Vacation time!

Emmie and I decided to take a vacation south and try to get warm again. I was a little worried about the plane ride as usual but the Heavens parted and the Lord answered my prayers- Not one person sat by us on the plane. We had the whole row! We are really excited to be here. Lorinda, Matthew, Jenna and Cora met us at the airport with signs saying, "Welcome Julianne and Emilia". They are too nice. I've never seen Emmie so happy to see anyone. She sure does love her cousins. This should be a fun trip.

Photography 101

A friend of mine and I are taking a photography class at the local community college. We are learning how to take pictures of people and learning to use our flash. Lucky enough Brenden loves having his picture taken (ok, not really). Also, its hard to take a picture of Emmie because she never stops moving.

The weather has been SO cold lately. You can't be outside for more than a few minutes before you can't feel your fingers and your nose starts to run.

Stacie took these ones for us. Thanks for sticking out the cold!

Dissertation - 1st Half update

I am nearing the 1/2 way point on my dissertation. I plugged it all into wordle to see what the word clouds would come up as. It takes all of the text, and offers a visual representation. The bigger the word, the higher its frequency. Since this is only for Pt. 1 of my disseratation, it is clearly leaning towards the northern borderlands in topic.

Here it is:



Go to Wordle.net for a higher resolution version.

Emmie's new dress

I have recently been going through my closet and getting rid of stuff. I found this great old wool skirt that doesn't quite fit anymore thanks to this lovely one pictured below. I liked the fabric so I decided to make a dress for Emmie. I think it turned out pretty cute too.

Yes, I know most of you probably don't care about such things but I know my mom does and most likely Linda as well so this post is for you.

Its been just the girls

Brenden took off early Tuesday morning to attend the Western History Association conference in Denver. Its been pretty lonely here without him. There are quite a few things Brenden does that I took for granted. . .

1. Brenden takes out the trash. I have to admit the trash hasn't been taken out since Monday and today is Saturday. I just keep pushing it down hoping that the lid still closes.

2. Brenden gets the mail. I am sure that our mail man is getting tired of having to stuff the mail into the already full mailbox. Someday I am going to take a picture of our mail man. He is pretty tough. If I had to guess, his name is Diesel.

3. Brenden changes the channels on the TV. I have noticed that when I sit down and watch TV I leave it on the TV guide channel. I really shouldn't be satisfied with this.

4. Brenden will get up to get me a drink of water right after we have tucked ourselves into bed and turned out the light. Yes, I have had to get up and get my own water.

5. Brenden is more fun to talk to than Emmie. Although I love Emmie, she isn't the best conversationalist.

We will be happy when he is back here with us. Since this post is about Brenden, I will toot his horn for him. He won the Walter Rundell Graduate Student Award from the WHA. It came with a good chunk of change to use for his dissertation. We are very proud of him!

The Get Up Kids Concert at the Slowdown

On July 2, 2005, Julianne and I went down to Kansas City to see the last Get Up Kids concert (they were breaking up). It was a great show - very crowded, but a lot of fun.

Now, over 4 years later, the band announced a short reunion tour and were making a stop in Omaha. We got tickets and went on Friday night (Oct. 2). It was at The Slowdown - a new venue in Omaha opened by Saddle Creek Records. I had heard good things, but hadn't been to a show there yet, so we were excited to see the place. The venue was AWESOME! And, it has seriously convinced Julianne to go to more shows. She doesn't like people crowding her personal space, and the venue has a great layout where you can see great, be close to the band, but not be down in the pit shoulder-to-shoulder with the sweaty masses.

The concert itself was awesome. The Get Up Kids sounded as good as they ever have. It was nice not being squished in the pit, and there was no Japanese girl standing right behind us singing all of the (mispronounced) words at top of her lungs the entire show (like back in 2005).

Here's us outside. It was windy and chilly and we couldn't get the angle right to have the sign in the background. By the time we did, Juls was shivering.


Here's us back in 2005. Good times. We were so young . . .



BIG Thanks to Brad and Emily for watching Emzilla. She had her first sleepover with Mya.

When Dad Dresses Emmie, Pt. 1

Homemade Vespa t-shirt. Striped long sleeve undershirt. Pink chucks.