It's Finished!

I just finished this quilt today! Yay! My first real adult sized quilt! Here is the happy receipent below, Kimpy.

Happy Birthday Katie!

Happy 21st Birthday Katie!

Today is my little sisters birthday... here is a picture of us with our cousin when we were just a little younger. (I'm in the back with Katie on the right and Ericka on the left).

This weekend Erik's brother, Ryan, visited us. It was great! We enjoyed having him here and catching up. Erik and Ryan went shooting on Saturday and I worked on a project (a secret). I'm almost finished with it and very excited to be. I made cookies to send back with Ryan along with Katie's birthday present. It was nice to have the package hand delivered. :)

Sunday I had softball. Those little first graders are just so much fun. They are so easily excited - made for a fun afternoon. Sunday evening we went out for dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, La Paz, with some friends and hung out at home.

Monday I got to see my friend and her little girl, Addison Grace. She was so cute. She was born on June 5th. It was great to see them both!

Tonight a big group of SNR students went out to dinner at Imperial Palace, a great chinese restaurant. I was talking to a friend about Blanding's Turtles tonight and then got on the Star Tribune and found this article: http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1322348.html I love these turtles! I've helped rescue some of the eggs from the side of the road near my parent's house that a turtle named Stephanie laid there. I went tracking a few years ago through Murphy too and that was a lot of fun. Cool to be a part of helping them out.

HOT = Sweaty

It has been incredibly hot this week. Right around 99 degrees. Monday at softball we took it pretty easy because it was so hot... I dripped with sweat without doing a whole lot. It was nasty. I don't like Nebraska for it's heat. I couldn't imagine living further south - yikes.
I've been doing a whole bunch of nothing-all-that-exciting this week. I'm working on some data at school. I've been coming home and working on some projects. Yesterday I went on a light run and came back super sweaty... It was cooler yesterday, but it was very humid too. Last night Erik and went to DQ and sat in the back of his pickup. That was nice.
I've called my sister a couple times this week too. It has been fun to talk to her. Her 21st birthday is next week. Erik's brother is coming down for the weekend. That will be nice too. I'm sure we will have a good time.
We are counting the days until our honeymoon vacation. I'm so excited! I've been looking up places I want to go see while we are there. I'm mentally all ready. I even made a list of the things I need to pack. It is going to be much cooler in WA so maybe I'll get to wear a sweatshirt - ooh I've been wishing for cooler weather!
That's it here. Like I said nothing-all-that-exciting, but I'm sure that it will pick up for the weekend. :)

Horse Races

Friday night was race night. A group of us went out to the horse races at State Fair Park. It was only $1.50 to get in. Erik and I bet on some horses and broke even. Later in the night we hung out at Patty's Pub. It was a good night.

I asked some guy to take our picture... the guy was none to happy
and so for pay backs he cut off John and Erik. :(

Saturday Erik went with Jen, Kevin and Justin to Cabela's. Jen bought herself a gun. She was very excited about it. I think Erik was happy to help out too. I stayed home and worked on some projects. Then later we grilled some burgers and went swimming.

It has been a very hot weekend. We swam again today. When it finally got cool enough to be outside, about 9 tonight, Erik and I decided to go for a walk. We got over the bridge and were walking down the path when I was stabbed by a fat stick. It was my own fault but it stabbed me right in the big toe and deep. Unfortunately, it bled a whole bunch so we decided to walk back and didn't get to go for our walk. Erik did, however, fill up his first aid kit today for our trip, so we were prepared for the stick incident.

What flower are you?

You Are A Lily

You are a nurturer and all around natural therapist. People see you as their rock. And they are able to depend on you. You are a soothing influence. You can make people feel better with a few words. Your caring has more of an impact than even you realize.

What Flower Are You?

I'm not sure about what it says about me, but lilies happen to be one of my favorite flowers! :)

Quiet Days

Oh it has been a little while since I posted last. Friday, Erik and I watched the movie Big Lebowski, made pizza and hung out with Jessie. It was just a laid back night. Saturday we went to the Omaha farmers market. I'd have to say we were disappointed in the market. It was smushed into a small parking lot instead of in the streets of the Old Market. We did get some raw sunflower honey that is very good, garlic, and some beef seasoning. We did enjoy walking around the Old Market looking at all the stores. It was fun and we just took our time. On our way back to Lincoln we stopped at Cabela's. Later in the day we went swimming and saw Pirates 3. That was fun to see. I don't think it was the best Pirates, but I'm not sure which was better 1 or 2.
Sunday morning was slow. I worked on a few projects and we just hung out. I had softball in the afternoon. That was fun too. We grilled brats and made pasta salad for dinner. It was very good.
Monday was back to work. I'm trying to get my data reorganized so that I can run some statistics on it but it is taking so long to get it how I want it. Oh well. I'm going to start writing here and I've made myself some deadlines for parts of my thesis so that I can stay on track.
Monday night, I had softball practice. It was low key. It is so fun to make one little change in a girls throwing and she can throw so much better for that little adjustment. Karen came back from field work in Cuba, so Kimpy made her a cake. We went to her house and hung out for a little while. It was great to see Karen.
Last night, Erik and I made BLTs. They were so good! A little messy but very good. I also put money on our laundry card earlier in the afternoon. I went to do laundry and the card wouldn't work. I had the washer full of our sheets with the detergent - that was kind of a bummer. I guess I'm doing some laundry today instead of last night.

Fireworks

On Monday, I went to lunch with Christina and Noah. We went to Imperial Palace. They have such great food there! It was an Asian cuisine kind of day, because after softball practice, we went to the Blue Orchid to celebrate John's birthday. Then we came back to our place for cake of course. Softball practice was interesting... 5 girls showed up of 14, but it was the 4th of July week so I understand. But then the most annoying girl shows up and complains the entire time, doesn't pay attention and gets beaned not only in the chin and top of her head but also right in the stomach. You'd think she'd learn to pay attention. Oh well.

Tuesday was a busy day at school (as was Monday). I had a lot of data to play around with, but somehow it just isn't that much fun. Tuesday night I had zucchinoos from Kim... zucchini cut in half and the insides partially taken out and then stuffed with rice and some other good stuff with melted cheese on top. Then Erik and I got to watch Jessie, our neighbor's Shiba Inu for the evening. Mostly I got to, because unfortunately Erik had to go to a meeting, but he got to play for a while. He is a very sweet dog maybe about a year old. I'd love to have a dog like Jessie.



On the 4th, we decided to go to Schramm State Park. It is an old fish hatchery. It is kind of run down. You can tell they haven't put too much into it lately, but it was nice to get out and see some fish and go for a hike. It was certainly a hot day for a hike too, but you can't let it stop you, because then you'd never go outside in Nebraska during the summer.


After hiking about, we went to eat at Holyland Cuisine. It was wonderful. Then we did a little shopping. We went to South Point Mall. Looked around in Scheels and a few other places. I got a great deal on some white capris at Old Navy. The time got away from us a bit and we hurried home so that I could make Peach Crisp for the party. Erik and I peeled all the peaches and made the peach crisp. I took twenty minute snooze and then we were on our way. We went to Gloria and Robert's house and had a potluck dinner there and watched fireworks.

Nebraska fireworks are a little bit different than I'm used to. There are more legal fireworks here than there are in the great state of MN. And EVERYONE shoots them off, no matter where they live it seems. We sat along the road and Robert shot them off in the road. The road was not blocked off, so cars came by every once in a while and some drivers were so stupid and just drove along side a firework going off. There were fireworks going off everywhere. You could look in any direction and see fireworks going off the next block over or a couple blocks over. It was crazy. We could also see the fireworks that they city puts on from Gloria and Robert's house. That was fun too. It was set to music on the radio so we listened to that too. When we drove home, there was haze from one end of town to the other end from all the fireworks. The fireworks continued through the night... although they were suppose to stop at midnight. We are all a little tired today, but it was a fun day.

Here is Robert lighting some fireworks... doesn't it look like is head is missing?

Hula girl fireworks

Sparklers - fun and scary with some many little kids not thinking
about where they are pointing theirs.

Kimmel

Friday was a nice day. I took it off from work/school. I did a couple things around our apartment and went for a run. It was a good day - much needed break. Erik and I made Jambalaya for dinner. It was so good. It is always fun to cook together.


Saturday, Erik and I got up at 6 and drove down to Nebraska City. We ran the 5K Jaycees Independence Day race. It was my first run. I wasn't too excited about it before the race. I just wanted it to be over, but when it was over and I had accomplished it - It was a great feeling. There were 46 runners (okay it was a small race but who cares). Erik took 4th with 25:14. I took somewhere in the 15th range, with a much slower time, but hey... I set a goal and I was almost 5 minutes under that goal, so that is what matters. I accomplished what I set out to do and 5 minutes faster. :)

After the run there was a pancake breakfast. The worst pancake breakfast I've ever had! The pancakes were either soggy or crusty. The ham was fake and tasted terrible. The syrup was even bad. Then we went to a wellness center so we could clean up. I'm glad they had that available.

We walked around downtown Nebraska City. It is a cute little town. We had lunch at the Avenue Grill. As soon as our food came we were silent. We were very hungry.

We drove to Arbor Trails Winery and tasted some wine and bought some too. Then we went to the Kimmel Orchard. This is funny because at UNL there are two Kims... Kim P. and me, Kim L., so they call Kim, 'Kimpy', and me, 'Kimmel'. We bought sweet corn, apple cider donuts and Erik got some Apple Brew.


When we got back to Lincoln, I crashed for about 2 hours - much need nap. Last night we made barbecue chicken and sweet corn. Then we had some friends over for some dominoes.

Today we went to the farmers market. We loaded up on real maple syrup, peaches, tomatoes, steaks (for dinner tonight) and cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon rolls were great but a bit on the large side.