Grand Island

Right now Ryan has a NeRPA conference in Grand Island.  The Lincoln Regional Center paid for it (the hotel, conference, and vehicle to get there).  We were pleased about that.  Then he found out that no one was riding with him or sharing a room with him, so Vidalia and I came too.  It's like a little vacation away from reality where we get to spend time with Ryan while he gets paid and later we get to swim and maybe do the other fun things the hotel has too.  We're kind of excited about the change from the norm.  

Dear Neighbor

I’m aware that Jesus taught us that we are suppose to love everyone.  In general, I don’t struggle with this commandment.  Maybe it is because most the people I know aren’t like you.  I’ve never really talked to you, but I get super annoyed listening to the bass on your stereo for hours during the day and then continue to listen to it in the middle of the night.  As I said, that’s annoying, but I’m able to deal.  However, when I’m standing next to my baby’s crib and I smell your nasty whatever you smoke, I feel really angry.

On a kinder note, if you decide to move, I will help you pack your boxes.  Oh, and thank you for making me struggle.  Maybe I’ll learn from this and maybe someday I’ll actually love everyone, even you.

Stairs

Vidalia loves them.  

Well, she loves going up them and has no idea how to go down them.  She does sense that they are dangerous though.  Don't worry, we still keep them blocked off.

Good Job Vidalia!

She's fast now and does stop to examine the books on the landing.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii2v8-noNCQ

Fall

So, it hasn't actually come yet, but I LOVE fall.  I think we're in the beginnings of it because the humidity has dropped and the nights now cool down.  We've even had the occasional day when it is just cold.   Now, I don't love the cold, I love the nice temperatures.  Fall used to always be my favorite, but because I never want Winter to come, it's kind of a bitter-sweet season.

What's my point?

I have none, but this baby is cute.

Things To Do In Lincoln #11

Visit Holmes Lake.

It's big enough to surround you and small enough to exist within the city.  It's really quite pretty there.  Oh, and this is definitely not a lake for swimming.  Beautiful...yes.  Clean...no.  (Dirty naturally and just the lake itself.)

And these ducks live here.  Lots and lots and lots of them.

And if you try to take a picture of the moon, you see these spots.  (In the picture and in the air.)  I don't know what they are.

Note:  Although you can't see the moon, this was toward the moon still.  Hence the spots.

I'm cleaning out my external hard drive

I don't know why, but I find this funny (and a little bit rude really).

When I was a freshman in college, (actually the summer after) I had some roommates (which I dearly love).  They didn't have a computer.  I did.  No big deal really.  I would often let them use mine.  After not very long, they would use it constantly (with or without my permission) and they wouldn't treat it as nicely as I did.  As a 19 year-old, I was super bugged.  In a little bit of my stress level defense, I was working 50+ hours a week and going to school full-time.  I spent my downtime doing homework and my free time was limited (and usually spent with my good friend Erin).  It was really busy, which may be why I did not repeat the schedule any following summers.  

So this is the mean thing I did.  I created a guest or visitor account on my computer and posted the Attention thing found above as the background.  Rude of me really.  I'm so glad I have now learned how to talk to people.  Much more effective.  (Not to mention, not so rude.)  And I tell you that so that I can laugh a little at myself and delete the file.

FYI

I know some of you look forward to our daily posts (and probably some of you wish we would say more exciting things if we are going to post everyday), but I'm running out of things to say, so I am no longer going to make an effort to have a post for everyday.  Updates should still be frequent and maybe more interesting and important too.  Mostly, it stopped being fun to think of something for everyday. I now resign from daily posts at noon CDT, but not from blogging. 

Church and Czech Festival

Jer and Gido came to church with me!  There was a baby in the row in front of us (Eva Doney, for our future reference).  Both Jer and Gido were smiling at her and patting her hand; Gido then surprised everyone by grabbing the baby and putting her in his lap.  Eva and Gido weren't concerned, but everyone else was a little bit startled.  It was fine (and funny).

I was proud of Jeremy for bearing his testimony.  Most everyone in the ward was confused at where Melissa and Vidalia were and who were these other two people.  To make things worse, I went to primary to play the piano and sent them by themselves to Sunday School and Elders Quorum.  That's a really funny story!  

After church (Did I mention it was Jer's actual birthday?), we went to the Czech Festival in Wilber, Nebraska.  We apparently went too late.  Most everything was almost over by then.  The main reason I wanted to go was to hear Czech music, BUT when we walked into the hall there was a band on stage, but they weren't doing anything!  The hall was full of people all getting drunk.  We were quite disappointed, so we wandered around for a long time first of all and eventually made it to the pageant.

This pageant involved young women of Czech heritage from all over the country.  They were all showing off their Kroje (traditional dress).  We were fully engrossed in every minute detail, stitch, button, bead, and design of every dress.  It was actually quite boring, but interesting at the same time.  I think the most entertaining thing for Jeremy was yelling really really loud when Miss Czech Utah presented her Kroje.  Pretty much awesome.  

On the way home, Jeremy said, "This is why I never want to live in the Midwest!"  (We were passing lots of cornfields.)  Ask him for further clarification if you so desire.

So I got them for TWO nights and ONE FULL day!  It was GREAT!

More Visitors + Jer's Birthday

August 6, 2011 (which is clearly not the post date)

After I finished work on Saturday, I texted Mr. Jeremy Mikhail, who was driving through Nebraska, he was about an hour away.  We agreed to meet at Buffalo Wild Wings.  It seems that we're making a tradition of going out to eat for his birthday in different cities.  First Salt Lake, then Mississauga, then Lincoln.  Where will it be 2012?  Time will tell.  We took some time to catch up and Jer was hitting on the waitress in typical fashion.

We told the waitress that it was Jer's birthday.  She wished him happy birthday and immediately started wiping down tables.  So we told the next waitress that came by, who told the first waitress, who had totally forgotten, just as we had suspected.  But it's all good, they brought him ice cream.  Then Jer and Gido got in a fight over who would pay.  Guess who won?  It was Gido, I think.  Then they came and slept over (Melissa and Vidalia were still in Utah.)  The End.

Visitors

Lincoln does have some attraction apparently (we personally love it and recommend it to all people), but until we actually moved here, we didn't know there was anything worth seeing.

Anyways...Andrew Armstrong and family (including his father-in-law, Brent Harker, great guy) came to stay the night on their way to moving to Columbia, Missouri for Andrew's internship.  It was a pleasant visit.  I was fortunate enough to get Brent to sign my map.  (He lived in Nunavut!  That's cool.  No pun intended.)

Andrew and Finn slept on the futon and everybody else went to a motel.  They wanted the house to be very very cold, but it was a small price to pay to have such enjoyable company and we're excited that they live relatively close to us now.  The End.

Product Review

No, I am not going to review a product, but I have been reading a lot lately.  I ran into this one and it made me laugh...well, the cons did.  This person is clever and enough so that I thought I would share.

this works

  By dkurtw - Aug 30, 2010 - Full review provided by  Best Buy

Pros: recharges units without having to take covers off.

Cons: does not cook dinner

I have had this for two months still working and saves alot of time over messing with covers. you just set the unit on the pad and it recharges it...

Towers

As in the ones that you build out of children's blocks.  Like this one:

Except not this one.  I stole this one from a google search, but one like this one.  Vidalia finds them terrifying. I don't know why.  Or, she did find them terrifying, so we built them and knocked them down and laughed, now they are not nearly so scary, but I was amused at her fear of towers.  It was kind of funny.  :)

P.S. The irony of me posting something titled Towers on 9/11 almost got me to not do it, but seriously, wrote this before I realized the post date.

Things To Do In Lincoln #10

Valentino's Pizza.  We thought we'd try the buffet so that we could try all the cool kinds of pizza.  Ends up they didn't have so much of their cool kinds of pizza, so I recommend ordering instead.  We've ordered before.  It's really very good pizza.  My pictures don't show anything, but Vidalia sorry.

Brought to you by...

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Any interpretations?

Starting in August

actual crawling and this.  (She discovered both at the same time.)

Things To Do In Lincoln #9

Ok, not actually Lincoln this time, but Florence (small city by Omaha).  It was the church headquarters for a couple years.  What is there to see?  Well, the Winter Quarter's Temple, The Mormon Pioneer Trail Visitors Center, The Pioneer Cemetery, and while we're at it, some cool park in Omaha.