Wherein I attempt to wear out the Dog.

Seeing as how it's Spring Break (woot!) and I'm home all week I figured that it would be a good thing to take the dog out and run him until he collapses from exhaustion. 

A tired dog is a good dog.

First, I throw his wubba in the back yard for half hour until he decides that the neighbor's bush is much more interesting than the wubba.  Would I mind not throwing the wubba for a while while he checks his pee-mail and determines if there is a rogue squirrel insurrection pending.

Second, we go for a RIDE! in the CAR! to the PARK! OMG!! OMG!! OMG!!  Not really a park, but one of the local forest preserves that has open spaces to run.  Using the chuck-it, I throw a tenis ball repeatedly until my shoulder hurts and Dale is panting harder than any creature should pant.  He finally decides we're done by returning the ball, not to me, but to the car.

Where upon, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel - He's tired! - we take another RIDE! in the CAR!  to the PARK! OMG! OMG! OMG!  We head to Bemis Woods Forest Preserve and go for a 2 mile hike on the "Orange" trail. (Map included below). 

Even though he had less than 5 minutes in the back of the car between where we were to play chuck-it and where we stopped to hike, he apparently has some sort of secret "Energy Drink" hidden somewhere that gave him more energy. 

Finally, upon returning home, Dale went to his toy basket, got out his monkey and brought it to me.  He wanted me to throw it so he could fetch it and run some more.

I'm pooped.  He still has energy.  This isn't fair!

Wow...it's been a while

No, we're not dead. Just boring.

At least, I feel like our lives are boring.

Anyway... what has happened since July 2010?

I'm working on my Master's Degree in Education Administration. I'll be done this coming July and will graduate in December-ish. I'm not sure when the actual ceremony is, but by-golly, you'll know as soon as I do, and we're gonna party!

Mike graduated! He's got his bachelor's degree finally! We'd like your prayers that he gets into optometry school here soon. That's what he really would like to do with his life.

Housewise, we've got several projects that we're trying to figure out how to pay for. We need to re-roof the garage, put up a fence, finish the kitchen (our counter-tops are still the temporary ones we put in when we moved in and we have no backsplash), and fix the foundation.

Instead of paying for the home repairs though, we're saving up to travel this summer. We looked at our life plans for the next five years and realized that if we don't take our big "dream" trip this year, it probably won't happen. So we're planning a two week trip to London with a weekend in Spain. Expect pictures in a few months.

It's been a crazy year for weather. We had some horrible flooding in July that made national news.

A really bad blizzard in February that dumped almost 2 feet of snow on us in one night.

We even had some funky icicles build up off our back porch. There must have been some crazy wind. How else to explain this?

I've even started a "second business." I'm selling vintage jewelry on Etsy. I'd appreciate you all swinging by my store, Pink Astilbe Vintage, and checking it out! We're on Etsy, Facebook and Twitter! I'm really having fun finding gorgeous vintage pieces. Most of my stuff is under $40 so is very affordable, and it's wearable art!