Emilia's eats cake!

We had a little get together last night for Emmie's 1st birthday since we won't be together for her real birthday (June 11). We had some good friends over and ate cake (but as I am writing this I forgot we had bought ice cream and it is sitting in the freezer, oops). I was a little nervous about the cake because it started leaking raspberry juice (cake's aren't supposed to leak). The chocolate covered strawberries didn't even make it to the table- FYI refrigerate right after dipping. All in all it turned out good and we had fun with our friends.

At least SOMEBODY loves us

We rate the amount people love us by the number of times people visit us here in Nebraska. We had some of our good friends (the Johnson's) visit this week and it got us thinking of all those people who have made the trek out here. So far the ranking winner is our 5 year old niece Jenna. Here is the full list in ranking order. .5's are for visit in which they were only here for a few hours and didn't spend the night.

1. Jenna -3 visits
2. Randy - 2.5 visits
   
3. Jody - 2 visits visits
4. Carianne, Gregg, and Jeff - 2 visits
5. Lorinda - 1.5 visits
   
6. Rusty - 1.5 visits
7. Pete and Linda - 1 visit
8. Matthew and Cora - 1 visit
9. Rachael - 1 visit
10. Jake and Andrea - 1 visit
11. Jordan (Brenden's mission friend) - 1 visit
    
12. Walt and Joanne - .5 visit
13. Doug (Brenden's cousin) - .5 visit
14. Lance and Hailey (Brenden's friends from WA) - .5
    
15. Casey - .5 visit
16. Mike, Eloise, Grandma Olive - .25 (we had to drive and meet them in Omaha)

Obviously, some of you have some catching up to do. Our doors are always open as long as you are willing to sleep on an air mattress.

Sunday walk

We took a walk to campus today after church. It was really warm so we decided to stick our feet in the fountain. Emmie loved it!

Remember When II

Brenden is still busy scanning old pictures. Here is the second edition of "Remember When". These are all pictures from my (Julianne's) past. Names have been withheld for the protection of the innocent.

Remember when it was cool to carry a trapper keeper?

Remember when your mom would dress you in matching outfits?

Remember when our brother was a pirate?

Remember when you had to pump up the wheels of your scooter and over-sized sweatshirts and black and white checkered pants were "in"?

Remember when suspenders and big hats were cool? Oh wait... they weren't ever cool.

First Words?

Emilia repeated "Dada" a couple time this morning, I swear! Dad win!

Memorial Day Weekend Camping Trip

For the weekend we took a trip down to Wagon Train State Recreational Area with Aaron and Whitney Hill. It was all sorts of wonderful "smelling like campfire for the next week" fun.

We spent Friday night and Sunday night there (coming home Saturday night so we could make it to church Sunday AM).

It was Emilia's first camping trip and she did pretty well. Sure, it completely messed up her sleeping schedule and she trouble eating because she was constantly distracted by something. It was great though.

Here are some pictures.


We have a huge tent. It seemed silly when we first bought it, because it was so enormous for just Julianne and I. But now it is perfect! We can fit Emilia, our queen sized air mattress and still have enough room for about 3 more pack-n-plays! Don't worry, that wasn't a sneaky announcement that we're expected triplets. WE'RE NOT!

One of the most delicious bad decisions I have ever made.

The girls are just too cute. Once Julianne gets a little sun, her freckles start to come out super fast. I love it! We're curious if Emmie will get freckles or not.

Emmie didn't like it when I took her out in the water - I think it was too cold for her. Or, perhaps she is scared of fish like her mom. She did enjoy putting hand-fulls of sand, rocks and algae into her mouth though - made for a healthy lunch.

She liked crawling around in the tent. It was like her own little private playroom.

When we came back on Sunday, we brought her little walker-bike thing. She loved it and scooted (backwards) all over the campsite.

The Hills brought their chocolate lab Titan with. Emilia couldn't get enough of him.

New Publication

As some of you may know, the process of academic publishing is long and arduous. One of my first publications, a chapter in The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854 anthology, did not come out in print until a good 3 years after I had written in. By the time it hit book shelves and the press sent me a few per gratis copies, I could not ever remember what I had written.

Well, along those lines, I was pleased to see that another publication FINALLY made it through the long process and is now finally in my hands! It is the lead article in the latest volume (4) of Genocide Studies and Prevention: an International Journal. It was teased out of my M.A. Thesis and written about 3 years ago as well. I'm glad to see that it has found a nice home. I was also pleased to see that it was picked up and hosted (full text) on the Project Muse Website.

So, if you'd like some good reading material with which to put yourself to sleep, go ahead and click here.

There are a few other pubs in the works, but I'm not holding my breath to get that hard copy in my hands. Perhaps I will have another update in about 3 more years!

New Picture site

Dear friends and family,

We are going to start using a new photo site to catalog some of our photos online. We won't be uploading ALL of them, because the free account only has limited storage. If some of you really want the full set of photos (about 1,200 for 2009 so far) feel free to pony up the $20 or so a year for an upgraded account. The free account has 1 GB storage, and upgraded ones can have much more. We'll see. If you guys really want, perhaps we'll consider it.

Otherwise, we'll probably only have a handful up there. Right now we put up about 150 or so. Bookmark the album and then you can check in every once in a while to see if there is anything new.

Click here for the album.

mischief

We are trying to baby proof our apartment. We have moved all important books off the bottom bookshelves and we have put locks on our cupboards but still this girl gets into just about everything. I turn around for 2 seconds and this is how I find her. . . climbing up on things to reach the non-Emmie stuff. Who does she think she is? Spiderman?

I know this isn't a great picture of Emmie. Who wants their picture taken mid-bite, right? Well, that isn't the reason I am posting it. I want to show all of you this blue carpet. Where ever we move next we will not have blue carpet. That will be one of the requirements.

Wicked

I heard my family talk about how great Wicked was for 3 years. I was so jealous! It finally came to Omaha and I got to go see it on Thursday. They were right, it was pretty much amazing.