I'm still kickin'

Hey all (and by all I mean all 6 of you who humor me and read this blog...and are nice enough to pretend it's interesting). Somehow the entire month of March slipped by without a blog post and now I'm just trying figure out how to catch up. I have many many pictures to share (shocking I know) but right now my camera is charging up so I will give you a little update via actual words instead of pictures until I can get my images downloaded.

This month has been nuts. It started out with Jason making plans to visit South Dakota to possibly see his sister Becky play at the state basketball tournament. Our plans changed quickly when his beloved great grandma Mina died. She was quite the lady who lived to be 98 years old. Needless to say we headed back to SoDak as a family to pay some respects. Unfortunately, his great aunt died the day after we arrived at the age of 96. (My grandma is currently in her late 90's as well so I'm starting to think we need to boost our retirement plan). Though it wasn't the greatest of circumstances, we are always very happy to be back in Pollock. The drive however, sucks. It is so hard to be living this far from family. Tyson slept a total of 30 minutes on each round of the 12 hour (one way) drive. Anyway, we returned for a total of three days and then Tyson and I headed to the local Amtrak station and boarded the train to northern Minnesota to visit my sister and her newest little nugget Tucker (along with her other little nuggets Tate and Teagen). It was a blast. The boys played non stop and Jen and I got some good girl talk in...well in between all the chaos that is little boys playing. Now we are home and plan to stay here for awhile. I promise to update with pics as soon as possible.

for Phyllis...

The summer after I graduated high school I moved into my aunt Phyllis and uncle Bob's house so I could work in a nursing home until college started. Anyone who's met my aunt Phyllis knows that Martha Stewart's got nothin' on her...especially when it comes to quilting. Before you can even utter the words 'pregnancy test' she's already got a baby blanket made and in the mail, somehow magically matching the decor of the nursery. So over the course of this summer I watched her quilt...and I watched my cousin Rachel quilt...and soon I thought, "hey, this business looks fun. I should try it."

I was wrong.

Turns out an 18 year old who just moved out of her parents house for the first time doesn't really like quilting. She probably wants to spend all time off eating cereal and watching bad soaps. Phyllis eventually finished it for me because she's cool like that...or perhaps because she had the ability to predict that I wouldn't actually finish anything of this crafty nature for another decade. So this one's for you Phyllis...I finally did it!!!

My mom and I tore apart my uniforms that I wore in Iraq and I attempted to make something pretty out of them.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little proud.