You ought to give Iowa a try!

I went to Iowa this weekend, my first trip to the state of corn and Shawn Johnson. Chris grew up in Adair, the home of the first western train robbery and a seriously awesome smiley faced water tower. We visited and I was given the full tour. I think we saw maybe 5 people total on a rainy Sunday afternoon.














There were also lots of windmills, which fascinated me! I've seen them before, but they are just so cool. We thought we heard a train at one point but it turned out to be a windmill kicking it into high gear with the strong wind we had.
The reason we went to Iowa was to visit some of Chris's college buddies. That was a tad overwhelming, but really fun and enjoyable. It was neat to see Chris with his peeps. I learned a new drinking game, ate walking tacos and generally had a good old time. Now I'm going to be catching up on sleep for a good week, but it was so worth it. :)

Lookee what Lizzie did!

You guessed it, I blew out a tire. I was doing inspections in the work truck and ran over an unstuck traffic directing reflector tape thingy. At least, that's what I think happened, and I'm pretty sure. That hole is about an inch and a half long. It was quite impressive.
Thankfully, I the spare was in good shape. I finally figured out how to get the jack and spare out of their hiding places and my co-worker Dave showed up. That was a good thing because my feats of strength were not enough to loosen the lug nuts. Then a neighbor offered to use his hydraulic jack and air compressor gun to do the rest. That was very nice of him, so we took him up on the offer.
This is the first time I've been faced with a non-functioning tire. I was surprisingly relaxed about the whole thing, even about the change in expected schedule. And if you know me, even a little, you know that this is notable. :)

my wonderful Easter...

...began with going to church with my wonderful boyfriend. We got up for the 8am service. 8am is very early for Chris.

Then we spent the day with the Hosch family at Matt's house. Matt is the oldest of the siblings.
We ate good food, enjoyed the beautiful day, and Simon, who is 3.5, sat in a box. We all celebrate differently I guess.

We also enjoyed a bit of car racing on the wooden floor. And just like in the movie, Mater kept going backwards!

I frequently get bummed out about being an adult, when the kids get to have all the fun. But I realized that it's just as fun to hide the eggs for the egg hunt (we were helping out the Easter Bunny) as it is to find them. Score! Being an adult can be just as fun as being a kid!

These photos are from our egg dying session the previous weekend. Chris with his niece and nephew. They are so cute.

And these were our eggs, post-dye. We used some brown eggs too, which gave the colors more of a muted, earthy look. It was very cool.

a natural fact

Friday's kick abschminki.

my little sister

Jenafer and I are coming up on our 2-year anniversary of being matched through Big Brothers Big Sisters. Amazing how time flies!
One of the first activities we did was attend an intro party where we made time capsules. Opening it this afternoon, we discovered that there was a piece of hard candy in there, something neither of us remembered. I think that will remain a fossil.
We'd also written various things we hoped to do together and goals for our friendship. It was neat to see how many of those things we'd gotten to. And to generally look back on the past 2 years.
Jenafer also wrote, "When we open this, Jenafer will be in 9th grade, which is a really big grade...and Elizabeth will still be old."
Thanks little sis. :)

I didn't lie, I just changed my mind.

So I was trying to remember what I promised in an earlier post, but upon review, those items now seem so much in the distant past that to write about them now would be silly. Either that or I don't have all the photos I wanted, since I'm at work at the moment and not where my pictures are. Never-the-less, I will endeavor to be witty and interesting in this current post, a somewhat daunting proposition considering the late hour and the early start I got today.

What's happening with Lizzie these days? Let's see if I can come up with a random list...

Work is picking up, although with less construction this year than previous ones, it's not "quite" as crazy. I'm struggling with work a little bit, with the changes that I've seen since I started almost 2.5 years ago. There has been lots of turnover, so the mood and feel of the office is different. It catches me off guard sometimes, and I'm not yet sure how I feel about it.

I'm feeling a bit of cabin fever, but on a larger scale. I haven't gone on an airplane in 2.5 months!!! That's insane! AND I don't have any plans to go on an airplane for another 3 months! I feel the need to travel and see my people. But my bank account is loving having my feet glued in Minnesota.

I finished my taxes on Monday evening. I'm glad to have that all done.

Chris is still around. Nothing terribly new on that front. Although one of the topics I was going to write about earlier was our trip to see his brother and family in Michigan. That was good fun. They are such brothers.

I'm trying to stick to a regular sleep schedule that allows me more sleep than I'd been getting. That's going alright, although it can always use improvements. At least I'm sticking to the "no TV after 9pm" rule and starting to wind down then, even if I don't turn out the light until 10:30pm...

So many people are having babies! I find that amazing and exciting, in an "I'm so glad it's them and not me" kind of way. Last count was 6 due in the next 3-4 months.

At the moment I'm hanging out at work doing both work and non-work things (case in point) until I go to hang out with my knitting friends from church. I know that sounds like a wild and crazy time, but it's good stuff. :)

I'm in the process of knitting two pairs of socks that I gave as Christmas presents to Dad and Uncle Tom. Shout out to you two, but no, sorry, the socks aren't done yet.