12 of 12 January

1. We got to church pretty early (like the 10th car in the parking lot), so Millie and Marcella had plenty of time to look at pictures in Marcella's new scriptures before our ward started late, as usual.
2. Signing up to feed the elders. We feed the missionaries a lot with a set of sisters and a set of elders assigned to our ward.
3. Taking it easy in Relief Society before his dad was done playing the piano in Primary and came and got him.
4. I got a bunch of magazine subscriptions for Christmas, so I have to keep up on them.
5. Moved Truman to the Pack 'N Play in the back room in attempt to get him and Millie to nap better. I think he's afraid it all might come collapsing down on him. (Three remaining pre-hung doors take up a good amount of space.)
6. Rolls raising.
7. Glamour girl on her way to the Wallins.
8. Millie and Kanien at dinner.
9. Chris's hands, Jon and Cella at dinner. Before Chris abandoned us to go home teaching.
10. Cella was playing her new DS and Millie got my phone. "Toca Builder is my favorite." She left me evidence.
11. Snuggles before bed.
12. It's a rare day that our bed doesn't get made, but apparently we were in such a hurry to get to church super early that it didn't happen. And then the Pack 'N Play stuff got thrown on it, along with church clothes.

Strange Satisfaction: Potlucks

Recently I've noticed I get a strong sense of satisfaction from some of the strangest things. Tonight's pleasure? A well-balanced potluck.

Months ago Chris called me from the grocery store. "They have ten pounds of ribs for $12.99. Is that a good deal?"

Not buying ribs often, I wasn't sure that it was stellar, but knew it wasn't terrible, and left it up to him to make the final call. He went for it. Not being at the store, I didn't realize the ten pounds of ribs were frozen together in a box. Into the freezer they went, taking up 1/3 of it.

I figured Memorial Day weekend was as good as any to encourage the cooking of these ribs and a party was born. Chris spent the day tending to the ribs, while I got to go shopping with Millie and help a friend with her moving prep.

We had a nearly perfectly balanced pot-luck. There were chips, soda, green salad, potato salad, watermelon, corn on the cob, chicken, raspberry Cool Whip salad, corn bread, rice and popsicles for dessert. I love when it works out like that. Some pot-lucks end up being a feast of four pots of baked beans, or all desserts, or nothing remotely resembling a vegetable, but tonight's was spot on.

Added bonus that I threw out 5:00 as the starting time, and about 6:30 the heavens opened and a downpour commenced. For the most part every one was done eating and we just had popsicles left to polish off while we played sardines in our cozy (and humid!) kitchen.

A very satisfying night.

Seventh "Copper" Anniversary

Chris and I celebrated seven years of marriage on Saturday. Well, we celebrated on Friday, too.

Years ago I decided I wanted a Glacier National Park Pendleton blanket for our seventh anniversary, since the gifts for seven are copper/wool. Back when I decided this they sold crib sized blankets. But not anymore. And spending that much money for a blanket seemed ridiculous, so I told Chris he could scrap the idea, despite it being a sentimental reminder of our honeymoon to Glacier.

Chris changed his route and decided to go for the copper. A week before he told me we needed to gather up all the pennies in the house. And I started wondering what he had up his sleeve.

Kanien had been willing to babysit and I knew we'd get to enjoy our Friday evening together. But then I was told that we'd be leaving about 2:00 in the afternoon. I was intrigued.

Earlier last week we drove past the Copper Dog Cafe downtown and I was so proud of myself for figuring out that element of our date.

Friday afternoon we packed Millie's bag, dropper her off and the Wallins and we were on our way. Chris pulled out the GPS and selected destination #1. It directed us toward Indy. I was really intrigued.

As we got into Indy I told Chris that I needed to use the bathroom and asked if this destination had a bathroom. He replied it did, I had used it before and he was pretty sure it was a nice bathroom. What?! I racked my brain. Finally I realized we were headed toward the Shane Co, our jeweler, to drop off our rings for their annual cleaning. He couldn't fool me.

After dropping off our rings Chris trusted me enough to man the GPS and pull up destination #2. As we were driving through Indy, near the airport exit, I told Chris, "It would be awesome if you had our bags packed, our passports at the ready and we were going somewhere awesome for the weekend.  Sigh ...One day, right?"

I remarked how Indy was bigger than I thought, because we just kept driving. Then I looked at the arrival time on the GPS and it said 5:58. Almost two hours later? That couldn't be right!

Chris confirmed that it was, indeed, right.

What?!

He decided since I was captive and we were well on our way, it would be alright to share the plans. Millie was staying with the Wallins overnight. Our bags were packed in the trunk. We were headed toward the Copper Kettle in Charlestown for dinner. Then we'd head to New Albany to the Mansion Row Inn to stay the night. The next morning we'd go to the Louisville temple, do a session. After that we'd hit Copper Cupcakes on our way home, and he might have programmed a Hardy's into the GPS as our last stop, for my anniversary present to him. (East of the Mississippi we have Hardy's instead of Carl's Jr, and Chris misses Carl's Jr. We don't have a Hardy's in town.)

After the craziest, twistiest, make you sick to your stomach road I've ever ridden on, we made it to Charlestown. Southern Indiana is really pretty, but it was weird to still see blue tarps on roofs from the tornadoes this spring.

Dinner at the Copper Kettle, meh. It was decent, but it was just a little mom & pop and nothing special. Decent, for sure. And there were lots of locals eating there. It was just the beginning to a weekend where we were called, "honey, darling, sweetie, etc" more than the past seven years combined. Welcome to the south!

A nice patron saw us trying to take our self portrait and came out to help us.

From the Copper Kettle to Mansion Row Inn. After dinner, I was a little bit worried about what we might find in small town southern Indiana. But there was no need to fear. We were impressed with beautiful Mansion Row in New Albany and with the bed & breakfast. We read on the patio, walked around the neighborhood and enjoyed the gorgeous, cool evening weather.

Chris did really well packing. Except he forgot my makeup bag. I'm not the most high maintenance girl, so whatever. Except with no makeup in pictures. Eeep. Oh well, this was the only picture we took of us at the inn.

The 12' ceilings, 8' doors, and all the original trim work made my heart go pitter-patter. It was really a pretty place. Breakfast was a bit of a disappointment in the morning, sadly.

No, the Mansion Row Inn has nothing to do with copper. And the Abraham Lincoln room (Abe -> pennies -> copper) was booked. It just happened to be in the right vicinity.

I really like the Louisville temple. The layout isn't as confusing to me as Chicago. BUT! It's always freezing. This was our second time going there and the second time an older woman near me told me, "I always wear my long underwear and a sweater when I come here." I was debating whether or not to grab my cardigan or not, but that answered that. So, for future reference, dress warm when you're in the Louisville temple!

The last official stop was at Copper Cupcakes. It is in Norton Commons, this adorable little neighborhood. I was in love. I love mixed use neighborhoods. And it seemed like it really was a tight-knit community. We had lunch at the market just up the street from Copper Cupcakes and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. 

Chris said that it was a very climatic weekend. Copper Kettle was alright. The bed and breakfast was good, but lunch and cupcakes were awesome and such a good way to end it.

Despite Kanien's offers to keep Millie Saturday night and return her at church yesterday, after a stop at Trader Joe's we came home and resumed responsibilities as parents. Millie seemed so much bigger and chatty. I think spending lots of time with older kids will do that.

Yesterday at church a friend asked Chris if I did alright without Millie. Chris responded, "I think I had a harder time than Deidra did!" What can I say, I was too busy enjoying the surprise weekend to spend much time worrying. And I knew she was in good hands.

(As for the pennies and the Copper Dog Cafe? Pennies were a red heron. And the Copper Dog Cafe hadn't crossed Chris's radar. If it had, the weekend would have probably stayed closer to home. But it worked out that we headed south near the temple.)

This weekend reminded me so much why I love being married to Chris. He's great at planning surprises (and I'm really good at being unsuspecting). He makes things happen and he always has our marriage at the top of his priority list.

Seven years, no itch. I love my husband!

12 of 12 August

1. Millie tried using my keys as a remote for turning off the lights in the chapel. It didn't work. (But I love that she thought it would.)
2. Remember my first lesson with the Laurels? Today was my last lesson, since the whole YW was reorganized. There were tears. And lots of sad hearts. No new calling yet.
3. Chris canned pickles on Saturday, and they look beautiful. He's the pickle canner at our house.
4. Watching team rhythmic gymnastics. And sad the Olympics are almost over. (Fun fact: Jon and Kanien's friend was a cameraman for rhythmic gymnastics.)
5. Making milk chocolate frosting for zucchini brownies. Yum.
6. The kids next door greeted us every time we left or came home.
7. Claire and Marcella had picked peppers from the garden. Claire dropped hers and Millie quickly claimed it and didn't want to release it.
8. Eating candy off the Wallins' patio. It was spilled at Claire's birthday party the day before and then got wet. I removed the peanut M&Ms and let her go for it. She was a mess when she was done.
9. Walk with the Wallins, Ordynas and Wilsons. There were 13 kids between the four families. (We have one, the Wallins have two....)
10. She loved swinging.
11. Nest necklaces I just need to put on chains and send off.
12. The aftermath of Sunday my wardrobe changes. Sundays are the worst for this.

Chicago, Round Two

The game got rescheduled for Thursday at 1:20 pm. Since Jim and Jan left dark and early Wednesday morn, we invited Jon and Kanien to join us for the game.

We were able to go to the temple in the morning. Chris and I had planned to switch off, but we left later than planned and hit traffic. It ended up that they were short-staffed on men, so Chris wasn't able to do initiatories.  He stayed with Millie and walked around the temple grounds while I served in the temple.

We had time for a quick stop at Trader Joe's then found the parking garage, met up with the Wallins and took the L into the game. (True to character, Amelia had lots of people smiling on the train.)

The weather could not have been more perfect to spend an afternoon at the ballpark. I had been hating summer, but with cooler weather, I'm hoping it sticks around for a while longer!

 I love spending the day (or evening) at a ballpark. Something about it gets me all sorts of giddy and excited. The atmosphere, the concessions, the booing, the cheering-- I love it all!

I was eating my Chicago dog with Millie on my lap. An errant tomato escaped with some big globs of mustard and made quite the mess of us. It got her blanket and my shorts. Thankfully, this time the mustard yellow really was mustard and not poo!

A family photo at Wrigley Field that includes Amelia! The Cubs pulled it off and beat the Nats. Chris was wearing my Nats visor, so he had to cheer for them. I was wearing my Cubs hat, but I cheered for both teams. I was pleased as punch with the weather, being at the ballpark and watching a good game.

Tom Ricketts was sitting in the section right below ours (he's the guy in the white shirt in the bottom left of the above picture), so there were lots of people flooding him for autographs (yeah, we had to google him, too). After the game Kanien was brave enough to go for it. Once she did it, I had to join in and got my new Cubs hat signed.

Hooray for fun friends! We were so glad Jon and Kanien could join us.

If I'm going to be a Cubs fan (and I'm basically a fan of any team I've seen play or visited their stadium), I've got a lot to learn. Like the Cubs Victory song:



It's no "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway or "New York State of Mind" at Shea Stadium, but it will do. I've been practicing. Go Cubbies!


Early Thursday morning Chris crawled into bed (waking me up ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off) snuggled up to me and told me, "I've got a surprise for you. Frank is going to be in Chicago today!"


Best. Surprise. Ever.


Frank had written on my Facebook wall:

Eileen and I will be in Chicago Thursday though Sunday. She has doctor conferences, or I'd convince her to drive us down to visit her alma mater! Xo

The little brat had the gall to basically say, "Too bad we will be so close but not get to see you." Not so fast, buck-o! (Eileen is his mom and she did grad school at Purdue.) Chris had told him that we'd be in Chicago and plans to meet up were quickly made.

So, after the game and a wardrobe change for me, we met up with Frank and Eileen at Millennium Park. On the walk there, Millie was enthralled lying in her stroller and gazing up at all the skyscrapers. I was more than pleased to spend more time at the park, and to do so with some of my favorite people on planet earth.

Does this picture ooze giddy-happiness? I think it does.

Frank and I have so much history together. Our relationship is something pretty darn special. It's hard to explain. We couldn't disagree any more on some really big issues. We get each other basically to the core, which means we know exactly where the soft and vulnerable spots are. And since we can both be ruthless, we've each aimed to hurt a few times before. We know the very best and the very worst about each other, and we can bring out both. But we've both grown up a lot since high school, so now we mostly bring out the best. Suffice it to say, I love me some Frankie!

It amazes me that for as different as our lives are and how far apart we live, Frank and I are able to see each other a decent amount. From LA, to DC, Burley (important to note his parents no longer live in our hometown, so it's not like he goes home to visit them there), NYC and Chicago, our paths happen to cross just right every once in a while. Though most of the time it's a little more intentional than this happy little incident.

As we sat in the park, reveling in the perfect night and chatting with Frank and Eileen, our good friends from high school were brought up a number of times. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for that bunch of kids who chose to be good. I pray Millie gets an equally good group of friends.

We topped off the night with some late night Chicago style pizza. Yum!

It was an absolutely delightful evening. Hooray for facebook messages and serendipitously being in the same city! And I never thought I'd say it, but hooray for rain delays and cancelled games for making it all possible! Other than getting home at 2am, it was just about perfect.

Things I Learned Yesterday

1. When your friends plant a forest of cucumbers, skip town and leave you to watch their garden, you better get a plan in place to deal with them.
2. Pickling salt is ridiculously absent from several grocery stores in our town.
3. The grocery store where pickling salt can be found (the one closest to our house, of course) has two different types. One brand is 3#/$3.99 the other is 4#/$1.99. You do the math.
4. The recipe for dill relish only uses 8# of cucumbers. Which isn't nearly enough, considering our current situation. 
5. Tumeric stained dish clothes look surprisingly similar to baby diaper blow-outs.
6. OxiClean does not react with tumeric stains the same way it does with baby poop. It turns the tumeric a bright maroon color.
7. But eventually, OxiClean works on tumeric stains. I love OxiClean, but that's nothing new.
8. It's fun to learn new things. I like stretching my canning muscles and increasing my know-how. I'd never pickled anything before.
9. We are seven pints of dill relish richer than we were the day before. And we still have plenty more cucumbers. I have a feeling we'll be a lot richer in the pickle department before this is over.
10. The Wallins need to come home soon, or we'll be over our heads in tomatoes, too!

Read-A-Thon

On Friday night the Wallins hosted a Read-A-Thon and kindly invited us to join in with them. Either that, or they told me about it and I invited us to join in. With myself, I'm never quite sure!

I know the picture is blurry, but I like these people and this one is the most flattering.

Claire was in bed and Jon was working off some Wal-Mart induced frustrations in the garden when this picture was taken. It was so fun to pile up the pillows and have time set-aside for reading. Hooray for fun friends! Next time we'll take pledges and see how many pages we can read. Anyone want to donate? We'll use the money for fun Indiana adventures!

Perfect Summer Day

Yesterday we had a very perfect summer day. We started off the morning picking blueberries at a local farm/ orchard. Yes, it should have been about the experience, which was great, but I was a fan of the $2/lb blueberries that couldn't get any fresher.

Chris and I made pretty quick work picking seven pounds. Amelia enjoyed a nap in the stroller.

Then we loaded up the car and headed a couple hours northwest to the Indiana Dunes and the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan. We spent several hours lounging on the beach, wading into the brisk water, reading, snacking and enjoying the sunshine. Some of us looked cuter in our swimming suits than others.

She liked the beach, I promise. She was just a starving swimsuit model at this point in the adventure.

We were woefully unprepared for the beach, but luckily the Wallins came prepared with beach toys and umbrellas. Marcella designated the littlest umbrella as Millie's. (We gratefully took it, even thought it was branded U of U.) It was a trial run and we'll be much more prepared when the Stephens family joins us in a just a little while!

We capped off the day with a trip to Albanese and a big ol' Costco run. On the drive home we learned that lightening bugs glow when they hit your windshield.

Pink

Meet Claire and Marcella:

Claire loves "baby! baby!" and was so proud that she got to hold her.

Marcella will make an awesome babysitter in a few years. She always wants to hold Millie. She has a knack for putting her to sleep.

Millie pretty much goes with the flow. These three girls in pink make me happy! We're so glad for friends who are great examples for us in our new roles as parents.

12of12 March

1. Our kick off to Spring Break brought to you by this little snippet from Better Homes & Gardens. I now wonder if anyone scoped it out in person before they published it. See: National Maple Syrup Festival. Small town production wasn't ready for the crowds brought by national attention.
2. Maple sap dripping in the bucket.
3. A whole bunch of tapped trees.
4. Chris with an evaporator at Mellencamp Maple House. (Uncle to John Cougar, fyi.)
5. I carry all my pregnancy weight in my shoulders, apparently. (35w5d pregnant)
6. So I didn't take as many pictures as I should have.... that's what happens when your friend is packing her DSLR.
7. I've already seen this on Little Rascals. This guy was so sick of fried chicken by the end of the day. 
8. Friends on the bus.
9. Southern Indiana landscapes are pretty--
10. They make me wish I could paint.
11. Chris had to be an observant driver so we didn't lose our friends.
12. This one is actually from Sunday the 13th. We were close enough that we figured we'd drive to Louisville, see the temple and then go home. (Decided it's a way better trip than Chicago. Further to drive, but about the same time traveling. Less stress.)