Big 10 Football

This is us at an Iowa Hawkeye game!! My Boss has been a season ticket holder for as long as I've known him, and I'm certain before that. They were unable to use their tickets for the game on Saturday and offered them to us =) I'm not a die-hard football fan, that is for sure (gotta own some Badger apparel though! Pro football I couldn't give 2 licks about) but it was a BEAUTIFUL day to be sitting outside, AND the home team won. At halftime (it was homecoming, so lots of activity) they introduced the man who had coached gymnastics at Iowa for a few years, who then went on to coach a certain little girl named Gabby Douglas---she made kind of a splash in London if you followed the Olympics at all.

Library Time

Som This summer meant many trips to the public library. Usually Beckett and I went on Saturday mornings, or else Grandma took the boys on Monday evening while I rested between my "day" job and "night" job. Now that the boys are back in school they're utilizing their respective libraries at their schools, but Beckett still likes to check things out at the public library. I'd like to point out that he usually picks out 2 books and 2 movies, either VHS or DVD--USUALLY movies that we already have at home. Yah. Sometimes on Saturdays I would drop him off and then drive to the post office to mail things in the drive up box, which is approximately 6 blocks away and then come back, which meant he was alone for about 4 minutes inside the library, but oh he felt like such a big boy when I'd do that =) This week he wanted to play on the computers for awhile, which was a refreshing change from him watching Victorious music videos the way he does at home (insert eyeroll)

St Patrick's Day

See, I TOLD ya'll I missed posting about a whole bunch of stuff!!! WAAAAYYYY, back in March, I went to my BFF's house for the weekend (she lives in the Quad Cities, I made the mistake of introducting her to her husband and his job has a stinkin' residency requirement!) I'm able to make it down to stay for a weekend a few times a year, and one of them happened to be over the big Irish holiday weekend. Davenport/Rock Island host a big parade every year, it starts in Illinois, crosses a bridge over the Mississippi river and ends in Iowa (it's the only parade in the nation to utilize an Interstate!) Well, this year it was UNSEASONABLY warm. Like 80 degrees warm. In March. In Iowa. Needless to say the turnout was incredible. Most of the parade entries have beads (think mardi gras) to hand out and the people lining the street to get neck-ful's of beads were in the tens of thousands. Patti's hubby is a firefighter in Davenport and we walked with their entry and passed out beads. I don't even know how many thousands of strands we had to hand out, but we got rid of them all---and that was just the one entry! The sight that greeted us when we crested over the bridge was unbelievable: people as far as you could see. They were on rooftops, parking garages, vehicles--anything to make themselves a little higher. Beads were hanging from tree brances (no leaves on the trees yet!), street signs, power poles and lots on the necks of little kids =) We had a wonderful time (and yes, the celebrations continued in an adult fashion afterwards). I think it'll be a LONG time before the stars align again to allow for such a gorgeous day.

After Nursing School

To update myself: After graduating nursing school and passing the NCLEX exam, I was not as aggressive as many of my classmates in searching out a nursing postion. I liked what I was doing with teeth, and everyone said I was CRAZY to give up the hours that I had in dentistry to take on the nutso hours that the typical RN works. Well, I held on and a postion almost fell into my lap. I took a postion with a home health agency and joined the case of the sweetest little girl you could ever hope to meet. I became pediatric ventilator certified in order to care for her and I do three 10-hour shifts per week. I don't work weekends and the schedule is actually working out for our family quite well! I still do dentistry a day and a half a week, so that's not totally out of my system yet =)

So Pretty.....

These next few pictures were taken on one hole at Trappers Turn in Wisconsin Dells at the Sectional meet that Platteville (led by the #1 golfer you all know and love) qualified for as a team. You tee off from atop a big hill that looks out over a huge basin that is flanked by lush foliage (this was before the height of the drought we experienced this summer). Lush green growth that will eat your pretty white golf ball in a New York minute! Which is exactly what happened to Parker's tee shot. When you're a part of the gallery, one of your roles is to look for errant balls---no matter who hit them! Unfortunately, despite a tremendous effort in searching, we did not find his ball and he had to truck back up that hill and hit another ball =(

Parker's Graduation!

So one of the things that happened during my unexpected hiatus was that Parker graduated from high school! We had a beautiful day for a party (he chose to have it a week after the actual ceremony, which worked out wonderfully---MUCH less stress than doing it the way we did for Arielle) I took the smart/lazy way out and had a local bakery prepare the sandwiches and salads, Wal-mart did the cupcakes, I made cake pops and the highlight were the cookies that I had a gal from a nearby town make. Oh. My. Goodness. They were little works of art!! And yummy too!!! My MIL made a few different kinds of bars as well, so we were overflowing in the food and drinks department =) We're so proud of our first son's graduation! It's hard to believe that 3 short years ago it was Arielle and she'll be graduating from COLLEGE this Spring!!!

Menu Planning Monday

ANOTHER thing I've missed about blogging is posting my weekly menu plan. I think it helps keep me accountable in the kitchen, HA! Last weeks I made a couple of big meals that yielded leftovers to create meals for this week---who doesn't love that?! Well, maybe my husband if it's something he particularly enjoyed (glad you liked supper honey, don't you dare touch the leftovers!) Don't feel too sorry for him, he still has swiss steak, lasanga and turkey to nosh on =) So onto this week! I hope to link up to I'm an Organizing Junkie where you'll find lots of other great menus, some really thoughtful bloggers also include recipes! Monday: Kurt had fire, boys mooched, I had pot stickers Tuesday: Beef-Macaroni-Italiano casserole (using leftover roast beef!), corn Wednesday: Chicken enchiladas (leftover breasts), spanish rice, corn muffins Thursday: Pork tenderloin (will look for a recipe on Pinterest), sides Friday: Beef tips/gravy (stew meat!) in the crock pot over egg noodles, beans Saturday: "Beer can" chicken in the crockpot, potato packets Sunday: Burgers/brats on the grill, potato salad, baked beans

Annual Fire Department Picnic

A summertime must-happen here is the annual picnic that the fire department has for its volunteers and families. After an unGodly hot summer, it turned out to actually be a very nice day for this years event! As usual there was yummy food, games to play, face painting, rides in the ariel ladder and the big moment this year was that Beckett won the "Grand Prize" drawing of a brand new bike and helmet! Which was great timing as he was outgrowing his old bike. The helmet was a little big, but no worries--it fit Paxton perfectly!!

Golf: the College Years!

Sounds like a bad "Saved by the Bell" pun, my apologies =) Before I catch ya'll up on what you missed out on during my unexpected blogging hiatus, I'll keep you up to speed on what's going on now!
Parker is playing golf for his college team, the Clarke Crusaders. (He had been planning on attending UWP, and then VERY last minute, this opportunity presented itself) Momma is still following him hole by hole, camera in hand, whenever possible. It's a little strange to see him in yellow and navy when its always been maroon and white!
Anyhow, he had a 2 day tournament this past weekend, and here's a few highlights...

Attempting to get back in the groove

So my last published post was back in January =( I was having a TON of trouble getting pictures to post on my blog, and, let's face it, who wants to read a blog without pictures? Not me!!! So with any luck, I can get back on the blogging bandwagon and get a certain family member or two off of my back, HA!!On Saturday, Kurt and I took the boys to Cave of the Mounds near Mt. Horeb. It's a natural cavern filled with stalagmites and stalagtites (if I'm even spelling them right!), and is a very popular destination for area school districts for field trips---in fact, Paxton went there this past Spring for his. But the rest of us had never been. The tour was very interesting and of course there's the gift shop when you're done. The boys got to sift for treasure buried in bags of sand that we bought and they dumped that into screens and swished it in the moving water trough that's set up there. They each came home with a nice little bag of crystals!