We’re Back!

Here’s a sneak peek at this year’s Christmas card.

So… I’m breaking the several month hiatus because I think I’m ready to start writing again! The last few months have been busy to say the least. Here is a quick recap of the events of August through December:

1. Hyvee Triathlon



Mike biked and his brother ran and his cousin swam. It was a fun time and the pup got to come with us and have some fun at the grandparents’ house.

2. Back to School


This is probably my primary reason for the blogging hiatus. I started back to school full time at University of Northern Iowa. I’m giving it my all in attempts to graduate in 5.5 semesters. December 2015 can’t come soon enough.

Since we don’t live in Cedar Falls, Iowa, I have been dividing my time between our house in Dubuque and my parents’ place near the university. This semester it worked out that I could be home Friday through Monday and go to school Tuesday through Thursday. Next semester I won’t be so lucky, but I’ll touch on that later.

3. Chicken Prep

Mike worked hard on getting the chickens ready for winter and also for being lower maintenance. He created a heated watering system and a food tube that can theoretically keep them fed and watered for a week without us having to do anything. They are amazingly still laying 2-3 eggs a day so we are still checking on them daily, but it is nice to know that if we are gone for a weekend or something that they will be fine on their own for a couple of days.

4. We’re adding to our family.

I know, again, right? A dog in 2012, chickens in 2013, and now we’re actually adding a human to the mix. The baby is due at the end of May, which will be perfect for school. I plan on taking the summer off completely and in the fall, we will commute daily to Cedar Falls with my mom hopefully watching the baby while I go to school. As we’re learning, things happen and we just have to go with the flow, so obviously these are just plans.

You can probably expect this to turn into a baby blog, since that is pretty much consuming our lives at this point

5. Side Projects

These include:

The kitchen that will never be finished

Michael’s quest to find thousands of Mountain Dew bottle caps to win Xbox Ones for him and everyone he knows. Digging through recycling bins, peddling candy bars for bags of caps at the redemption center, hounding relatives and friends to text us their codes, we really have no shame. It was probably worth it because he successfully won three!

Planning a nursery – the Fantastic Mr. Fox theme is full go. Expect adorable foxes everywhere along with their forest friends, way too many stuffed animals and no painting because I am way too lazy for that nonsense. We painted the room gray back in 2012 and I think that will work just fine for our gender-neutral nursery.

So that is basically what we've been up to! Stay tuned for pregnancy talk, kitchen work, and most likely adorable pictures of our furbabies.

The Same Age

The husband and I are just about the same age. Seven weeks separates us in birthdays. Mine was last month and for a few weeks, I was a year old than him. Over the weekend, Mike turned 27 and now we are the same age again! 

We've been trying to eat healthier lately and Mike has been doing a great job of sticking to no junk food and very limited sweets. For his birthday though, I told him I’d make him breakfast. He could pick anything in my repertoire – French Toast, Waffles, Pancakes, Eggs and Toast, you name it – and he chose waffles. I whipped up a couple and put some chocolate chips in his (his favorite!). I also made a little bit of blackberry syrup. So so good. 

Mike made it look pretty and told me I needed to put it up on the blog.

Also, he got some cool presents from his parents. Mike will be doing the biking portion of the Hy-Vee Triathlon next month and was in need of a new computer for his bike. He also wanted to do work while he biked, so they bought him a workstation that clips to your bike handlebars. Pretty neat!

I’m a pretty terrible wife. I didn't get him anything. On Saturday, I took him out for dinner and a movie (RED 2) and told him to buy something for himself off of amazon (he has a list). I’m sure he will be able to find something to buy.

We also did some work on the garden this weekend (with Gizmo’s supervision, of course)! Slowly but surely, folks. This lil’ project sure is taking FOREVER to finish! Most of the work to be done is reinforcing the lattice and laying down mulch. It wouldn’t take very long, but we don’t seem to have a chance to work down there for long stretches of time. It is more like two hours here, an hour there… I am serious about being finished with it before school starts back up though!