Category: General News

May 22:  Maretta and Kyle’s wedding is in just two days!  I’ve been having a good time franticly coordinating details.  Maretta is such an easy bride, and everyone involved is so laid back and wonderful…it’s been a fun event to organize.  We’re expecting 150 people.  Maretta had her hair trial today, and we went makeup shopping for her this afternoon.  The groom and his guys (including Bryan) are out having fun tonight.
My to-do list for tomorrow is much shorter, and mostly includes getting my toes and fingernails painted and visiting with Heather and Michael and their new baby and then doing the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner.  Yay!  Next week is going to feel like a vacation:)

May 19: It’s hard to believe that Maretta has completed her education at St. Kate’s!  It seems like just last year that we were dropping her off for her freshman year.  It was a beautiful day.  Michael, Joe, Becky, Dad, Terry, Marilyn and Bob (Kyle’s parents), and our family of four were all on hand to celebrate this milestone.   Most of us weren’t able to attend the actual graduation (Maretta only had four tickets), so we watched it on TV from her dorm room.  She graduated Cum Laude with bachelor’s degree in theater.  We’re all really proud of her!  Way to go, Dolly!  Now that she’s graduated, moved out of her dorm room, and “moved” into her new apartment, the next step is her wedding.  No problem

Pictures from the weekend are in the gallery.

May 19: On Saturday, my sweet guy turned 30!  That’s a big birthday:)  The previous Friday, he and a couple friends went to a Brewer’s game and had a great evening tailgating and watching the Brewer’s pull out a win in the final moments of the game.
On his birthday, we drove up to Minnesota for Maretta’s graduation.  First, though, we made a stop in Northfield where we had lunch at Hogan Brothers. MMmmm.  Carleton was holding its annual rugby reunion, so we went up to the rugby fields and spend an hour or two watching a rugby match and chatting with old friends.  Bryan played rugby for a few years in college, and it was fun to watch him hold Andrew and show the little guy a few scrums.
Then we drove the rest of the way up to St. Paul and got to see Maretta and Kyle’s new apartment on Grand Avenue.  It’s really a fun place for them.  I’m so excited that they get to start their life together!  We went out to dinner with my family and Kyle’s parents, and we had rhubarb dessert (my mom’s yummy recipe) for Bryan’s birthday cake.  It was an action-packed day, and I’m hoping to get to take him out soon for a dinner just him and me.  It was a beautiful day for a birthday.  Happy 30th, honey!

May 19: We’re back from a full weekend in St. Paul.  Andrew is in his room, and Sylvia is sleeping (on and off), and I’m crashed on the chair amidst a very messy living room.  I have no thoughts for supper.  I can’t imagine (at the moment) having the energy to clean up the kitchen from lunch.  What I’d really like to do is nap, but I just can’t ever seem to nap, so instead I’ll hang out on the computer and hope that Sylvia keeps sleeping (there she’s crying) and Andrew remains happy in his room for another hour.
Bryan’s parents are on vacation in Israel right now.  They are on a tour with Chuck Swindoll.  The itinerary says that they are currently in Jerusalem.  I’ve also discovered a video blog of their tour, which is neat to see.  I imagine they are having an amazing experience!
Maretta’s wedding is in five days.  SO Exciting!  If I weren’t so tired at the moment, I’d call her to see if she wanted to come over to plan out details with me, but perhaps we’ll work on those kinds of things tonight.  It’s going to be a lovely event.
Pictures from the last week are in the gallery.

Last week, we we went to Olbrich, where I took some cute pictures of the kiddos in the gardens.  Friday was Terry’s 60th birthday, and Saturday  was Bryan’s 30th birthday.  On Friday evening, Michael, Tom, Terry, and the four of us met at Tenney Park for a picnic of shrimp po’boy sandwiches and gingerbread for dessert.  Andrew enjoyed playing in the playground, and we all walked down to Lake Mondota to watch the sun set.  It was a nice evening.
Andrew’s been getting injured quite a bit these last days.  He has a mild laceration on his foot (stepping on the edge of a piece of sheet metal), a huge yellow and brown bruise on the side of his neck (tripping on my foot and flying into a metal bench head first), and a cut and bruise on his forehead (climbing around in the car and falling on the corner of a wooden mirror frame).  I really do try to be a good mother:)  This past weekend he had a blast climbing around some low trees, and I was impressed at his recent levels of climbing prowess.  He’s a neat kid!
Sylvie is up now, and she is sitting on my lap goo-ing, ahhhh-ing, and playing with her hands.  She recently has discovered her hands, and let me tell you, they are cool.  You can hold one with the other, you can try to shove both in your mouth at the same time, and then there’s the fingers!  It’s all very amazing for a little girl.
On the drive home from St. Paul, I read several chapters of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book Farmer Boy to Andrew.  He seemed to enjoy it, and it’s pretty cool to think that he may be old enough to start listening to chapter books.  I’m excited about the possibilities!
Spring is fully here.  The lilacs have started blooming, the daffodils are all done, the tulips are past their prime.  It’s time to do a second lawn mowing, and we’ve planted some new perennials.  May is just about my favorite month, and I’m sad to know it’s nearly half over.  Luckily, I love all the spring and summer and fall months, so there’s a lot to look forward to.  May is something special, though!

May 15 (3pm): Sylvie has been asleep for about 20 minutes.  And my core is re-centering.  I do have one major problem, however.  I need chocolate.  Really, a lot, I do.  I should have an emergency stash set up for just such occasions of half-day baby crying jags.  On the other hand, I probably would have obsessively eaten it all before noon today.  That’s actually why I do not have any chocolate on hand.  My bags of chocolate chips were disappearing way too fast, so I decided I couldn’t be trusted with them any more.

I wish I had a root cellar or a trap door like you’d find in a 100-year-old house in New England.  I would have a fireproof box full of dark, imported chocolate.  I’d tiptoe down the the basement, move burlap sacks and shove aside an old trunk to open the trap door, and then, viola.  Chocolate heaven.

OK that’s it.  I’m making brownies.

May 11: As a general notice, our cats turn eight years-old this month.  I decided long ago that their birthday would be May 10.  So we sang to them.  And gave them some kibble.  Happy birthday Bowser and Spooky!  May you enjoy many more years of sleeping in the sunlight, curling up on us on chilly winter nights, and kneading my head until you draw blood (Bowser).  You are now middle aged, rotundish felines.  And we love you.
You can see early pictures of the kitties on our old website here.

May 11: I just wanted to send a quick hello to all my mom friends out there.  Dad came over for lunch, and we toasted all the mothers who got us to where we are today.  Andrew and I made a yummy berry coffee cake for breakfast this morning, and I think we’re going to head over to Olbrich this afternoon.  I just uploaded a week’s worth of pictures (boy, are those kids cute!).  They can be found in the gallery.

May 4: What a lovely weekend!  On Friday, Sylvia and I drove out to Jack’s house to attend his annual wildflower weekend.  Sylvia “sang” well over half of the two-hour drive both there and back.  Urgh.  But for the rest of the weekend, she was just delightful to be around.  Jack’s house is on the Wisconsin River; I think it’s just about my favorite place in the world.  Around 20 people attended the weekend this year…mostly friends of Jack’s whom I’ve known since I was small.  Sylvia was a big hit with everyone, and she really enjoyed meeting Jack for the first time.
Photos from our spring weekend are in the gallery.

On Saturday, we took a nice long hike across Jack’s land, down through Bergum Bottoms, up a big, big hill, across a lovely, windy meadow, and back down.  Aside from chasing Andrew around, I haven’t been particularly active over the last five months, but the 11 mile hike was good.  Sylvia was in my front carrier, and she dozed most of the day.  We all stopped for a few breaks while I nursed her, and she made sure to keep the party going by getting fussy and demanding that we (or at least I) resume walking promptly after her meal was over.  It felt great to be introducing her to so much fresh air and such a lovely place at the tender age of two months:)  And I enjoyed the challenge of scrambling over trees and clambering up and down muddy hills with a wee one.  A little challenge is a good thing:)

We had lots of yummy meals, good music, and great company.  Most everyone else camped, which was pretty much winter camping since the temperature got down to below freezing last night!  I figured that it was a bit too early for Sylvia to camp in freezing weather, so we were sung in the house.

There were lots of fantastic birds to be seen at the feeders in front of the house.  At one point, two indigo buntings and two goldfinches perched on a tube feeder.  Someone mentioned that it looked like the Michigan flag!  There were oriole sightings, rose breasted grosbeaks, and lots of other sweet little birdies to watch.

I hadn’t been on the wildflower walk since 2005 – when I was pregnant with Andrew – and it was great to get to see everyone and hike the trails again.  I’m already looking forward to our annual family summer trip in August!

April 29: I really enjoy following a variety of blogs, and it occurred to me that some of my readers might like to hear about a nifty tool that allows you to check on the status of your favorite blogs without having to visit each one.  “Wouldn’t it be cool,” you might think, “if there was one website I could go to and see if there was anything new to read on my email, favorite blogs, favorite news sources, etc.?”  The good news is that there is just such a tool and the even better news it that it’s ultra easy to use and the one I use is very pretty to look at.

iGoogle allows you to create a your own customizable homepage (it takes about 30 seconds to set up).
You can have all sorts of content on the home page.  Mine for example (see the image below) shows new emails I’ve received and the top three stories of all the websites I regularly view.  So I can see at a glance if any of my siblings or Julie or Karen have written a new post.  I also have a spot where I can see if I’ve had any new comments on my website (because I just love reading my comments!).  To add new content to my Google homepage, I can either click on the RSS icon in my web browser’s address bar (it’s the orange and white icon) on the right-hand side or type in the URL of the blog.

While I’m sharing info about cool things you can do with this tool, I should mention that Google news alerts allows you to create custom queries for news.  So I can set up a Google news search for “Dotzour” to see where Bryan’s dad was last quoted.  Or I can create a search for articles about land conservation that are printed in Wisconsin.  The results of these searches can be shown on my Google homepage as well.  Very handy!  And potentially makes me feel much more on top of things than I really am!  Just remember that whenever you see the RSS feed icon in the address bar that you can add it to your Google homepage (or other RSS feed aggregator).

I’ll also just say that I love Google’s calendar…it’s what I use to keep myself organized…and Google Documents which allows you to create and share Word, Excel, and PowerPoint-type documents.  The best part is that you can access them from anywhere – a real help when I was working on things from home, work, and the coffee shop!

OK, I’ve been meaning to write a post about the joys of my Google homepage for quite some time.  It’s too fun a tool not to share!  Plus, you can make it pretty with all kinds of fun themes.  I love that kind of thing!

Enjoy!

April 29: Andrew is counting to 20 in his room instead of napping.  Sylvia is sleeping with intermediate wake-ups.  She’s very mad when she wakes up, but then pop in the paci, and back to dreamland she goes.  Andrew has been wearing big-boy undies for the last several weeks, but he came out of his room a bit ago with a “poopy diaper”  a.k.a. poopy underpants.  While I was washing out his undies, he sat on the toilet and dropped his dad’s dice into the water.  (Bryan, if you’re reading this, sorry!  I pulled them out and washed them off with soap.)  Trying not to lose my cool, I got the little guy re-clothed and back into his room for continued quiet time.  Which since it is not particularly quiet nor restful for Andrew I may re-name “Mommy-needs-a-break-time.”
Michael came over this morning.  He’s back from visiting Joe in Maine with Terry and hasn’t yet started the job hunt.  I rented a van, and we moved our queen-sized guest bed to his house.  Then he brought over Rocky’s pizza for lunch.  Michael stayed home with the kids while I picked up an dropped off the truck.  It was one of the first times I’ve left Sylvie.  They did fine:)
Before he left, Michael helped me set up an art easel that Granny and Grandad got Andrew last Christmas.  I’d been waiting until we moved the rooms around to pull it up.  When Andrew gets up from his “mommy needs a break” time, he’ll have a fun surprise!
Thanks Uncle Bubba, for all your help today!