Yep, I'm a blog slacker.

Here's what we've been up to:

- I went to Tomah, WI to spend time with my cousin Beth. We had a great time catching up! We even ate at Mr. Ed's Tee Pee. Tell me you aren't jealous!

- Ryan spent a weekend in Ames with his family. They checked out the new house, hauled stuff up from the basement, went to church, watched a movie, and answered all my phone calls to see what they were up to! Ryan was nice enough to take dozens of pictures/videos of Brenna so I could see all the new things she's up to.

- My cousin Dan came to visit this past weekend. He's in school a couple hours away and was on spring break. We ran some errands he needed to do, ate out, watched a movie and he stayed over.

- We booked our Chicago trip!! Ryan had purchased our tickets to the Twins/Cubs game at Wrigley a few weeks ago and we now have our hotel and flights all lined up! We're staying right downtown and of course Ryan got a great deal!

- A lot of our Ryan's time has been spent thinking about the water in the backyard/garage. He's spent many hours snow-blowing, shoveling, shop-vacing the backyard to eliminate as much snow/water as possible in an attempt to prevent it from coming into the garage. So far, we've had wet steps a few more times but the water is going right where it is supposed to if it does happen to make it into the garage. Our sump pump has been running on the warm days too. It's back to COLD again (3* today!) so no melting until this weekend. Once the ground thaws out we'll be having our backyard regraded. A landscaper will come out and build a swale to keep the water away from the house and running where it should.

- We've spent our Tuesdays and Wednesdays watching American Idol. Do you have a favorite? I think mine would be Danny Gokey.

- I've been reading a lot lately. Water for Elephants - it took a while to get into it but I really enjoyed it. March - a story from the perspective of the dad in Little Women - so fun to read what he was doing when he was missing from the Little Women storyline. One Thousand White Women - a story set in 1875 of a thousand women being traded to the Cheyenne Indians as brides in an attempt to create peace between the whites and the Indians. It's great! And next on my list is Peace Like a River for my bookclub. I'll keep you posted...

- My sister Meg will be here early next week with the Q-baby! I can't wait to see him crawling around. And she claims he has a tooth but we've yet to see proof. It's hard to believe that he'll be 1 in less than two weeks!

- My parents arrive next Tuesday! YAY! We have some projects planned for the house - pictures to come. I'm sure there will be a few trips to Caribou and a meal or two out. We're really excited to see them!

And I'll leave you with a few pictures of Brenna from Ryan's time in Ames. And a couple of Quinton that Meg posted recently. Way too cute!

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