of me there, so I guess I’ll just have to Remember the Alamo!

Golf Industry Show 2015

Golf Course

Theresa and I recently attended the NGCOA (National Golf Course Owners) Annual Conference in San Antonio. Part of the conference includes attending the Golf Industry Show which has loads of anything related to golf. I like attending this show because unlike the Iowa State Fair, there are no hot tub vendors and they don’t pull women in for their sales pitch. The golf industry is a pretty heavily male populated industry, so the vendors rarely guess that I am a decision maker. That’s fine with me. It means I can have loads of fun at the show! The show had a giant cube out front screaming for awkward poses. We were happy to oblige. My brother is a pin ball fanatic, so Theresa (his wife) was pretty stoked to find this old Pac Man machine in one of the booths. Although we had gone to the Golf Industry Show with a specific reason to look at some software and check out a mower, my brother quickly told us to buy the machine. We didn’t because it simply wouldn’t fit in our luggage. Theresa and I are pretty huge candy-holics, so we were partial to the booths that had candy available. After a while, we contemplated wearing some costumes because it nearly felt like Halloween with the amount of candy on display. We always have to stop by the Standard Golf booth because they’re Iowans which, by default, means they’re the coolest booth at the show. Coming in with a close second for coolest booth were these people from Bernard. They had matching jackets that were amazing. I kind of wanted to buy their jackets for my staff to wear. I’m sure they’d have my neck for that wardrobe selection, but it’d be worth it. Don’t you think they’d look good with some argyle socks? We thought this display for a fungicide company was clever. Then, we came across the type of mower that our outside crew had told me to check out. Theresa took it for a test run. We discovered it worked well AND I survived! It’s a hover mower which is used to mow pond banks. Then, Theresa and I came across the coolest display at the show. It was an acrylic golf cart. It was just a display to showcase long lasting batteries, but the sales people were kind and allowed us to pose on it because we are professional after all. After all of our laughter, I needed to find a restroom. I saw this sign and assumed I had hit the jackpot. Clearly, I need help. This was the sign for the elevator (who would have guessed???), so I was thankful when I found THIS sign. It’s a shame, I can’t read because letters and words would have been helpful for me. Earlier in the conference, we had run into some golf course owners from Australia. They happened to be hanging out at the booth we had wanted to visit which was the software group. We let the Australians ask all of the questions because their accents made everything mundane about reports and margins sounds profoundly more interesting. We were clearly having more fun at the show than any other golf course owner, so John Deere’s sales people were happy to allow Theresa to pose in the skid loader. We even found a San Antonio police officer who was game for our antics. That, my friends, is how you attend the Golf Industry Show with gusto! How about you? Did you purchase a hot tub at the Iowa State Fair? Have you ever been arrested for climbing underneath a mower?

Touring Hill Country Golf Club

Golf Course

A few weeks ago, I made my annual pilgrimage to the NGCOA (National Golf Course Owner’s Association) Conference. It’s a great way to network with fellow golf course owners to get their opinions and trade secrets about what they are doing to help grow the game of golf. In previous years, I was able to tour Shingle Creek last year and several other courses in the San Diego and Orlando regions. This particular golf course, Hill Country Golf Club is located in San Antonio, Texas and is affiliated with the Hyatt. It’s a resort course that features many conventions at its facilities as well as business meetings, weddings, and a beautiful restaurant. The land on which the golf course sits has been in the family name for four generations. The first thing we were treated to was an authentic Texas style breakfast. Three different varieties of breakfast burritos served with a variety of salsas. Plus bacon and eggs. They also had a Mariachi band playing, so it was basically the best breakfast ever. You all know how much I love me some Mariachi bands! At the opening of the tour, we were introduced to the patriarch of the family, Dr. Charles Wiseman. When he mentioned that they had recently completed a 35 million dollar renovation to their resort, I knew that his family business and my family business were on two different playing fields. It was still fun to listen to the story of how his 3,000+ acres of ranch land had been passed down for multiple generations. He even said that his mother had inherited the land when she was three months old. After the opening session, I wandered out to the driving range to check out Fling Golf. I need to preface my entire experience with a confession about the worse episode of peer pressure I have ever come across. Back home in Iowa, I left -7 degree weather, so I was pretty excited about traveling south. Sadly, our weather affects Texas weather, so the high for the day of our tour was only supposed to be 52. I had decided not to wear a coat because that was nearly 60 degrees warmer than back home, so I figured it’d be ok. When I left my hotel, I quickly realized the error of my ways and began to retreat back to my room for my coat. My roommate, Liz Doyle, who owns a golf course in Oregon, told me that I was an Iowan and I could tolerate it. After all, the weather was only supposed to get warmer. I fell prey to her threats and went without a coat. I headed out to the range and quickly noticed that not only was I one of the few on the range, but I was definitely the only one without a coat. The other three people and I braved it to take note of the Fling Golf. It was a balmy 35 degrees, so I kept myself warm with positive thoughts. Fling Golf is an alternative way to play golf. The clubs are very light weight and you place the ball into the club head. They offered to have me demonstrate. I declined since I was having trouble feeling my hands and could visualize the disaster that me flinging a golf ball might cause. Kathy Aznavorian, who owns a family golf course in Michigan called Fox Hills, volunteered since she obviously didn’t fall prey to the peer pressure and wore a coat (and gloves). The only thing that was redeeming to my intelligence of outdoor apparel was that I wasn’t participating in the golf outing. Hill Country had just received their batch of brand new Club Cars in a swanky orange color. They were fancy and even had windshields which somehow always take the sting out of playing in colder weather. For the last several years, I had tossed around the idea of putting speakers outside around the clubhouse. It seems to be a growing trend to pump music in the cart parking area as well as at the driving range, so I took a peek at their set up to see if it was something I could duplicate. Originally the breakfast was going to be served outside, so I was very glad when they had a change of heart and allowed us to eat inside a tented area. When you’re in Texas, everything is country. The bathrooms were marked by cowgirls and cowboys. We talked about having a boy or girl toad on our bathroom stalls, but that idea got quickly put shelved right next to the idea of having a zip line installed from our balcony to our ceremony site for brides to zip down the aisle in style. We sat in a marketing meeting where we found out that Hill Country was celebrating it’s 22nd anniversary of its opening day on that particular day of our tour. The golfer snack bar area even featured a pool table. The problem with installing a pool table at our golf course is that it would make it so that my dad would never go home since it’s one of his favorite past times. It does fall pretty low behind his love of trees, though. The irony of this sign hanging in their snack bar on this super cold day was not lost on me. When I was done touring the snack bar, I looked to try and find my roommate, Liz, and my sister-in-law Theresa. Imagine my surprise when I found them huddled with fellow northern golf course owners around the fire. You know it’s cold when the golf course owner from Alaska has on a heated jacket and the course owner from Colorado purchases a stocking hat from the Pro Shop. Should I remind you that I didn’t have on a coat? We made our way back to the tent for another Texas style lunch. Cole slaw, pulled pork, beans and creamed corn. Yum. When we walked in, they

Glamorous Jobs

Family Matters

Having grown up on the golf course, I have many stories to tell about all of the many jobs that I have performed over the years. When I was two years old, my dad would take me with him and I would help him change the cups on the course. My job was to set the cup. Because I was so small, I wasn’t very effective with the tool. My dad would always brag to others that changing cups took him one hour when he did it alone, but with Allison’s help, he could get it done in two hours. My chest would swell with pride because I was truly helping my dad. I realized I was wrong about twenty years later. My cousins and I often did the jobs around the clubhouse that were the lowest on the fun factor. We got paid in love and nickels, so we made the best of it. We washed and gassed the carts. I also had the fun job of picking up the garbage on the golf course. Let’s not forget cleaning the bathrooms and loading the pop machine out of the course. There aren’t many jobs that I haven’t performed over the years. That’s why I fully understand when my children let out a small groan when I place a phone call that I need some additional help. They are often spotted helping to clean out carts after a golf outing. Their small stature getting some looks from golfers while they park the carts. Not surprisingly, they are very good at helping. The current least favorite job at the golf course is that of the dishwasher which requires my frequent phone calls to my children for help. Now, I haven’t quite figured out the lure of the dishwasher at the golf course. For some reason, my children enjoy it far more than they enjoy our one at home. Not to mention the fact that washing dishes for 200 people takes more time than washing for our family of five. I’m just glad they are happy to do the job. When my daughter was in third grade, she told her friends that she had a job. None of them believed her. I just hope in time that the fun of washing dishes at the golf course translates to our home environment. I guess I have never grown to enjoy filling my car with gas, so maybe it’s just the fun of work that makes the most mundane jobs exciting. How about you? Ever do a job at work that you’d never dream of doing at home?

Yik Yak Breakfast Day!

What's Cooking

We had a strange morning in our neck of the woods. Several students from our district decided to antagonize police officers through an app called Yik Yak. Ultimately, this event ended in my children staying home from school after it was cancelled for the day. Being a nice mom, I made them get out of bed anyway, but enticed them with a cooking demonstration at Sysco. They were mildly excited, however, my middle child decided to spend his morning with a school friend. When we arrived at Sysco, we thought that our reputation had preceded us. We are known for laughing more than your average business owner/manager when we attend Sysco events, so we assumed they were talking about us when we noticed that under our name it stated Last Laugh. Turns out, we are actually quite conceited. Last Laugh was the name of the restaurant that was coming in for a tasting following us. Yep. You guessed it. When we heard that, we laughed. A lot. We had to pose since we had quite a motley crew with us today for our tasting. I’m not sure why I decided I was so massively tall that I needed to squat. We are clearly very tired and freshly out of bed in this picture. The good news is that we brought our empty stomachs with us. Our chef got right to work creating some breakfast items. We have been throwing around the idea of having a weekly Sunday brunch, so we wanted to get some ideas. We will definitely have our Easter Brunch that we had last year. It was a great hit, so we are excited to change it up and include some new recipes. He started with a breakfast sandwich. He also included a breakfast dog that we could put on our roller grill. My oldest boy was pretty excited that they had apple juice. He’s a teenager and can put away some serious calories, but apple juice is his preferred drink. As in, he drinks several gallons of it a week. The breakfast sandwiches included a muffin, egg, cheese and sausage patty. No denying it. It was tasty. We were also fans of the cool toothpicks they had. They had two different types of biscuits for us to try. Chef had also made sausage gravy. The biscuits were amazing, but the whole family agreed that my mom’s sausage gravy won in the ultimate contest. Sometimes you just can’t beat your mom’s cooking. After breakfast, it was time to move on to lunch. First up were some pork burgers. I was fascinated by the chef’s method of separating frozen patties. I wonder if they teach that to you in school. We had a good laugh about his skills. Eventually he was able to separate and grill the burgers. He served them on a toasted pretzel bun. Yeah. It was as good as it sounds. Our chef was doing his best to come up with some quick on-the-go options for golfers. It’s a tough thing to tackle since it has to be quick and easy. Here was a wrap that he offered. The wrap had shredded pork, cheese, lettuce, and salsa on a flavored tortilla shell. Their salsa was delicious. By this time, our team was barely able to move we had consumed so much food. Luckily, we had to wait a little while for the chef to finish his final recipe for us. We had asked him to show us how to stuff a beef tenderloin. We had tried it at one of their presentation days and knew it tasted amazing, but we were curious as to how it was to be completed. He began the whole process by pounding out the beef tenderloin. No fancy tool. He said his favorite tool of choice is a small saucepan. Next, he spread the blue cheese mixture down the center of the loin and showed us two different methods to tie it up. Then, we waited and tried to digest to make some room for what we knew would be the piece de résistance. Here’s one half of the tasting crew made up of my son, Brady, my sister-in-law, Theresa, and me. Here’s the rest of our crew which included my daughter, mom and my cousin, Kerry, who helps mom in the kitchen. Kerry is our resident cake decorator. After doing jumping jacks to try and burn off calories and some snooping around in their professional kitchen, we were served up the delicious stuffed tenderloin. Yeah. It was truly amazing!! There you have it. Aren’t my kids lucky they had a no school day? Have you ever tried making a stuffed beef tenderloin? It was easier than I thought it might be.

Board Meetings Can Be Fun?

Golf Course

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m on the NGCOA board. The NGCOA is the National Golf Course Owners Association. I represent a Single Course Operator in the Midwest. The board has many operators in different capacities which help to represent a look at golf course owners as a whole. In the fall, they have their annual meeting in downtown Charleston. If you’re dying to know, here’s a link to last year’s recap. Since last year was my first year on the board, I didn’t realize that many of the board members bring their spouses to the fall meeting. If you have never been to Charleston, I highly recommend it be put on your places to see before you die list. It’s a beautiful town. It makes for a nice tourist-y place. Since the meeting falls near our anniversary, I thought it’d be fun to drag bring my husband along for the ride. We left our two teenage boys in charge of their ten year old sister and boarded a plane. Not quite. My parents were around, too. We’re not that dumb. Luckily the house didn’t burn down while we were away. The board meeting covered many hot topics that are currently plaguing golf courses. It was a very interesting discussion. I always enjoy hearing from other points of view about what’s happening around our country. After talking with people with courses in California, I’m so happy that I live in Iowa. After the board meeting, we had lunch out on the pool deck. In the meantime, my husband went and did lots of fun activities. He’s a Navy guy, so he went to check out the USS Yorktown. He also went to explore the downtown area of Charleston which has many interesting shops, markets, and beautiful homes including a few from Naval officers from long ago. Once my meetings had concluded, we headed over to Daniel Island Country Club to play a little golf. This is the same place where I attended my first board meeting. Since my husband and I work too much, we haven’t played golf together for about two years. In fact, I haven’t really played much golf lately. It seems like I’m always busy working at the golf course or taking a child somewhere. It was really fun to get away for a few hours. While we were walking up to the clubhouse, my husband pointed out a tree frog that was hanging out on the pillar. I’m short, so this is a bad picture of it. It is, however, a great picture of the blue ceilings. When my husband and I went to the Keys a few years ago, we learned from a tour guide that the blue ceilings are thought to keep away insects as well as ghosts. Not sure if either of those are true. It’s pretty regardless. We climbed in our carts, which happened to look exactly like our old blue Club Car carts that we traded in the beginning of this year. It’s nice to think this swanky course had similar tastes in golf carts. I was pretty excited about my Taylormade rental clubs. They even came with a badge declaring me a member for the day. I took a picture of the badge, but was foolishly not facing the right direction of the sun. Just picture it saying “Best Golfer of the Day.” It was fun to pretend like we were retired and enjoying a round on an upscale golf course. If you look closely at my husband’s eyes in this photo, you can tell that he thinks I’m crazy. I really liked this feature they provided in their golf carts. It was a map of the pin placements on the course. I took of picture of it with the intentions that I might make something like it to put in our carts for next year. Don’t hold me to it, though. The starter shed, where a starter with a Boston accent helped us out, had some instructions for the day. Once we got everything situated, we headed to the first tee. On our way, we saw the coolest sign. I want to buy a few alligators just so I can have this sign at the golf course. I could probably make a sign that says Beware of Big Brother. Golfers could have contests with spottings of my brother, Jason. This is a private club, so there were very few golfers that day and the grounds were absolutely spectacular. My husband is easily entertained. The south has a really interesting breed of squirrel. It kind of looked like a cross between a squirrel and a raccoon. We had to take a selfie and send it back home to our children and family back home. Taking a break is always more fun when you can brag about it to those who are back home going to school or working. Check out their water they have on the course! Complete with an ice machine! I also had to take a picture of how they handle bad drainage spots to give to my superintendent. He always loves it when I tour other golf courses because I return with lots of super fun projects for him to duplicate. This golf course is in a newer area of Charleston (Daniel Island) and the building market is clearly booming. There were hammers going in the background during our round and we easily saw 20 houses or more being built. I love the south’s architecture. It has so much character. I couldn’t pick a favorite house. I wanted to live in them all. It has occurred to me that on a golf course blog, I have never posted a picture of me golfing. That is about to be remedied. My husband managed to capture my best side. I have no idea what I’m thinking. I’m going with, “Was that a tree?” As soon as we were done golfing, we headed to the airport for our flight back

Candy & Old Gorillas

Family Matters

Part of the fun of living in our community is that feels like a small town. Except. It isn’t. Most small towns don’t have amusement parks and Bass Pro shops. My dad grew up in Altoona. His childhood home still stands along with the first pool in the city of Altoona which happened to be at my dad’s childhood home. When he was a young boy, his family would come home to find neighbors swimming in their pool. They didn’t care and enjoyed being the favorite hang out spot. Although we are technically from Pleasant Hill, we previously (up until about five years ago) were considered Runnells. Basically, we are from Southeast Polk since we’ve lived in three of the four cities it encompasses. It doesn’t hurt that our land adjoins the school’s. If you’re lucky, you can hear the marching band practicing in the early morning when you play golf. We have a favorite time of the year in our Southeast Polk community. That’s called Homecoming Week. My dad was a graduate of Altoona High School. My brother, sister and I are all graduates of Southeast Polk. In fact, my Uncle Steve, was in Southeast Polk’s first graduating class. In other words. We have roots. Because we can’t help ourselves, we have to go big or go home when it comes to our parade antics. Those include making sure we have plenty of candy. (Good candy, too. Suckers make terrible candy for parades.) It also includes making complete fools of ourselves in costumes which represent the festivity of the Homecoming Theme. This years theme was Barnyard Stomp. Since we’re considered country bumpkins in our competing conference, we like to embrace our stereotypes. Every year that we have participated in the parade, my brother has gone as the gorilla. He’s been just the plain ole’ gorilla. He’s been superhero gorilla. Let’s not forget King of the Jungle gorilla in previous years. This year, he was old woman from American Gothic gorilla because that makes total sense, right? Luckily, we have family who live near the parade route, so we met in their driveway and donned costumes in the public space. Mostly because, if you aren’t embarrassing your family, then you aren’t doing your job. Step One: Put skirt on gorilla. Step Two: Add old woman hair, broach, and apron. This is the step where my brother, Jason, also loses his dignity. Step Three: Hang picture frame from front of golf cart. (Step Three and a Half: forget to take picture) Step Four: Hang American Gothic picture of the house behind the cart to get full American Gothic effect. (Step Four and a Half: forget to take picture) That leads me to my costume. I always include my children in on our float, so we decided to dress as our favorite part of a farm. We went as bacon and eggs. Driving golf carts comes in handy because we can sneak in among the long trailers, fire trucks and semis without much incident. Then, we spend about an hour sampling all of the candy and generally acting goofy while we wait for the long train of businesses, organizations and politicians to begin their descent on the nearly 4 mile long parade route. We love running into our golfers while on the parade route. There’s easily over 5,000 people who line the streets of Altoona waiting to experience the parade that lasts for hours because our community is cool and knows how to have a good time. If you’re lucky, the gorilla will even get out of his golf cart and greet you. My oldest son is in the marching band, so our whole family has a great time supporting our school and attending the football game. My sister and I always sing along when the school song is played. She does it because she’s a good singer, I sing along because it embarrasses my children. Mostly, we all have loads of fun and enjoy the fun atmosphere that being a part of a community that has deep roots in our family’s history represents. How about you? Ever participate in your high school’s homecoming parade?

Iowa State University’s Cyclone Club

Events, Tournaments

I’m fully aware that this post might be the most divisive post I have ever written. I’ll just preface the whole thing by saying that I went to the University of Iowa. Hopefully that will help all of those hard core fans not hate me for enjoying my time spent with Iowa State fans. Iowa State has the Mayor, so I kind of have to be a fan. Not liking Freddy is kind of like hating on newborn babies. It just isn’t cool. We were fortunate enough to be the location to the Iowa State Cyclone Club’s annual Iowa vs. Iowa State pre-game golf outing. This event takes place on the Friday before the big game every year. My favorite part of the whole day was getting to meet Cy. Try as I might, I could never get Cy to break character and start talking to me. Sadly, this golf outing had the unfortunate luck of landing on a cold and rainy day. I didn’t manage to take any other pictures of their clever gimmicks to capture the spirit of the big game because I’m made of sugar and can easily melt in the rain. You’ll just have to participate in the golf outing in 2015 for a chance to hit Herky and (in general) bash on Iowa and sport your cardinal and gold. I gotta know. Are you a Hawkeye or Cyclone fan?

Services

Quick Links

Join Our Birthday Club