Company, Easter and Sinus Infection...

I have no excuse for my lack of blogging, aside from dealing with the most awful sinus infection, which has drained every ounce of my energy the past 10 days. Prior to this sinus infection, I have NEVER had one. I hope to NEVER have one again. A throbbing, never-ending headache. Pressure that makes you feel as though your head is going to explode. A trip to the doctor on Thursday provided a prescription for Augmentin and a steriod nasal spray. The doctor also recommended I buy a Neti Pot Sinus Wash. The process of administering this wash was similar to accidentally snorting something up your nose when you laugh. And that "something" is disgusting saltwater. For all the gagging I did, it is likely that I spit up whatever was creating the blockage (gross, I know). Hard to say which medication is making me feel better, but the good news is that I've been headache free for about 24 hours now.

The first weekend in April we had great fun with my parents and Grandma Sally here to visit. The snow and extreme winds did not hold us back from having fun. Dad and Mike took in a Nebraska baseball game and witnessed a bench-clearing brawl. We enjoyed an entire afternoon of shopping. Dad had the biggest purchase of the group as he picked out a new suit. After a nice visit with Mike's parents, we cut into a delicious belated birthday cake (compliments of my Mom). To round out the weekend, we went out to eat at our favorite restaurant (Fireworks).

Our Easter celebration kicked off with a great Easter egg hunt with Evan. He loves to be outside and thought the Easter eggs filled with crackers were pretty neat. We almost ran into a problem when only 23 of the 24 eggs had been found. Even the adults in the group were stumped by Marcia's sneaky efforts in hiding the last one! After taking in the fresh air outside, we headed to Famous Dave's for a tasty Easter meal together.


Wishing you all a great week!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Thanks to everyone for all of the birthday well wishes today! By far, my birthday is one of my favorite days of the year. With everyone's busy schedules, it means a lot to receive emails, cards and calls from those who are remembering me on March 23...I just love it!

As usual, the weather on my birthday was very unpredictable. The wind blew so hard today that it took off the grill cover and "shifted" the patio furniture. High five to me on the decision not to put the garbage out (decided it could wait another week). We likely would have had to search for the empty container in the next county. First real thunderstorm of the season and due to a tornado spotted north of Lincoln, the sirens were sounded at 4:30pm this afternoon. Hopefully this isn't a sign of a rough spring of storms to come...

I failed to post pictures after my quick trip to Minnesota last month. It was an interesting travel schedule as I dodged snowstorms in both Minnesota AND Nebraska. The weekend with my family was great!!! Ann's girls are growing so fast. I really enjoyed playing and reading books with them. Everyone was fighting colds and infections, though, so I even got to accompany Ann and Hadley to urgent care...one diagnosed with a sinus infection and the other with ear infection. Thank goodness everyone is feeling better now.

Spring fever

The temp reached 76 degrees here yesterday! Although I never left the office all day, the number of people lining the sidewalks as I drove home from work clearly pointed out that I was missing out on the fun. People were out walking, running, biking and rollerblading (in shorts and t-shirts mind you). I counted 11 kids playing in the neighbor's driveway as I pulled into ours. Definitely spring fever in Lincoln!

Today was not quite as balmy, but 60 degrees nonetheless, so we thought pulling out the grill was a perfect idea for supper. Three t-shirts, a pair of sweatpants and shorts later (the laundry lady will be busy this weekend), Mike had perfected his feast of burgers and dogs. Really not sure what battle was fought out there, but apparently the grill took a beating over the winter months. The good news is that it still works.

Speaking of warmer weather, the new GMC Acadia experienced it's first car wash on Wednesday...followed by another car wash on Thursday. Mike just can't stand to see it dirty. It may be a long rest of the winter around here.

I heard an interesting statistic on the radio yesterday. Did you know that 85% of people talk about the weather at least once a day. I'm one of the 85%. Anyone from Minnesota is one of the 85%. Enjoy the weekend!

Introducing a New Member of the Family

Since I drug Lisa car shopping with me the past two Saturdays, she's asked me to write the blog about the newest member of our family. I feel obligated to oblige.

On Saturday, we became the proud new owners of a brand new 2009 GMC Acadia.

Our day started in Omaha when we made on offer on an all-wheel drive Acadia. It fell just beyond our price range so we moved on to Sid Dillon in Fremont, about 30 minutes away. There, we saw a larger number of vehicles on the lot and a few that were really close to what we were looking for.

After test driving a front-wheel drive with the heads-up display, we decided that it wasn't for us (plus it was a black vehicle with black interior...too much black for me).

We came back to the lot and found another FWD without the heads up display, but with titanium interior and a power liftgate. Perfect! So we negotiated a price and came up with what we feel was a good deal for us.

We began our ride home with just 25 miles on the vehicle, but after a 60 mile trek and errands around Lincoln, we're now around 125. It's really fun to drive and my favorite feature happens to be the Bluetooth capability so I can talk on the phone without holding it or wearing an earpiece.

So far, I've noticed that everyone drives entirly too close and I've come to the conclusion that walking all the way across a huge Wal-Mart parking lot is not too far as long as it means not getting door dinged.

We're very excited and look forward to many good times with our new family member.

- ML

Happy Valentine's Day!

Mike and I had a very nice day together. It started off with a trip to Omaha and Council Bluffs to look at vehicles. The Jeep is about to turn over 100,000 miles and as bad as the economy seems to be, we feel this might be an ideal time to strike a dynamite deal and inject our share of capital back into the market. After much deliberation (hours of research on the internet and crack...oops, I mean blackberry), Mike had determined the GMC Acadia was his vehicle of choice. We had an opportunity to test drive one today. Unfortunately, we weren't able to locate one that had all 4 of Mike's key requirements: (1) black exterior, (2) leather seats/heated, (3) all-wheel drive, (4) in the target price range. Finding our way back to Lincoln, we stopped in at a dreaded dealership (I will not name it, but am guessing those in Lincoln know the dealership I am referring to). The dealership is notorious for their pushy, overbearing sales staff. Our experience did not veer from what we feared and we found ourselves sitting across the table from a salesman who was one egg short of a dozen. He asked us several obnoxiously stupid questions, such as "If you were able to purchase a new Acadia with ALL of the bells & whistles...totally loaded with options, but for the price you are targeting, would you be motivated to purchase." How could one not respond with "Ummm, yeah, I guess." However, he was unfortunately, totally missing our message which cleared indicted we are only wanting "basic" options. He left us at his desk for more than ten minutes to which we determined he must have been in search of a key to grab a vehicle for a test drive (which we never requested), so we got up from our chairs, walked out a side door and got out of that lot as fast as we could. Not going back there anytime soon. After that unfortuate experience, it was time to start celebrating Valentine's Day in true form. We headed downtown to the only theatre in Lincoln showing the movie "New In Town". I particularly enjoyed the movie as the setting was in Minnesota (New Ulm). There were alot of "don't cha knows" in the dialogue! Mike got a kick out of it too! From there, we headed to Carlos O'Kelly's for a mexican feast. Our day of love is winding down with Mike at the helm in a game of Playstation. Hope you all had a great day too!

New Year's in Minnesota

So much for the New Year's resolution to be more diligent in blog posting, huh? We had a fun trip to Minnesota to bring in the New Year. New Year's Eve included a night out with Ann/Derrick and Cindy/Kevin. We had a great supper at the Royal Loon in Slayton and brought in the New Year celebrating at Key Largo (also, happens to be the site of a "first" date for Mike and me six years ago...ahhh, the reminiscing).




On a cold, blustery day, we got a chance to cheer on Derrick's basketball team. He coaches the varsity boys' basketball team at WWG (Westbrook-Walnut Grove). They played a small charter school and came out on top...a mere 80 points on top. Don't believe me? I've posted a picture to prove it!

Almost made the Christmas card...

Here are a couple other favorite pics that almost made our 2008 Christmas card!