Memorial Day in Maryland

Memorial Day weekend 2008 was a reunion with Jonnett's college friends in Maryland. We were all once roommates and remain close friends. But, now we live all around the country (Rachel in Indy, Kim in Denver, Jenn in Maryland, and Memphis of course), and we haven't all seen each other since our wedding 3 years ago! So, we decided it was time to get together, husbands, kiddos, and all! We had such a great time, although times have changed a bit from college: sippy cups have replaced shot glasses and early bed times have replaced the late nights of "studying". Days were filled with lots of chatting, laughing, and eating! We enjoyed a great baseball game between the Nationals and the Brewers, with the Nationals coming out on top. The weekend ended with little Travis squeals of joy while running through the water at the fountain. Thanks for such a great weekend Jenn! Looking forward to next year! Check out more pictures here.

Home Improvements

Happy Anniversary to us. This year, Scott and I thought we would really out-do ourselves and go all out for each other for our 3rd Wedding Anniversary. Gift ideas that we contemplated: jewelry, an exotic trip, flat screen TV, new car...but none of these were deemed good enough for our celebration. No, we decided to get really romantic and...

Oh yeah, we cut down our dead tree. So romantic, right? Unfortunately, our lovely oak tree contracted a fungus just a few months after we moved in last summer, and it quickly died. In the fall, the tree doctor suggested we wait to see if it came back this spring. We have been optimistic; however, in early May when we walked down the street from several houses away and saw the dead tree emerging upward from our back yard amidst all the beautiful, healthy, green trees, we finally faced reality. Now we are optimistic about one thing: we don't have to worry about a tree limb crashing through our roof or deck.

Especially the deck. The weekend before the tree came down, we spent several hours staining/waterproofing our deck. The previous owners had neglected several home improvement aspects of the house, one of which was the deck. We decided to spruce things up a bit, and protect the wood that was on the verge of being damaged.

Tree gone - check. Deck Stained - check. Lots of home improvement projects left - check. We'll keep you posted.

Rain showers = spring flowers

They say it rains a lot in Seattle, and they aren't lying. However, Scott and I have realized that it also rains alot here in Memphis. Here's the catch: when it rains in Memphis, it doesn't drizzle, it pours. In Seattle, we never experienced a thunderstorm during the 3 years we spent there. We've been in Memphis for 10 months, and we've had more thunderstorms than we can count on our hands together, and several tornado threats as well. It has been crazy.


But, no matter what, spring came to Memphis beginning in early March, and I definitely can't complain about that. It's green and the flowers are bright and beautiful! Right now we are enjoying our roses in our front yard:

From Snow to Spring

In mid-April, I made another trip back to Vermilion to visit the fam (how great it is to live closer!). But, this trip was quite different from the blizzard in March! Temperatures in the 70's, long chats outside on the patio, and orange-swirl ice cream from Romp's Dairy Dock were some of the highlights of this trip!

Let's not forgot the kids either -

tractor rides with grandpa, smashing pennies on the railroad tracks with Jacob, and...

PB & J sandwiches with sprinkles...yum yum!