The Finished Wreath AKA More Proof My Mom is Awesome!

Apparently the Happy Spring wreath that Mom made for my Welcome Home surprise wasn't quite finished yet. We finished it yesterday, and it is even more awesome now!

 

By the way, my Welcome Home decorations are still up for the most part. Shaylee seems determined to take them down. She doesn't seem able to pull them down, but a few have gotten caught on things and pulled from the ceiling so I've had to put them back up. Here is Shaylee trying to get them down...

 

I promise to post more pictures from my vacation soon. I just need to get them better organized first. Have a fabulously fun day!

You know you've been gone too long when...

Hi all! I will be posting more blog entries/pictures about my vacation, but I wanted you to know that I had a great time and have made it home safely. It is good to be home after over two weeks, but a little strange too. You know you've been gone too long when...

...it takes you five minutes to find the nail clippers that are in the same place they've been kept in for the last couple years.
...you can't remember where the spatulas are.
...you get lost/forgetful when doing your typical morning routine.
...you come home and there is a "couch" in the living room where Dad's desk used to be.
...it is very obvious that your family missed you very much. Pictures to prove it:

They decorated my room! ...I'm not taking these down unless I have to!

This balloon was positioned so it would pop out at me when I opened my door.

Daffies plus a pinwheel equals AWESOME!

This one also serves to prove my mom is AWESOME!...plus the friends and family that helped her with it.

More "Welcome Home" surprises

 

Cherry Blossoms...not really

EDIT 4/9/13: Umm...My friend and I made a huge and stupid mistake. She said they were cherry trees so I believed her. What I couldn't believer were how big the cherry blossoms in DC were. Well, that is because these are not cherry blossoms. They are magnolia trees! I got to see the real cherry blossom trees today. While they were absolutely gorgeous, I liked the magnolia trees better. They smelled good. :) I'll post pictures of the real cherry blossoms soon.

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We went to the Smithsonian Castle on Tuesday. In the courtyard behind the castle, the cherry blossoms were blooming!!! It was so pretty! Here are some pictures...

  

 

Pictures from my trip to DC-Part 1

I've already posted A LOT of pictures on Facebook so I thought it would be a good idea to post some pictures for my friends and family that don't have Facebook. In case you didn't know, I'm currently on vacation near Washington, DC so I'm getting to see some of the sights there. The pictures aren't in order of when I saw them, but I tried to group them by location, putting all of the Natural History Museum pictures together, etc. Anyway, on to the pictures!

This is the best picture I got from the butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum. They have a live butterfly exhibit, but you have to pay to get into that one.

The had an Egyptian Mummy Exhibit at the Natural History Museum. It was really cool, and I'm glad I got to see it. I kind of ended up there by accident.

I also touched a piece of Mars at the Natural History Museum. That was a little lame and pretty cool at the same time.

This is the Hope Diamond. I wish my camera was capable of capturing it's beauty. It was a little hard taking the picture because it is in a glass case. I tried taking a video of it rotating, but my camera didn't want to focus.

 

This is me and my friend, Sinde, under the Chinatown arch. We got lost of the Metro and ended up here...It was our third time getting lost of the Metro. Most of the time, we correct ourselves before leaving the Metro, but this time we decided we might as well see Chinatown since we are headed that way anyway.

We went to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms on Monday, but they were still in the bud.

One of the first things I saw in DC was the American History Museum. My favorite exhibit that we saw was the First Ladies exhibit showing dresses from all of the First Ladies, but I also think it was cool (and weird) that we saw Kermit the Frog in the American History Museum! They had an exhibit called, "American Stories" or something like that, and it had a lot of things you wouldn't think of as being part of American History including the ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz movie!

This is me in front of the Washington Monument. See all the beautiful scaffolding? The whole area around it is roped off because they are repairing the damage caused by the big earthquake they had here a while back.

 This is me in front of the Smithsonian Castle. I love this building. It is one of the most gorgeous in DC, which is saying a lot because there are a lot of gorgeous buildings here.

 My friends, Sinde and Sarah, by the Jefferson Memorial

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I had wanted to see this wall since I read about it in elementary school! It is very beautiful and very sad.

 

This is the "guy in the chair" as my friend, Sinde, calls it. She has some funny names for the monuments around DC. For example: The Washington Monument is "the pencil". LOL! In case you didn't know, this is actually the Lincoln Memorial.

  

We haven't just been to DC though. This is me standing by a sign in Old Town Alexandria in Virginia. 

  

Me standing outside the Life is Good store in Old Town. I actually got to go to two Life is Good stores in one day because there is also one in National Harbor, and we went there right after Old Town.

 

Me by the Peepsmobile in National Harbor in Maryland. This is parked outside of a Peeps store. We didn't go in, but it was still fun to see. If you count DC as a state, I've been to three states in two days!

 

Okay, so a golden egg sitting on a bed doesn't seem exciting, but to me it was very important. Sinde hid it in her backyard so I could have an egg to hunt for on Easter. I found it in one of her bushes. Inside was a keyring from Old Town Alexandria with my name on it. Easter morning was a lot of fun because I also got to video tape her kids hunting for their eggs. Her kids are 13 and 19, but Sarah and I agree that you never outgrow egg hunts!

That's all for now!

New Family Member

Wow! I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post! Anyway, I just wanted to post a couple quick pictures to show you the newest member of our family. This is Shaylee, Jeremy's new cat. Blackjack isn't too happy about the new addition, but after a night in jail (his kennel), he is being nice now. Shaylee still lashes out at him, but only when she is backed in a corner and he won't take the hint when she hisses at him for smelling her. I've got to run. There is so much to do before my trip!

P.S. I actually wrote this yesterday, but it took me a while to get the pictures from Jeremy's camera. Blackjack and Shaylee are getting along a little better. At least Blackjack has learned to leave her alone when she hisses at him. Now, we just need to get Shaylee to play nice. :)

P.P.S. My goal is to post some pictures from my vacation on here. I'm not making any promises, but check back soon.  

Christmas 2012

I know this is late, but that is me! Here are some pictures from the fun things we did this Christmas.

We went to ZooLights on the 30th of November. I didn't get many pictures this year so this is the best one I have. However, I was finally able to get a semi-decent video of the Twelve Days of Christmas display.

Mom and I made an awesome gold and purple wreath. We were going to use a real wreath, but when we went to buy one, they were all half brown! Anyway, I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

We took some "Silent Night" pictures of Jeremy. (Don't worry, we used paper so the duct tape isn't really on his mouth, and we used Goo Gone to get the tiny corners that were holding it to his face off so it didn't hurt him a bit.)

See the aluminun pom-pom tree in the background? It is my favorite Christmas tree, and my dad was awesome enough to pull it out of the attic so we could set it up. Unfortunately, it wasn't practical for the space we had so we ended up taking it down a couple weeks later to put up a smaller tree.

Jeremy and I decorated giant gingerbread people. I bought a ton of candy for it, and it was a lot of fun. In the first picture, Jeremy is making his gingerbread man give peace signs. Jeremy's gingerbread man ate a butterfly and Santa candy. Jeremy made up a rhyme to go with it similar to The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. I'm not sure why the second picture is on its side, but that one is mine. She has a belt on her skirt because she had broken in half on the way home from the store.

We had a lot of fun on Christmas Day too. Santa brought Skylanders Giants for Jeremy. I think that was his favorite gift this year. He also got a balance bird which his loves to spin on his finger and balance on his nose.  

Check out the awesome T-shirt Kurtis gave me. It says, "NERD? I Prefer The Tern Intellectual Badass!"

The coolest gift I got this Christmas? I GOT A HIPPOPOTAMUS FOR CHRISTMAS!!! Mom found this toy hippopotamus and made it a little bed in a big matchbox. It was so cool because I love the song, "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" by Gayla Peevey. I absolutely love it!

 I hope you all had a great Christmas. Have a very happy 2013!

I Hate to See the Sky

I don't like to look up and see sky when I'm standing on my deck. Seeing sky means there is less tree, and it just reminds me that there is going to be less and less tree as the days go by. Our tree has been going downhill for the last few years so Mom and Dad have decided to take it out. This is the globe willow that was planted before Kurtis was born It is the tree that provides excellent shade in the summer and snow protection in the winter. It is the tree that we've watched baby robins grow up in. It is the tree that I loved to climb and still wanted to climb even after I fell from thirty feet up in it, breaking the bone fusions in my back and injuring both ankles. Of course, it is also the tree I've been terrified of in the snow and wind. Branches tend to fall off of it, and the branches that fall have been bigger and bigger lately because of how sick it has gotten. Earlier this year, a huge branch came inches from crashing through Kurtis' bedroom window! So, it really isn't safe to keep, but that doesn't mean I won't miss it. I am going to miss it A LOT, probably even more when summer comes again.

The view from our deck last year...

Did you see the young robin in the middle?

The view from our deck this morning...

 It is a beautiful Autumn day, but I still hate to see the sky. :(