Bright Eyes

Some of you may know that my pupils are naturally super dilated. In fact, I've even been asked if I do drugs because they are so large. Here is proof of my huge black eyes:

Okay .... Don really took this picture after my recent eye check-up where the doctor dilated them for me. But honestly, my eyes are about this dark/large all the time. I just thought this pictures was super freaky :)

Where Nature and Fun Collide

Yes, we have become true Midwesterners ... why else would we go to The Wisconsin Dells last weekend? Well actually, it was because The Dells happen to be the midpoint between Minneapolis and Chicago so that we could meet up with our good ol' Chicago pals, the Mulcocks, Wards and Burguns. We all met up at a killer water park/resort called The Wilderness Lodge on Friday night. The next morning we ate a delicious crepe breakfast to start off our water park adventure.

Here is a picture of Caitlin and me slaving away on delicious, healthy whole wheat crepes.


While we cooked, all the dads watched the babies. Below is Jeff and Max; Chris and Ella; and Trevor and Jane. So cute!



Then it was off to the water park for the day. This picture says it all (that and I didn't want to put pictures of me in a swimsuit on here. haha!) All the guys looked like they were back in grade school and had the time of their lives trying out all the slides.

The next day it was time to tour The Dells, which is the strangest place I've ever been. Anything and everything touristy that you could imagine was crammed into a small town with a population of 2,000. The main street of the town probably had 15 t-shirt shops and 20 old-fashioned-photo booths.

To start the tour of the strange town, Don and Jeff needed some Dairy Queen ... Yummy! Jeff proves that the blizzard was thick enough to stay in the cup. Don is looking over in unbelief.

Did I mention how many tacky t-shirt shops there were? Jeff and Caitlin got really excited about this one, which said "If You See Da' Police .... Warn-a-Brother".

Then of course we had to see the up-side-down White House... yes, The Dells had an up-side-down White House.



And finally, we had to check out the Trojan Horse ... yes, The Dells had a Trojan Horse.

Don't all of these exciting pictures make you want to visit the Wisconsin Dells sometime? It is, after all, where nature and fun collide.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

March was certainly the month of visitors and we were excited that so many people came to visit. After Bill and Janet came, one of our best friends from grad school, Chunqing Lu, came to party it up before starting her new job. I wish I took more pictures of her visit, but this is the only one. We made her eat dinner on our “You Are Special Today” plate in celebration of her new job.



Then Rachelle Tuttle, my roommate from my USU days, visited for a few days during her spring break. The highlight of her trip involved a reenactment of one of my favorite movies/musicals, The Sound of Music. Well … kind of. I was giving Rachelle a tour of our house when she saw our BEAUTIFUL drapes hanging in our bedroom (a thick floral from the 1960s) and she suggested we turn them into skirts.

Now keep in mind that neither of us know how to sew, but I knew how to thread my sewing machine that my mom gave me when I got married. So we spent a few hours at Joann’s digging through the patterns and decided that our skills weren’t quite at the skirt level. So we opted to turn the drapes into purses instead … and then spent almost the whole weekend trying to figure out the pattern.








Rachelle’s purse turned out AMAZING, but I needed a ton of help. That is where Don came to my rescue … he basically took over for me. This picture is of me at 1 in the morning trying to force a smile, while Don takes over. He’s always been better at crafts than me. Ha ha!

I learned two things that weekend:

1. Sewing is not for me

and

2. Maria Von Trap is amazing! All of those play clothes out of drapes? That would have taken me years!

And drum roll please …… the final products! Notice how frazzled I look.

Then after a quick skoot around Lake Harriett, we had to take Chelle to the airport. We were sad to see her go .... but glad I didn’t have to sew anymore!

Thanks for coming Chelle and Chunqing—please come again soon!