Well, we no longer own a cat. We delivered our cat to Ben's sister's mother-in-law last Thursday night. So she's now an outside cat. It was a little sad. After Ben gets back from Ecuador in September, we'll get a little dog. That will make Ben feel better, I think.

G. K. Chesterton

"How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about arithmetic and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone?"

Thanks to Sarah for that quote!

Peaches!

So the best thing about this summer is the peaches and apricots. I've always liked them, but I absolutely cannot get enough! I can eat three a day! Which is sad since they don't usually fit in my grocery budget. Every time I'd pass them in the market, I'd breathe in the wonderful scent, then sigh. So it made my day today when I got the grocery ads and found out they're on sale this week. :) Ben laughed at me. But like I always say, if you can't get joy out of the little things in life, you'll spend most of your life depressed. I like my way best!

We're back from our trip to Illinois. Steph's wedding was beautiful. I think she ended up happy with everything which is the most you can ask from a bride. :) I only made one fairly noticeable mistake on all the music, which is the most I can ask of me! :) I was too busy doing things to take pictures, so Ben took all of what we got. And I've been too tired since we got back to even think about looking at them. Maybe tomorrow I'll look through them and post some.

Good news! We worked at how to rearrange the bedrooms to include baby things and I think it won't be as hard as I originally thought! It was actually pretty fun. Ben measured everything and we made a 2-d scale model of the bedrooms with furniture so that we could move everything around and "experience" different ways without actually moving furniture. So much more fun than the online version. I get so tired of doing things on the computer. Feeling something with my fingers is so much better. :)

It's a girl!

Not much to say besides that. :) We're excited. I dreamed last night I was having a girl. (for whatever that's worth.) I, of course, went out immediately and got some cute sleepers. And an adorable little jean jacket! :) I could go on and on, but I'll spare you.

I'm halfway though my pregnancy! Unbelievable. Ben heard the heartbeat through my belly last week.

Race Across America

My brother is on the team of a man who is doing the Race Across America. www.raceacrossamerica.org Tom Seabourne is the guy riding. They started in Oceanside, California, on Sunday and will end in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He's in twentieth place right now. Very cool! Won't it be amazing for him to see so much of the country?

So my whole family came for Memorial Day. Dad, Mom, sister and her husband, and my younger brother. So Ben and I had to clean out the garage for someone to sleep down there. Straightening it up was less work than we anticipated, but cleaning it was a lot of work! It's just very dirty! The last guy that lived there did a lot of woodworking and there was sawdust everywhere. But its done now. Ben built another shelf. He just really likes woodworking. :)

And now my dad is here for two weeks doing doctoral work at NTS. It's been kinda nice. We've never spent just a lot of time alone, so it's been fun.

Ben and I took a picnic today. I just wanted to leave the house. He just wanted peace and quiet. So we ended up at Loose Park. Ate our picnic in the shade and then just laid there. There was a nice breeze. It was great. And we found out there's a spray park at Loose Park! Isn't that cool? There were quite a few kids there today. Ben loves water and thought it looked like fun. I told Ben, once we have our baby, no one will look at him weird for going to places like that. But for this summer, he'll have to borrow a kid or two. :) He might just do it. Side note: I really hope our kids aren't as scared of water as I am. It's kind of annoying.

I really love fireflies! I can see tons from my back deck.

Okay, I'm determined not to make all my posts as long as that one just a little bit ago. So I'll go!

Okay, I know I said I'd write more often. But this week is the Trinity All-church Retreat. It's great fun, but a lot of work to plan. So I've been swamped with that this week. But it's been a good week. I think I'm getting over the first trimester slump. I've had more energy. Well, it could just be adrenaline, but I'm saying it's that I've got more energy. Cause that's more optimistic! :)

Happy Spring

So it's been way too long since I've posted, I realize. And unfortunately I can't really blame being too busy. Parties, showers, and the like, but I lost two piano students. Well, it doesn't really equal out, but anyway. I've almost completed a crocheted tote bag. Very cute. I just have to finish the other handle and line it with fabric (the hardest part since I procrastinate anything having to do with sewing!). Tamara's baby girl was baptized yesterday and wore the hat I crocheted her. It was beautiful. (I'm going to make one for my baby too, I'm just waiting to find out whether it's a girl or boy). Went to Kristine's graduation party on Saturday. Now that both she and Set are finished with school, it will be easier to schedule things to do with them. That sounds nice. We're going to try to take some kind of trip this summer before the baby. Camping probably. They found one place but it involved hiking 5 miles in and another 5 miles out. I told them I probably wasn't up for that! :) Ben and I have started talking about how to redo the rooms upstairs and clean the basement. I'm not much for fully decorated themed nurseries. So most people will probably think I'm scarring the poor child for life. Oh well. I'm thinking a mural of a city skyline on the wall. Doesn't that sound cool? Black shadow buildings on maybe a medium grey wall? With pictures of cities around the room? I think it sounds very cool. We'll see. I'm not much of a painter.... I planted a bunch of flowers to sit in pots on our back deck. I love to look at them when we sit outside. Ben and I are going to teach a Sunday School class on marriage at our church for eight weeks in May, June and July. We're very excited. Not because we have so much wisdom to impart, but just to get people started talking about marriages. In our culture people will talk about their sex lives but are leery about talking about problems in their marriages. I know, we were one of them. Anyway, we're thinking it will be a great step for our church. Prairie Home Companion is coming to Kansas City!!!! We're so excited to go! It's in June at Starlight, the outdoor theater. Today I finished reading "Shostakovich and Stalin: The Extraordinary Relationship Between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator." Fascinating! I know that I like music and history and when you put them together for me it's a must read. But still. The book was fascinating. I learned so much about the Russian people as a whole and Stalin. (okay, about Shostakovich, too!) It was so interesting to read the banter that Shostakovich and Stalin had. This author seemed to think that Shostakovich was one of the only people that was actually a match for Stalin. Not that he could have really won anything - Stalin would have just had him killed. But several times Shostakovich anticipated Stalin's move and did the thing that kept him just enough in Stalin's favor that he and his family were saved. But I loved reading about how he kind of "got the last word" through his music. Several times he would write a piece that exposed Stalin as a brutal dictator, but managed to hide it enough or pass it off as something else (like being about WW2) that he was praised instead of killed. Very sad, though, to read about the oppression and terror that they constantly lived with under Stalin. A lesser man would have given up. I can't find the quote in the book, but I think it was Khachaturian (a contemporary Russian composer) that said something like this about him, In spite of the controlling regime, Shostakovich managed to compose epic and progressive music; we (the rest of the Russian composers) wrote songs. That is why he is a genius and we are merely talented. I thought that was interesting. okay. Enough for now. Happy Spring!