Gramma Mae

Ok, I haven't posted anything in a long time because Brendt and I haven't been home! I will try to get pics up for all of our latest adventures starting now with our trip to Valentine for Gramma Mae's 85th birthday! I have a ton of pictures so I'll try to keep my comments to a minimum, but you know how I like to ramble....

I just thought a picture of a buffalo would be a good way to start a post about Western Nebraska. =) I took this at the wildlife refuge just outside of town.

Alright, so here is the woman of honor, Gramma Mae. She turned 85 this year and we all came out to celebrate!

So looking thru my pictures, it seems that the kiddos were the real show stealers of this post. Here is Taylor giving me a flower for my hair.

Of course, I wore it proudly.

We tried to make Taylor a flower wreath for her own hair, but it turned into more of a flower lump. It is still cute on her--I think she pulls it off nicely.

No this is not father and son and as far as I know them dressing alike was an accident...

The youngsters all played softball in the front lawn. I thought this was the best shot since Zach looked so intense and you can see the ball zipping at him at the top left.

Dance party on the porch!

Ok, I had to post all these pinata pictures. Just look how cute and trusting the colorful little dragonfly is! Emily is up first and she doesn't burst him. I am thinking she doesn't have the heart. Just look at that little smiling pink face...

Taylor takes a couple swings, but I think she didn't really have the heart to beat the living daylights out of it either.

And neither did Gwynn.

But the second my husband gets up to bat, this is what happens. Poor little guy never saw it coming. He still has a big grin on his face.

Yep, I married into this.

Later that night, Kaela and I got our nails and makeup done by Gabby and Taylor.

The finished product!

Just outside of Valentine there is an old railroad that was converted into a walking bridge. We had to stop there on our way out of town.

This is just the path to get out there. I was trying to capture the remoteness of it all.

If you look closely at the side of the walkway, you can see the old railroad ties.

This was our bit of excitement on our walk back! We spotted a goose on the side of the cliff. Since geese don't normall make nests so far from the water or in places so difficult to hike their babies to the water, Brendt's aunt Joyce decided to get a closer look.

When she got closer, she saw that there was a snake in the nest trying to eat the eggs!

Luckily, Brendt's dad was brave enough to pull the snake out by the tail and send it on its way.

The snake scene was a great ending to a fabulous trip out to western Nebraska. I look forward to Gramma Mae's 90th!

Fun in Phoenix

So, in case you haven't heard, I work for Cox Omaha, but recently started reporting to my new manager in Phoenix. Fun, eh? My manager, Leslie has flown out to Omaha a few times to meet me, and just last week I got to fly down to Phoenix to meet the rest of the team. It was more like a vacation than a business trip with all the meet and greets and after work activities they had planned for me. I just have a few pics because mostly it was just me and Leslie hanging out and pics of one person just aren't that fun.

Just a quick shot of my first glimpse of Phoenix on my ride from the airport to the car rental place. I felt like such a tourist taking pics already....little known fact: cacti don't begin to grow arms until they are at least fifty years old.

Leslie knows I love mom and pop shops so she took me to a ton while I was in town. This ridiculously happy red pepper was standing outside of a little local place where we had lunch.

This was at a very foo-foo shopping center. The kind where the stores have $200 pjs and $600 purses. It was fun to window shop tho.

And here we are at Thunderbird Park. I guess it is a popular hiking spot. I can't see how it is a whole lot of fun tho. It would be like hiking across the open plains of Nebraska. Only three times hotter.

There were tons of these alien looking man eating plant things at the park. Creepy.

I was brave enough to pose next to a dead one. =)

Here is their man made lake. So strange to see a lake with cacti growing on the shore.

This is the only picture I got of Leslie. She is pretending to fall off the dock. Hehe.

And while I was there, I got to meet Ryan Hansen and Martin Starr!!! I know, they look just as excited to meet me. Don't worry if you don't know who they are. I didn't either, I was just excited to get my picture taken with some semi-famous guys. I guess they were there promoting their new Starz show, Party Down.

So, anyhow that was my Phoenix trip in a nutshell. Leslie wants me to head back in June, before it gets too hot--like the 103 degrees it was while I was there wasn't hot enough. Oh, and stay tuned for an update on our basement progress. Coming soon.....

Done with Drywall

Just a quick post to commemorate the hanging of the last piece of drywall in the basement. Yay! We've been living and breathing drywall for so long that we are actually excited to finish mudding and start sanding. I'm sure that won't last long. And that isn't all we've been up to lately--we've also completed a couple of little sewing projects and revamped our upstairs hallway with paint and our wedding photos (just in time for our first anniversary....)

I know this photo makes it look like Brendt is napping on the job, but trust me, he is actually hard at work hanging that last piece of drywall.

And here he steps into the fray...and polishes off last of the drywall!


These next two photos are a couple of pillows I sewed for the living room. For those of you who read our blog about the dining room chair reupholstery, you may recognize the fabric.

For this pillow, I tried to make rounded corners and the entire pillow just turned out looking lumpy. :( I have plenty of fabric left so maybe I'll try again later.

Ok, we feel like we need to preface the hallway with our rationale behind the paint color. We wanted a nice, neutral color that would looke good transitioning from a light green living room to a blue bedroom and an orange and grey office. Also, it had to be a lighter color since our hall is so dark so it would give the illusion that our hall was brighter. That being said, we went with a nice light yellow color called 'Soft Duckling' or some cheesy variation of that name that almost makes you want to cuddle with your paint can.
So it turns out that 'Soft Duckling' should have been named 'Rubber Ducky' but it doesn't looks so bad with this picture that we already had.

And finally, it's our wedding collage! We had a lot of fun picking out frames and pictures and figuring out which picture should go in which frames and etc. etc. Brendt mostly put together this final layout. He did a pretty good job, I think.

So that's what we've been up to. Hopefully by the next time we write, the basement will be painted!