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Hiya! I don't have much to update y'all on, unfortunately. My life is quite boring. But I didn't want every post to just be after all my baby appointments and be soley about the baby, though that's most of what everything is about nowadays because there really isn't much time left and well, nothing is done.

Matt is still down south which is still lame. He says he hopes to be back up here starting in January, but I don't think that'll happen. And that sucks. I just wish this wasn't happening at the worst possible time. It would be nice for us to get to go out and do things before we really won't be able to do for months, or more. There is only Katie and Chris up here who we know and would trust to watch the baby for a few hours, however realistically we probably won't do that until next fall. Of course we'll get to do plenty of family things with the baby, but I just always hear and know the importance of spending those last few months to really be with each other because it will never be that way again. Not to mention having to take care of the house and dogs alone up here while getting bigger and bigger is just no fun.

Our weekends haven't been filled up with a lot because when Matt does come back home he works Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. And it's getting to the point where it really hurts my back to help him so I don't go much anymore. But we have gotten in Bentleyville three times and will go another time this weekend, though we have to share it which isn't as fun. We get to spend the actual Christmas weekend alone which will be soooo nice. And hopefully the only other weekend we will have to share with people will be my baby shower weekend and obviously that'll be fun and worth it. Then I'll probably just want to sit on my fat butt for a little over a month then get to meet my little human :)

See, really nothing to update besides complaining. Oh well, deal with it! ;) Hopefully I can give a good update on my next post saying a passed my glucose test on Wednesday. Fingers crossed for me and Eyeball!

I Need To Be Better At This While I Can!

Hello blogging world! Like my title says, I'd really like to get better at posting more regularly while I still have time to do it. Because I'm sure in another four months I won't be updating this often!

With that being said, there's not much to be updated on. I think the only major thing is that Matt has been laid off for the winter, or at least next couple months so now he's working down in the Cities, which sucks, but I'm thankful that he doesn't sit on his butt collecting very little unemployment while I'm pregnant and don't have a job and won't get one now since I'd only be able to work for another three and a half months. Typing that makes it actually seem like a long time to go. I tried going down to the Cities with him last week but that was a disaster and way too stressful for me and not at all fair for the dogs, so that is no more. We're much happier up here. And so is Baby.

As for the baby up date, Eye sure is moving around like crazy lately! 'They' say weeks 24-28 are the most active weeks for the baby and just three days into 24 weeks I'm finding that to be true! And now my baby is so big and strong that I can actually SEE my belly move besides just feeling it. Next Wednesday is the long annoying appointment to test for gestational diabetes. Cross your fingers I don't have it! It'll be my first appointment without Matt :( but there is no reason for him to go anyway just to wait around for me to take tests so it's okay. Though he'll miss out on a heartbeat update.

That's it! Our lives are pretty boring right now. Especially when we don't get much time together. Luckily it'll be just us two for Thanksgiving tomorrow and for Christmas. Which, depending on how job things go, may be the only days we get to spend together when he doesn't work before the baby comes so we gotta enjoy them!

Bye y'all, happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!

We Got to See Our Baby!

Yesterday Matt and I got to see our baby when I had my ultrasound! Its a little cutie, let me tell you what. It didn't want to cooperate much though with letting us see its face because it decided the most comfy place in my whole belly was facing my spine. But it was amazing to see the lil bugger. I can't wait to hold him/her :) The technician said that everything looked good and our baby is growing right on track- Eyeball is now 15 ounces! Almost a whole pound! I can't believe it. And I can't believe that it will gain hopefully at least another six pounds in the next 18 and a half weeks! Jeepers.

Then, last night Matt got to feel Eye kick for the first time :) which is pretty impressive because I only started feeling it kick two weeks ago. Eyeball sure loves its daddy.

It sounds like our life is going to be pretty crazy and hectic the rest of the wait for the baby to come, which kind of upsets me, but that's life. Matt was laid off for we don't know how long on Monday. It would be nice if it's only for a couple of weeks but nobody knows for sure. Ultimately it means less money and less time together at a time when we need it most! Hopefully things will work out and at the very least hopefully Matt will be back to his regular job when the baby comes so we can be a happy family of five instead of a four member crazy family of stressed mom, attention-needing baby, and two out of control dogs. Fingers crossed!

Penn and Smi Give Me Ulcers

Two mornings ago at about 5:30am Penny and Smiler ran away! I was woken up by Matt yelling for Penny and I didn't like it. By then Matt had already caught Smiler but Penny was lost. Either someone had opened our gate in the night or Penny somehow got the latch up by a luck. I don't like either option. I just knew I would find Penn ran over on that busy road out front and I was so scared. We called for her for like ten minutes but it was windy and dark and it got us nowhere. So Matt decided to go driving looking for her and I stayed out front still convinced she would get ran over. But within ten minutes of leaving Matt called and said he found her! :) I ran all the way back home for her. She was wondering about eight houses down, lukcily that house has two dogs so there were enough interesting smells for her there. I'm just so glad we found her and she decided to go into someone's yard instead of the road or the woods. And that she actually comes when we call her (as long as there's not another animal involved), because had it Smiler we actually do need to run and tackle her to the ground because she's a punk.

Now they don't get to even be in the fenced-in yard without supervision. Which of course means it's me watching them everytime they're out, but I'm okay with that as long as they're safe.

In better news, I got a Kindle!! I had been wanting one for quite some time but not knowing whether to really get one or not. But I finally did and I loooove it! What finally did it for me is that you can now 'check out' books from our library on the Kindle through their 'digital library'. The selection isn't as big, but they still have all the popular books plus some so it'll probably fit my needs just fine.

Oh, and last week some kind person sent us two $100 giftcards to Cub! Cannot believe it! Inside it just said, 'Tracie and Matthew, Just wanted to bless you'. Cutest, nicest thing ever, huh?? No return address and no sign off. And it is such a blessing as we're trying to save up as much as we can with the baby on the way, especially when we really don't have enough money to begin with. We just thought it was so nice and wanted to tell everyone if we couldn't say thanks to the person themselves.

We got a couple good weekends ahead of us: This weekend we're going to AppleFest either tomorrow or Sunday, and next weekend it's Tenth Avenue North concert and grandparents visit and we're going to the apple orchard with the roaming little piglets! Can't wait!

Hello Again, It's You and Me

Hiya! I suck at blogging nowadays. Or, should I say, did suck. I hope to get better now because yesterday was my last day at the garden center! Though I am considering a new job to get me through the next four months. But we'll see, I have a lot to do around the house and yard.

Only two big things have happened since the last post. One is that we got to hear Eyeball's heartbeat on September 21st!! It was so so soooo amazing! I loved the look on Matt's face :) if our baby's heartbeat is any indication, it's gonna be a super cute baby. On November 2nd we finally get to see the lil bugger in an ultrasound. It can't come soon enough! I wish it could happen sooner, but they're not very good at scheduling appointments there, so I'm having my ultrasound at 22ish weeks instead of between 18-20. Hopefully there won't be anything they find wrong in the ultrasound or I'll be a little angry that they didn't do it sooner.

The next exciting thing is I finally got my Ford Escape!!!!! I love it. It was everything I wanted it to be and a little baby in the back will make it even better. I drove it up to the cabin last weekend and it went there and back without any problems so I feel a lot better about a baby being in it. And there is plenty of room for the girls to be in the way back too, so that's a relief that we'll all be able to travel together when we need to.

I guess one more good thing is in 13 days we get to see Tenth Avenue North! I've only wanted to see them for forever so I'm really excited. Especially to hear "By Your Side" live! My husband is good to me :) We also plan to go to the apple orchard that has the baby piglets roaming free that weekend too. And we get to see our grandparents and that will be nice since we haven't seen them since Christmas and don't plan on going to the Cities for Thanksgiving or Christmas. They will (hopefully) be nice and relaxing holidays this year instead. Complete with a trip to Bentleyville on both Thanksgiving and Christmas.... I can't wait!

That is our life right now. Like I said, hopefully I can update more now that I'm not working full-time and being exhausted all the time. But now for pulling up the garden so we can prepare for a mini covercrop! And I bought tulip bulbs today to plant for spring so I will have a super cute yard which will be good because I have a feeling we'll have a few visitors next spring.

Later!

Honeymoon and Eyeball

Hey y'all! We're back! Well, we've been back in town since Sunday but this is the first time I've gotten a chance to type up a post. I don't even know where to start though!

We left August 6th to go on our belated honeymoon to Yellowstone and let me tell you what, it was amazing! I can't even begin to tell you everything that happened or all that we did so, since I'm me, I'll mostly just talk about the animals because we were lucky enough to see tons! We started off going to the Badlands in South Dakota. We got there on Saturday afternoon and it was soooo cool to see them since of course I'd never even been out there. Right away we saw three antelopes including this cute lil guy sunning himself. Just after that we drove to a prairie dog town and a little off in the distance there was one lone buffalo!! I just knew at that time that I was gonna see all the animals I wanted on the trip.

We spent some time looking around there and continued on our way which included going to Mt. Rushmore and through the Black Hills. There were so many motorcycles because Sturgis was about to start, it was crazy. And speaking of crazy, we saw Crazyhorse too! Though that was from afar, but the big giant face didn't make it seem so far away. We also went to Devil's Tower which was incredible; you never expect to see something like that in the middle of nowhere! This is mostly gonna be an animal picture blog, but perhaps this weekend I'll upload all 200-something pictures of our trip to shutterfly so you can see the other cool pictures including Devil's Tower, waterfalls, hotsprings, lakes and mountains so keep your eyes peeled for those!

After South Dakota I think our first real stop again was in the Beartooth Mountains. Can you say beautiful?! I love, love, loved it there! We even made snowballs! But the best thing about the Beartooth Mountains for sure was this:

A lady that let us look through her binoculars told us we were lucky to see them here because it is very rare since there aren't too many in that area.

That same night we set up our tent at some place super close to a campground that is only open to RVs because of all the Grizzly Bear activity it has, well that and the fact that the Grizzly's that frequent there like to eat and harrass people for no reason. Luckily, there were no bears at any of our campgrounds! After we set up our tent we decided to go into Yellowstone hoping we'd get to see some wildlife at dusk. Like ten miles in the roads were lined with cars, which you learn real quick that if the road is lined with cars you get out and look! So out we went and there was a big ol Grizzly across the river!!!!! It was our lucky day! There was a hill everybody was on to get a better look so we went up on the hill as well. We made some cool friends with this couple that knew tons about the wildlife of Yellowstone and they let us look through their $1,200 scope. It was so amazing!! You could see the Grizzly going to town on an elk carcass. Soon enough wolf 06 of the Lamar Valley pack joined the Grizzly in eating so she could feed the pups. We found out that 06 is the best female hunter of any species in Yellowstone and better than many males as well. And she does most of her hunting alone. So it was really cool to get to see her! Eventually 06 left and three more wolves of the pack came instead. Two black wolves and a gray one. Unfortunately we were too busy seeing them up close through the scope to remember to take pictures. But we got one far away picture of the bear..... if only Matt hadn't lost/gotten his camera stolen in Lincoln Park or we would have had way better pictures!

The rest of our Yellowstone trip included one more black wolf, LOTS of huge bison (including a dead one, how sad! Not even eaten, it's just like it tipped over and died), elk, pikas, a fox, mule deer, and I can't remember what else now because I'm getting sleepy. But there were a lot of animals! And we saw a lot of hotsprings and geysers as well and those were pretty neat.

Then we went to the Tetons where we found this guy

There was another moose with that one but a little more hidden further away and then we drove a couple more miles away and found another moose! Then the next day in Glacier we saw yet another moose! I love moose. They're gigantic.

Last, but definitely, definitely not least we went to Glacier National Park. It is so beautiful there. It might have been my favorite place on the whole trip though that's hard to say because Yellowstone had so much wildlife! However, Glacier has Goatlick Overlook. And Goatlick Overlook did not let me down! Well, the path that you were supposed to stay on kinda did, because there were no goats. BUT we went under this bridge around the corner and it was goat haven! So maybe not quite a haven, but there were like seven goats. A family of goats was just chilling laying under the bridge and two others were actually out and about taking in the mineral lick. Probably the highlight of my trip :)

There was so much more to our trip too, but I feel like I'm probably boring people to death by now, so next time you see me perhaps I can tell ya everything! I will leave you with a few more pictures and will put the rest on Shutterfly soon.

:)


Oh look, a Tracie in water! Imagine that! If you're thinking I look fat, lay off, I'm pregnant. Though the fat you're seeing that picture is probably 100% camping and roadtrip junk food. But there, I said it, I'm pregnant! We are both super duper excited. Unfortunately I don't have much to update any of y'all on right now because I only just had my first appointment today and I'm only 10 1/2 weeks. But hopefully I'll have more fun things to say after my second appointment at the end of September. Seems like an eternity to wait.

That's it for now, folks!

Happy August!

Hi, I am still alive :) And this will be a super short post, but look back for more like August 20th! Or sometime at the end of August after our trip and when I get time to type up a more fun post with hopefully pictures of grizzly bears and mountain goats!

K, gotta go knock out day six of my ten day working stretch.... talk to y'all in a couple weeks!

So Much For That

Well I guess I was lying when I said I'd blog more while Matt was working nights. In my defense he only worked nights for two weeks. And I didn't really have time because I work all the time as well. Today is my only day off and then I get to work a week straight again... yay. Just gotta keep thinking about my Ford Escape :) which luckily Matt and I are picking up a little side job together because otherwise my job actually wouldn't get me my car without us being even more broke than we already are. I do feel bad though because Matt works way too hard and way too much.

I don't remember what I said in my last blog but I'm sure nothing has changed since then. My mom came up last Saturday and that was fun but I wish she could have stayed longer! But she's going to come back up sometime again and we're going to go to the Glensheen! And we've been planning our trip for next month (eek, I can say it's next month now!) though it's really hard to think about while we're both working so much and don't really have money. It makes me feel like we should be using that vacation money on bills and loans.... but if we don't go now God knows we'll never have a 'honeymoon'. Finding a place for the dogs is going to take a third of our trip money anyway. I love our dogs, but boy I never thought they'd cost us like half a grand for a week and a half. I know in the long run it'll be better for me and them. Then we don't need to stress out Matt's parents with the girls and the girls don't need to deal with meanie Julius and I don't have to stress about them with Julius. Where we're going to board them they'll get seperate playtime where they can play together without other dogs so I won't need to worry about Smiler getting eaten or Penny killing another dog. But I'm still stressed. I wonder if they'd get annoyed with me if I called everyday to see how they are?

I'm not sure if I mentioned my foxes in my last post or not but I saw Roger and his mom again in the field and it was soooooo cute! Roger was running around crazily all over the field, just enjoying the freshly mowed grass while his mom sat under a tree and watched. I talked to them and they really weren't too worried so hopefully we're making progress. We left a little piece of salmon out on the driveway two nights ago (it was for Blacky, but I get one of the foxes ate it) and it was gone yesterday morning and now I just want to put more out! But that would get too expensive :(. And I know that they walk right by our fence when they come and go because every morning the girls are out there sniffing along that part of the fence. It's almost like Penny doesn't actually fail as a hound dog!

That's really all I have to say. I have to go find something to occupy myself til Matt gets home and we can go to the carnival :)

Summer!

I have not posted in forever and I apologize for that because I know SO many people read this and really care about what I'm doing in my life...... haha.

Anyway, the reason for me not posting nearly as much is because I'm spending all my time working at the garden center in order to get money to buy me a sexy Ford Escape. I've come to the conclusion that everybody in Duluth but me has one and it's just not fair. However, mine is still a couple months away. But I'm workin' towards it! I love working at the garden center :) I get to get some sun and I get to be with plants all day. And talk to people about plants. And look at a weeping white pine that I want really, really badly. Someday I WILL have one and it will be beautiful.

My very own garden is coming along quite nicely as well. I have beans, peas, corn, carrots, onions, beets, spinach and kale growing in the garden so far. Kale, in case you haven't heard, is part of One Vegetable: One Community. You probably haven't heard because as far as I know it's just a Duluth thing that started right now but I really like the idea and think that all cities should start doing it. The idea is that the community picks a vegetable to grow every summer and people can share their info, recipes, anything about kale. Then at the end of the growing season there will be a kale potluck for the community to be a part of. I'm hoping I can find some recipes I can make with the kale I grow this summer so I can go to the potluck. We'll see, this is my first time growing kale, though I've wanted to for a few years now. It's a good vegetable to use for the first year, it grows well in our zone and is one of the top superfoods. Hopefully it will bring recognition to kale because either people don't know about it period or are like me and not exactly sure what to do with it once it's grown.

After going off on a huge tangent, back to my garden. I have pumpkins started that we're going to put in the ground as soon as Matt is done with the fence to keep the dogs in and the deer out. It'll be interesting to see if the deer actually stay out..... I doubt they will. I also picked up some eggplant and tomatoes for the garden today at the farmer's market (I got to see Charlie there and he's getting sooooo big and he's the cutest little thing I've ever seen. It was tough having to give him back to Katie). And went on a search for zucchini without any luck. But once I have the zucchini I believe my garden will be complete! I'm super excited for things to start producing because I have some serious homegrown vegetable cravings right now!

I guess that's probably it for right now. Maybe I will blog more over the next three weeks because Matt will be working from 5pm-1am for the next couple weeks and I won't know what to do with myself all alone :( Once our yard is cleaned up a little big from making the garden and building a fence I will post a picture of my beautiful garden growing!

Later!

Emotional Traffic

Well, we saw Tim on Saturday and it was fantastic! Only second to his One Band Tour where he played for like three and a half hours and had no opening act.

We had floor seats row 12, seat 5 and 6. But with his U-shaped catwalk added onto his stage that meant we had standing seats at the catwalk :) so turns out they were even better than my 4th row seats I've had at one of his concerts! He played a lot of old songs which I loved, however he yet again did not sing "Don't Take The Girl" for me. I've said it before and I'll say it again, how can a singer not sing his first #1?? Tim has to get his act together on that and present it to me at the next show. He played like four new songs from the upcoming album (whenever stupid Curb records decides to let him release it) though only one was actually new to me. And they were all good, minus I still really don't care for "Felt Good On My Lips"


So then, the best part of course had to be when he touched my hand. Though it really wasn't as exciting to me as when I touched Keith Urban's arm. I guess I'm not a 14 year old girl anymore. And I take it back, my favorite part was when he looked in my eyes for two seconds :) I used to always say no matter whether I was in 4th row or 16th row or way in the back at the State Fair that whenever Tim looked in the general direction of me he was obviously looking at me. But this time was for real, there was only like 5 feet of space in between our eyes and he looked at me. Though my Tim fulfillment would be having a conversation with him (and him singing "Don't Take The Girl" to me....), Matt says maybe someday when he's super old and only playing Casinos I'll get my wish. Maybe.







Two of my favorite Tim pictures of the night. I'll add more to my shutterfly someday soon but today I need to give my work-in-progress garden a couple of hours of my time and then maybe walk to the Stop-&-Jo for some raspberry iced tea.

Later!

New Pictures on Shutterfly

Hi. Nothing new or exciting (BESIDES TIM TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)) in our life right now but just thought I'd let y'all know there are hundreds of new pictures on my shutterfly. Go to pennandsmi.shutterfly.com and enter the password 'stinkyandpunk'.

Bye.

Anniversary!

Saturday marks our one year anniversary! Holy smokes! It feels like forever, when I think about the marriage haha but as far as the time of a year, the year seems to have gone by quick. And I haven't had to beat him that bad yet ;) I'm not sure what we're doing for our anniversary yet.... he has something planned. I don't think we're doing much on the actual day. I think we're gonna try Pizza Luce on Friday since everybody loves it but we haven't been there yet. Annnnnnd Sunday we WILL wake up at 6A to go see Cason come in. It's my favorite boat and I have not seen him come or go besides us chasing him up the North Shore a couple weeks ago. But that doesn't count. So it doesn't matter the time, we're gonna go see it.

It's finally starting to warm up in Duluth (and by warm up I mean 50's, and not until next week) and they think it'll actually stay warm this time. Like for real spring! I'm not so sure about a garden for the spring though :(. We'll see. But where we had planned to have the garden is a big fat non-draining pile of clay. I think we'll still try stuff but I think this summer will be more trying to improve that little patch of soil so it'll work better next year. With all that being said, I started some pumpkins for Matt a couple days ago. Of course, those will probably the only things that work in the garden and I will end up with a big ol eye sore of a 100 pound pumpkin in the fall. The seeds he picked out are supposed to grow up to 300 lbs but I doubt (and hope it doesn't) that'll happen with the such short seasons up here.

As I was typing this I got the best thing in the mail, which was going to be the next thing I said anyway. Tim in less than a month and just got my tickets!!!! :D


That's really it right now. We've been boring people I guess.

Later y'all!

Baby Eagle Cam!

http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/decorah_eagle_xcel.html&medium=3064708

That's a link to an Eagle cam in Iowa. Depending on when you see this, there's still one egg left that needs to hatch! I hope I get to see it. I do love my animal cams. Especially when there's baby animals to be born. In other animal news, we have deer that go sleep in the field by our house almost every night :) it makes me happy. Even if Matt laughs at me for looking every ten minutes to see if they're still there. But we're just waiting for the day we have a crash right outside our house from a deer trying to cross the road; there was a close call last night. The girls don't even seem to notice they're there. Good 'ol Penny with her hound nose....

This is a week/weekend where I actually get to stay in town! Yay, there's been too much travelling lately. Though I've liked getting to see my mom and this past weekend my cousin and her son. Who, by the way, is adorable. Might just have to steal the lil bugger. Matt is gonna leave Sunday :( to finish painting his parents' house and for his apprenticeship classes so it'll just be me and the girls and the deer for a couple days. But at least we don't have to go so the girls can still play at night instead of being locked up in their kennels like they would be if we went with.

Lastly, I have exciting farmy things going on! After Charlie tomorrow I am going to a backyard chicken class for two hours which works out nice because Matt is going to a union meeting. Hopefully I'll learn lots of good stuff and perhaps next summer we can have a chicken or two! And even more exciting, on April 19th I get to go to a farm that I'll hopefully get to intern at this summer and see what they're all about and help set up the hog paddocks and chicken brooders! I'm sooooo excited. I wanna go help again when they have chicks in the brooders :) chicks that I'll probably later help kill. Maybe I'll even get to take a (processed) chicken home to eat! The pay isn't great though if I do the internship with them..... but we figure this will probably be my only summer to get it in and I think I might get half paid in pork, chicken, and vegetables so I really can't complain! And hopefully I'll still be able to work out something with Charlie too so I can still see him.

Well that's our life right now! Hopefully a little less busy in the coming weeks because we really need to stay home and take care of house things so that it's more liveable now that we'll be home more often. Then my mommy can come visit :) and hopefully my brother.

Later!

Lost Post :(

So I had a nice beautiful, lengthy post telling y'all about our lives, and it feels like A LOT has happened...... but the internet went out while I was doing it yesterday but I didn't notice so kept typing away on this post and when I clicked publish now, poof, everything was gone besides the first sentence and my two pictures. So I'm only telling you about the pictures because no way am I going to try and redo that whole post.

The first picture is a beautiful giant Pileated Woodpecker that came to visit my feeder :) I was soooooo excited to see it. So excited that Penny thought she had to see too and she scared it off. Haven't seen it for the last week, but the weather has been crappy. I do know there are at least two living around here though so hopefully I'll see them plenty this summer.

And next, we have the Barker :) first ship of the season! There are supposed to be four more leaving today if Superior has calmed down, so maybe I'll have to spend some time down in Canal Park this afternoon to say bye to them for their first trips of the season. Too bad there won't be as much ice as in this first picture! It was so cool to watch it leave and see the ice have absolutely no affect on the boat at all.

Sonshine :)

I just saw that Tenth Avenue North is going to be at Sonshine the same day as Toby Mac. And it's a Saturday...... meaning we can go :) :) sooo super excited! Not Tim excited, but pretty close! Now everybody cross your fingers my husband says yes...

Guess Who Got Their Tim Tickets Today??

Me! Yep. Ended up with row 12. It'll do. Just glad we ordered them and will be seeing him in a little over two months! Everybody cross your fingers that he'll sing "Don't Take The Girl" for me... he hasn't the last three concerts :( but it's my favorite song in the universe and I need to hear him sing it again. So excited though. I have the best husband in the world to go with me to all these concerts :)

Whoever decided to rename ships is stupid. If you think a ship needs a new name, make a new ship. That would be ideal. They're renaming Beeghly to Oberstar. Gross. I don't care what he's or his family has done for the shipping or ore industry, get your own boat.

I'm not too full of news today besides Tim of course. A lot of travelling again this week. Farm class tonight and back to Minnetonka on Friday for hopefully the last time in awhile. My mommy is having surgery next Friday so I hope that goes well. And then I'll get to see her probably the first weekend of April! Can't wait.

My Poor Penny Poo

Well, I diagnosed Penn correctly; she has roundworm. Poor Stink. We're lucky we saved the poop with the worm in it cuz there were no eggs in the fresh stuff we brought to the vet so they wouldn't have even known she had roundworm. But they gave us dewormers for Penn and Smi too just in case so hopefully they'll be fine in a month. Katie is bringing Joy in tommorow too after we get back from Minnetonka because just last weekend they found something in her poop that sounded like Penny's. Hopefully they can get the dewormer for her right away too since they have Charlie.

Penny update is all I really got today, since I know you all care so much about her and her poop.

Busy Busy

I feel like we've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off! We closed January 28th and now it's February 28th and only yesterday did we have everything completely moved. But we're all moved now! Living amongst boxes. Hopefully we can get quite a bit unpacked before the weekend because we have a Saturday full of farm class. And we really need to get working on our presentation for the end of that too since there's only four classes left :(

In the good news department....First spring training game was last night :) We only listened to a little bit of it because we forgot when Matt had to watch NASCAR all afternoon. And then the Simpsons. And the next three shows after that. But we're both soooo excited! Can't wait to finally get to a game at the Target Field this summer! Other good news: I finally got to snowshoe again!! On Saturday night we went to Split Rock for a candlelight snowshoe and I looooved it. I think Matt liked it too even though he hasn't really snowshoed. It was pretty :) Last good news: I get an extra day with Charlie this week! I'm going back to Minnetonka with Katie and Charlie on Thursday. Hopefully it's a tad warmer than last week. Not too much playing with him when we're driving so much, but I'll take what I can get!

And sad news.... we have to take Stink to the vet tomorrow to get tested for worms because we think she might have something :( I hope she doesn't. It makes me sad to think about because she's my Penny Girl and she's supposed to be perfectly healthy for approximately forever. Luckily that's the only bad news I have.

Can't believe it's March tomorrow! Which reminds me, I forgot the best good news! Shipping season in a month!!!!!!!!!! The Soo Locks open on the 25th I believe so by April we better have boats, dangit! Boy do I love ships. I shall spend hours upon hours in Canal Park this summer. Especially if my husband is lucky enough to get to work at the Comfort Suites this summer because he is not allowed to have lunch in Canal Park without me!

Valentine's with Charlie :)

I get to hang out with Charlie all day.... what a great Valentine's! :) He's napping now so we can play lots and lots more and do some more tough practicing with the sippy cup. And I might go to the Cities with him and Katie on Friday :) :) yay new things with Charlie, and Katie and I can talk for about 5 trillion hours so it wouldn't feel like a long drive at all. Though I think Charlie might get a little restless on the way home... that's why I'm here!

Much to my dismay, I think we're doing most of our moving on Saturday. Moving stresses me out. There are too many precious plants to move and nobody seems to understand how careful you have to be with them. Except Matt. And maybe my mom after that incident where she tried to murder Roger on the way home from school freshman year. Plus we were supposed to have a romantic candlelit snowshoe hike Saturday night at Gooseberry :( but at least we still got one at Split Rock the next weekend! And then it'll practically be March and then SHIPPING SEASON!!!!!!!!!!!! Hallelujah!

Here is my Valentine's song of the day for you:

Amen to This

Read this article before reading what I have to say:
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/james-altucher%27s-8-alternatives-to-college-535903.html?tickers=COCO,APOL,ESI,DV,EDMC,STRA,%5eDJI

I totally agree with this guy. Yep, sure college is good. But speaking as a couple that are $100,000 in debt (and that's only going to a crappy school, not a good one) because of it, we definitely don't think it was worth it. And as noted in the article, tuition is only going to go up. And as Altucher also pointed out, and I have seen first hand to some extent ranging from moderate to severe with every college student I've ever come across or known, the statistics about how much we actually learn are more than likely spot on. And I'm including myself in that as well, so don't get all salty if you were one of the college students I know.

I can say with 100% confidence that I have learned more life/business skills from May 2010 to now than I did in all my schooling at Northern. And I don't believe that's just because it was Northern; I think it would have been the same had I gone to UMD or a community college or any other school. And guess what? I'm actually getting paid for most of that experience with the exception of the $500 I'm spending on my Farm Beginnings class.

I'm not saying that college is something people shouldn't consider, however, like Altucher said, I think that people could get more from it if they have that gap year or a couple years in between high school and college. Kids are way too impressionable and naive just out of high school and that shows with all the sex, drugs, drinking, and partying taking precedence over classes. I think a very small number of students can say they haven't done one of those while in college while their schoolwork should have been more important.

This is a topic that I could write a million more paragraphs about for y'all to read, however I will stop here because I don't want to bore everyone to tears. I'm just glad to see that someone is calling this to attention because it is something that should be thought about. It's not fair for kids that can barely make any adult decisions to feel pressured into something that will probably put them into the biggest debt of their life.

Beargrease and house!

Hiya! We have a house! Yay yay yay! We closed on Friday but haven't really moved anything besides cleaning products and the lamps and desk we bought. But we're going to paint this next weekend I think and then start moving things. The dogs like the house :) They especially like it with nothing in it because there's lots of room to run around! Smi is pretty terrified of the basement which is cute. She'll have to get over that though because I think we're gonna make them live down there.

The only other thing I have to talk about is the Beargrease Dog Sled Marathon. We went to the start on Sunday and it was terrific! Soooo many more dogs than the UP 200! They're finishing up today and the 1st and 2nd place teams were less than 30 seconds apart! That's the closest finish in the Beargrease history. It was a real nail-biter, I hear. I wish I coulda been there! In other Beargrease news: I'm going to have to go and kill a snowmobiler that hit four dogs of one team. There is NO reason he had to hit them if he had just been paying attention like he should have been. It's not like it's hard to miss (usually) dark haired dogs with obnoxiously bright booties. And also, one of the mushers claims he saw bigfoot in the far North. I think it was the Gunflint Trailish area which, if there was ever going to be a Bigfoot, it would be up there. But I've decided he probably just saw a three legged bear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yZ4fktcuNk

Various News

Hiya! I feel like I haven't had anything substaintial to write about lately. And probably won't post anything for a bit after this one because we're getting our house in less than a week!!!! We should be closing on Friday :) We don't really plan on 'moving' next weekend though. I think we're gonna clean the place up nice because the people there now are questionable to say the least. And we're gonna paint the rooms! And I do mean WE. 'Cause Mr. Painter said I can help.... though now that he's a professional and all now I think he's going to regret saying that. Oh well, he can't take it back now!

But aside from hopefully painting next weekend THE BEARGREASE DOGSLED MARATHON STARTS NEXT SUNDAY!!!!!! Ohhhh I can't wait! For those of you in Marquette it's like the UP 200 only bigger and better. And more important. Oh, and there's more dogs :) Plus, next Saturday they have a cutest puppy contest. I've thought about having Smiler be in it, but I think that would be a bit overwhelming for her first big social event and she might get scared and that'd be sad.

In other baby news (besides Charlie), Lily had two cubs yesterday! And I saw one of them today! Sooooo cute! Too bad she had to give birth to them on the coldest day of winter. -40 can't be good for new lil cubs. But they seem to be doing well! If you go to http://bear.org/livecams/lily-hope-cam.html you can see them. Well, you'll probably have to watch for awhile to see one of the newborns, but in just a few minutes of watching you'll for sure see Lily and probably Hope too. They were worried about Hope and the newborns because they haven't seen this situation before since black bears usually only have cubs every two years.... but they say they have seen Hope licking the new cubs! She likes them :) hopefully.

I think that's all I've got at the moment. Maybe next time I'll have dogsled pictures. And I'd like to get some pictures of ships that are docked for the winter here too to share :)

Tim Tim Tim :)

I get to see my (original) husband on May 14th :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayay. I love Tim McGraw.

We Give Our Hearts to Dogs to Tear

This post is not exactly about the book We Give Our Hearts to Dogs to Tear by Alston Chase, though it certainly can relate. Last night I was up late because I couldn't sleep because Matt was in the Cities and I missed him (sappy, I know). So I stayed up reading my current book, I Thought You Were Dead by Pete Nelson. Though some things in the book are questionable and bother me, it's still a pretty good book. I'll only talk about the dog part on here though. In the book the main character (who is from MN, so for all my fellow Minnesotans it's kind of fun to read about his references in the book) has a dog named Stella and as you can probably guess and I'll I'm really going to say about it is Stella was put down last night. And I bawled it was so sad. I don't know why I let myself read these books when I have two dogs! It just made me want to stay up all night and cuddle them and tell them even more often than I do that they should never die. I'm not sure how many times I've made them promise not to die, but something tells me they probably won't keep that promise and it makes me sad :( So I'm excited to get home tonight and play with them lots because this morning was just not enough time!

I'll leave y'all with part of a poem by Rudyard Kipling that's in my We Give Our Hearts to Dogs to Tear book:

The Power of the Dog

There is sorrow enough in the natural way

From men and women to fill our day;

And when we are certain of sorrow in store,

Why do we always arrange for more?

Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,

With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)

When the spirit that answered your every mood

Is gone --wherever it goes-- for good,

You will discover how much you care,

And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

Break

This was a busy week! And I loooved it! :) I got to be with Charlie Tuesday-Friday and it was great. He was such a good boy all week. He's been taking lots of good naps and sleeping well in the night for his mom and dad. And he's learning how to roll over! I love being able to have known him long enough and see him on a regular basis to see how far he's come. Babies are amazing!

Tim has still not announced all his tour dates. He should probably get on it because tickets go on sale on the 15th! And I'm crossing my fingers that I still get to go to see Brandon Heath at the MOA on the 17th. I've already crossed one hurdle of my car breaking down and getting it fixed so now I just gotta hope they don't need me that Monday to watch Charlie. Though if they do that's really the only reason I would find acceptable to not go down to the Cities.

In other news.... My husband is going to be old on Wednesday!! Hehe I love him. He has apprenticeship class on Monday and Tuesday this week so he'll be home for his birthday :) We thought his class was going to be Wednesday and Thursday like the last three have but luckily they aren't! Which is a good thing because I cried when I thought that he'd have to be alone in the boring cities on his birthday.

A few other notes: If you haven't seen Dispicable Me yet, you must. It's sooo cute and funny. And if you haven't seen this video yet you must.

Brandon Heath, Matthew West, and TIM McGRAW!!!!

Well hello there world. I'm happy. I'm happy because in two weeks I'm probably going to go see Brandon Heath fo free at the Mall of America. And last week I found out that Matthew West is gonna be at Higher Ground Music Festival and it would be AMAZING to see him again because it was this time last year that he made me love Christian music so much :). AND yesterday I saw that Tim is announcing tour dates for is "Emotional Traffic" tour this summer soon!!!! Of course I have to see him :) :) Not to mention hopefully, hopefully, hopefully we'll be able to go to Sonshine on that Friday to see Mr. Toby Mac. But that's a lot of concerts and gets a lil pricey. Especially when the one I HAVE to go to is the most expensive. Oh well, I love Tim McGraw.

So that is all. Besides having to say that I get to see Charlie this week :D