caught brown-necked

sarah and seth sent me some beautiful white and pink lilies. they're HUGE!








































when we came home from work yesterday and the vase wasn't knocked over, we thought kitty was being good. and kitty swore that he didn't go near them. but his fur says differently. (his neck is usually white). naughty kitty!



























today, kitty looks a little more yellow in the neck.

a place to curl up

blake got a box in the mail today, filled with newspaper as padding. while blake read the paper, kitty found a place to curl up.

begger

"can i please have some of your dinner?"

our trip to the park

blake is working on our taxes. kitty helped.













This weekend was beautiful and warm and sunny. so we took our new fancy cameras to the park and took some practice pictures. I tried to use some of the basic photography knowledge that I've been teaching myself to figure out aperature and exposure. it was fun!














aren't we handsome together?













boats at fountainhead lake. is the lake named fountainhead? that's the name of the park. let's just name the lake that too.














pretty white cherry blossoms. ok, i don't know if that's what they are, but i sure fooled you.














silly cutie.














not my finest photo. but i took it myself.














isn't my honey so handsome??

to the pants .....

This week I say goodbye to a long time friend: my insanely large red capri pants. We first came together more than 6 years ago when I was working as a mentor on a floor of college students. Our school was sponsoring a night which was simply entitled "Crazy!" and all participants had to dress as oddly as they could. I went with several floormates to Goodwill, and we perused the racks with great laughter. We found so many amazing outfits in that one trip. I wish I had pictures of all of them. Well that night I ended up deciding to go as a grown baby in a blue onesee (which fit surprisingly well) and a bonnet, a pacifier, an ugly doll, and some HUGE fluorescent dinosaur slippers. I ended up placing in the top 7 for the entire school. It was a lot of fun.

But a piece of clothing that went unused that night but managed to stay with me for 6.5 years was an amazingly wide pair of red capri pants. I guess they just looked so wide on me because I was so skinny. And they were really short. I always wanted to know who had owned them before me.
Anyway, I don't know why, but these pants managed to stay with me over many years and through several moves. I got rid of piles of clothes in that time, but I never got rid of these. They were just the perfect Halloween pant. Instead of wearing them to Crazy night that first year, I wore them as part of a Halloween costume, and as far as I can remember, they have ended up in most Halloween-type situations since then. They've been my doozy pant of choice. They're just an article of clothing that breeds fun every time they come out, whether you're at a party or wishing you were at a party. They're comfy and free-flowing. They stand out in a crowd. They really have lived up to all I ever could have imagined they would.

But this week I mailed a box of clothes to my grandparents in Mexico. Tiffkin and I went through our drawers & closets and packed a bunch of items that were just taking up space. We figure those in Mexico could have a better use for them than we did in the back of our drawers.

So I don't know what will become of the red pants. Perhaps someday I'll hear about it again like I did my red beta fish. Hopefully they bring as much tamale joy to someone's life in Mexico as they did to dozens of people in this country.

mall of america

blake and i visited his family in wyoming the week after christmas.


here's blake, cameron (cousin), brandon (brother), and jason (cousin)



jason's daughters, ebony (3 1/2) and kierce (2)


then, on our way back, we had a long layover in minneapolis and went to the mall of america! there's an amusement park in the middle of the mall! the stores are on three levels around the perimeter with a four level department store at each corner. wow!

edited to add: the reason we went to the mall of america was to meet up with two of blake's college friends who live in minneapolis. it was great to see Tim and Trey!!

Tis the Season

Christmas gives us much to celebrate. We are thankful to God for our lives and the hope he instills in us every day. We look forward to a wonderful 2009.