Memorial Day Cookout

We had Tom, Judy, and Laura over for a little cookout this afternoon at our place. It had been a while since we'd seen them, so it was nice to catch up on their Indiana-moving plans. This was our table set up...pre-food, obviously:) We ate hot dogs, a chicken pasta salad, veggies, chips, and an apple cinnamon salad. Judy brought a cheese cake/fresh strawberry dessert.

Can't believe its almost June...

Last Thursday Mal came down to research Atlanta for her youth group's mission trip here in July. I was happy to have her stay with us for a night. Because her bday was in May, I made her a cookie cake. My mom use to make these for us all the time. Brad and I sang a duet of Happy Birthday and she blew out the candles. Thanks Mal for visiting. We always love guests! hint hint everyone.

On Saturday we drove up to Indiana for literally like a day. My dad had a heart procedure done on Tuesday and I haven't seen my family since January - so it made for a short but sweet trip. I included a picture of Bonnie after she jumped in the pond in our back yard. We were all sitting around and next thing we see Bonnie walk right into the sludgiest - dirtiest corner of our pond. It took a good hour to scrub the black out of her. She looked like a possum when she first got out.




So on to a new week.

Chocolate Cake...yum.

Here's a picture of the chocolate cake I made at last night's baking class.  Wish I could give you all a bite...it is SOOOO good.  Jacki, I especially thought of you.

Hot!

Yes, you're seeing correctly. Eden Prairie has reached a balmy 93 degrees today, May 24. Of course, another new record. I don't think Minnesota's slogan should be "Land of 10,000 Lakes", but "Land of a New Weather Record Every Month" instead. Although, that can be said for the entire Midwest, I suppose. Anyhoo, I thought I'd share:)

Thanks for all your shared excitement for us with this nearly-22-week-old baby girl. I can't wait to meet her...and I can't wait for her to meet all of YOU!!!! While Kelly is her only true "Aunt" out of the bunch, you all will surely be adopted little Aunties:) She's going to be one blessed chica!

I just wanna say...

...I can't wait to find out if Baby Peters is a boy or girl! Praying for your appt tomorrow, Darla and Brian!

Feeling Lucky?

Tonight Bonnie and I drove around some neighborhoods of Atl looking at different apartments. Brad and I are thinking of moving for several reasons. On the way home, I saw a sign that the Powerball was for $145 million. I decided to make a quick stop and buy a $1 chance. While there I saw this enticing "Spicy Cash" scratch off for $2. So I splurged and bought one. I went to the car and found a shiny penny. I scratched off all the peppers and won! I won a free ticket. So I went back inside and traded it in for a new chance for spicy cash. I got out to the car and scratched off the peppers and won! I won another free ticket. So once again, I went back into the gas station for cheers from the cashier and traded my ticket in for a new ticket. I figured if I kept just getting new tickets I would have to win something. And 3rd times a charm right?

Wrong... nothing on the 3rd time.

Hopefully tonight's drawing will be

3 11 12 33 59 and 31.

Baking up a storm

I'm not gonna be able to post pictures for a few more days because I left my camera card reader at my mom's, but I did want to update on the latest in my life. I've been feeling an urge to have a "hobby" outside of the house lately, and I came up with the idea to take a baking class. Tonight was the first of a 6 class series. It was really fun. I made vanilla date muffins and mini-lime cupcakes. I would definitely say I'm not a natural in the kitchen, but hopefully I'll get better as I go! The place is called Kiss Z Cook and it's a really nice place with a beautiful kitchen. It's especially fun to make a mess in someone else's kitchen and not have to clean it up!

Soccer

Today was the second time I played in my league. I have had to work a couple of other times and got rained out on the next. I am out of shape and need to start building up my endurance again. The 1st half was fine - but by the 2nd half I was so stinking tired. I would run to the ball and be so tired I couldn't do anything - haha! We lost by one, but one goal of ours - the refs said went over and came in the net. We all thought it went straight in. Oh well. It was fun. Here are a few action pics.

Steamroller

This post if for yesterday.

Brad has been spending a ton of time at school working on a 4 by 8 ft woodcut. It was a collaboration project between him and his classmates, but he worked on a huge portion of it.

Ok so there was an event at the Atlanta Printmaker's Club called the "Big Print". Several organizations had to make large woodcuts to bring and then they were printed by a steam roller. The theme was southern food. So I went down to see this all play out in south Atl. And it was very cool. I was proud of Brad and his crew, now they will hang somewhere in the city. I can't believe he is done with his first year in a couple of weeks. Time flies.


Check out some of his new prints on his website. www.bradjohnston.blogspot.com

**********************
Yesterday I also did a major amount of cooking. I made this lasagna that I have only made 2 other times. It takes 5 or 6 hours for one of the two sauces to cook - so it is literally an all day event. It is a delicious dish from an authentic Italian cookbook my mom got me.

The lasagna sheets are spinach noodles and there are two sauces, one a cream "beschamel sauce" and the other a long cooking "bolognese antica" For the bolognese - You start with pancetta and garlic and then add food processed carrots,celery, and onion. Next, you add ground pork and beef that has been soaking in white wine sauce. And let that cook for an hour. Next you add tomato paste and nutmeg. For the next three hours you let it simmer and add two cups of warm milk every 20 minutes or so. Sheesh - it is incredible! Of course you layer everything with amazing fresh Parmesan and mozzarella cheese and let it bake for an hour. Now we have tons of left overs too -
The picture doesn't look incredibly appetizing - but sheesh it is so good!


I also made a Derby Pie. I made one a couple of weeks ago for my residents - for the Derby - and Brad wanted one. It is basically pecan pie with ghiradelli chocolate chips added and a 1/4 cup of Bourbon. The alcohol cooks off and gives it a sweet taste. That whole section was Brad's piece :)



I guess Paula Dean is rubbing off on this new southerner.

And my pictures of my weekly flowers for LAST WEEK eek. I looooove peonies and ranaculus!

I messed up

For some reason, my post POSTED before I was done writing a title. Sorry about that.

Lot

For Mother's day, we always give my mom the gift of a picnic. For some reason, that is her favorite thing to do. Tyler usually picks the place and brings the grilling utensils and Linds and I bring the food. Today was a beautiful day, so we did a lunch as a fam. Here is a pic of some of our crowd eating. Tyler is home for the weekend because he graduates NEXT WEEK, but his friend Dave is at the table and he came along. ( we are headed up to West Point next weekend. Every 4 years the President speaks at graduation and this is our lucky year. :-)

This is probably our first official "family" pic. We decided to bring Wyatt along to hike. He did pretty well!

Mom and the girls. Its fun because Riley and Sophie are starting to grasp the concept of pictures. They say cheese and then want to see the screen. Pretty hilarious.

Yesterday we went to our friend Wendy and Andy's wedding. I didn;t get too many good shots unfortunately, but it was a beautiful wedding. They made it through the ceremony and pictures and then as soon as we were in the tent, it poured and hailed. Thank goodness we could still dance. :-)

Chrissie's friend Anna and her husband Dan recently moved to Lancaster. So on Monday, Anna and I drove to our "halfway" meeting place to see Chrissie. We had dinner at the cheesecake factory and forgot to get pics there, but caught one in the car before we all headed our separate ways.

Lots of catching up to do...

Hi girls!

Ok I have been such a bad contributor...I am so so so sorry. Let's see if I can do a little catching up!

These first two pictures are of my small group girls...we have a group of seven couples (just started it this past fall), and it has been SUCH a huge blessing! I love these men and women so much. Brad and I are the youngest, and most have multiple kids (and some older too...3rd grade I think is the oldest?), but they are so fun and we've already learned a ton from being around them. Anyway, we girls decided to treat ourselves to pedicures for Mother's Day (nice, huh!). We meant to get a group shot at dinner afterward, but totally forgot. But here are a couple of "action" shots...

Deborah and Kristin - drying their toes :)

(From left to right) Beth, Rachael (Morley...most of you probably remember Steve and Rachael), Lisa, and Sarah (Sarah is the wife of Brad's cousin Ben...I think I've mentioned them before...their son Hutson was born two days before Max)

That was Friday night, after Brad and I took the day off work and went shopping in Indy. We actually didn't do much shopping, but rather looking :) It was so fun.

And then Saturday was Brad's graduation!!!! He now has his Master's in Sports Administration and Higher Education from Ball State. Now, on to the sad story about the day...

Since it's Ball State, and Brad really didn't get to know the people in his program (they all took different classes at different times), he didn't care too much about commencement. But I encouraged him to go, because it's a big deal! And a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So he finally agreed, bought the regalia, etc. But never really got a lot of communication about the actual ceremony. Plus, they do a huge one in the morning, and then in the afternoon the individual departments actually award the degrees...so we decided to just go in the afternoon. But because of weather, Brad kept hearing it might be 3:00, or 4:00. The final word he heard Friday night was that it was 4:00. So, we (Brad, me, Max, Brad's parents and sister), arrive at 3:20, walked in, and it had already started! I quick grabbed a commencement booklet, only to find the section Brad was in happened to be first, so we had already missed it. It was SO SAD! We were hoping maybe he could just slip in, but we were too late. Here's a picture of his department's graduation:


So, we headed off to Scotty's Brewhouse (our favorite restaurant! If you haven't been there yet, you MUST next time you come to town...it's a couple blocks away from BSU)


I love that one of Max with Kelli - great smile :)

Mother's Day was great, except we were all a little sick...Max has had a cold for a few days, and Brad and I really started coming down with it yesterday. So thankfully Colleen (Brad's mom) took a few pictures, because I didn't even think of it. But it was a good day. Brad's cousin got married in Indy last night, so that made for a slightly odd Mother's Day, but that's ok. It was still fun to go with his family.

Sometime this week I will post pictures of my parents' new house! It is REALLY coming along! I think it is still set to be finished at the end of August, but on the outside it looks just great. They actually are driving down as I type! They'll be here for 2 weeks :)

Well, I'm sure I'm leaving out a bunch of stuff, but this probably more than you all wanted to read for right now anyway!

Hope you're all having a lovely day. Love and miss you all.

Love Kelly

a very happy mother's day...

Happy Mother's Day to Kelly and Darla! I hope you both had great days today. Darla, it will be more fun next year, but I'm sure it was a special day for you to think about the great blessing that is coming. You are going to be an awesome mom.

I was fortunate to be able to spend mother's day with my mom and my grandma today. Actually, the whole family has been together this weekend at my parents house and it has been a great time. I'm glad Kirk was able to join us for the weekend, and I look forward to being back at home with him on Wednesday night when Elijah and I head back to Indiana. Here's a few pictuers from today.

Hanging out in my parents' family room.

Me, Rach, Grandma McGuckin, Mom, and Jess. I love these women!

Sounds like life to me...

The other night, Jimmy and I were upstairs getting some things done and I heard Wyatt whimpering. We were looking for him and trying to figure out where he was at. We found him UNDER our bed and he couldn't get out. ha ha ha. This was a picture of him after he had just given up laid down.

As Chrissie said earlier, we had the chance to spend some time together on Saturday morning. This was the first time Elijah got to meet Riley and Sophie. It was fun to see them interact together. We tried to get some pics on the couch of the three of them. As you can see, it was a bit of a challenge to get them all to look. Elijah is cooperating quite nicely. (Sophie on the left, Riley right)

And another try. This was the best one. Future dates perhaps?

Look Forward

Hi everyone! Post something... I miss you all.

Today we had a Cinco de Mayo party at work. We had a salsa dancing teacher and margaritas and quesadillas. It was so fun to see everyone dance and let loose. Yesterday was a pretty crappy day for me, so it was nice to have a really fun day today.
Here I am picture with a resident that I adore, Sue Bess. She is 97 years old, will be 98 this year, and she is incredible. She is the president of our resident council, comes to exercise every day, and is more technologically saavy then some of our workers. She has an active facebook profile and e-mails regularly. Mal, you met her when you came for New Years.

Well, one of our dearest residents passed away today. Ms. Sue Bess had a very close relationship with her. I felt very close to her as well. Actually, I just took her to the Princess Diana exhibit I was telling you all about. I went and saw her in ICU yesterday and was able to say goodbye. It was so hard. I knew coming into this job, I would have to deal with this, but it never really seemed like I "really" would deal with it. Goodness, so this evening I sat down with Sue Bess and gave her the news. She was just incredible. She was telling me how you have to "always look forward" and remember all the good days and push on past the bad. Sue Bess said if you don't you start looking too inwardly - And become selfish and pitying. She said you can't get through life without God. Sheesh, I asked her the other day for advice on aging and our convo tonight was so good. I wish you all could meet her. Anyway, it was good to hear - always look forward. I feel like after what happened this past fall, I have been focusing so much on it. I can't move past it. And it was nice to hear from a 97 year old who has been through so much more than me, that life is wonderful and to look forward.

Pennsylvania

Elijah and I have been in PA since last Wednesday visiting with my family. I made it out to Lancaster this weekend to see my sister and got to see Lauren too (I forgot my camera, but she took a few pics of E with the twins..maybe she will post...hint hint). We've been having great fun, and Elijah really loves my parents big back yard. We are staying until next Wednesday, the 12th and Kirk is joining us for 3 days this weekend, which will be great, because we miss him!

This is Elijah in the treehouse that once belonged to my sisters and me :).

ps. Informal name poll...I am interested to see what you girls think of our choices. Which do you like best?

Boy: Cole or Levi

Girl: Leah or Ally

Good day

Today we all went on an afternoon adventure in Atlanta. It has been nice to have Kelsey here because it helps me appreciate Atlanta in a different light. Anyway, we went to Piedmont Park, a park designed by the Central Park guy, for a walk. Bonnie was nutso hyper and scared of every sound.



After that we drove to Oakland Cemetery which is 88 acres of the most peaceful and beautiful cemetery I have been to. It is very historical - 7,000 Confederate soldiers, Bobby Jones - the golfing legend, Margaret Mitchell - the author of Gone with the Wind.





Finally, we went to a trendy little boutique neighborhood called Virginia Highlands and walked around for a bit. That is where I took the Coke pic.



When we got home we made Thai dinner and watched some Johnny Carson.

Good day - Good day.

18 Weeks

It hasn't taken long in my pregnancy to discover a fascinating phenomenon: Once people know you're pregnant, they love to stare at your stomach. (I didn't say it was going to be an earth-shattering realization.) I understand why, but I'm still not sure how comfortable I am being greeted by, "Hi, Darla!"--meanwhile, their eyes clearly not looking into my eyes, but rather at my growing abdomen instead. Ha Ha.

We had a Doctor's appointment yesterday, and all went well. Blood pressure: great! Weight: gaining! Baby Peters' heartbeat: still there!!! It's so fun to hear the little guy/gal thriving inside of me, and know that he/she now (at 18 weeks) has fingerprints, can yawn, and may even hiccup once in a while. Babies are miracles, aren't they?! God is so infinitely above us.

Some of you have been asking if I'm "showing" yet. Well, here's a picture of me from yesterday (a couple days into week 18 of pregnancy). I can tell there's a little bump there, can you?