Day 547

No pictures today, We usually take a picture on this day...
Today is our 9th Anniversary, but unfortunately, Josh has to travel today, although I did get to see him Technically for 4 hours, 3 hours a 30 minutes of that was spent sleeping for me :D

we exchanged presents last night, and he got be 2 beautiful amber bracelets from his last trip to Poland. One that matches the necklace that I bought while I was there, and one that has many different colors of Amber. I love them both.



To another 9 great years.

5 weeks in Michigan

Josh has been traveling a lot, and has more trips coming up, so o decided to head home.

I came home to enough packages I thought it might be Christmas!!!!

One of those packages was this beautiful fabric, designed by Minick and Simpson who Lives in Michigan!!! And this fabric line is based on Michigan.

I babysat my sisters kids and we went out to pizza and it was amazing... and we had a great time, see the shirt the older one is wearing, I handed that down to her, and my uncle handed it down to me... 

I got to see one of my best friends announce her second pregnancy!

I got to meet one of the members of the online quilt group I'm in :)

My parents took me out to an early birthday dinner since we won't be together for my real birthday and they gave me this book I have been wanting :)

And I got these two books, my first books of grad school.

I was able to see the beach and have a great day with my sister and 6 of my nieces.

I may have also gotten a slight sun burn because I missed a spot with the sunscreen... oops.

I ran a 10 mile race while I was home, I was so happy to run it, I have heard about it most of my life. It was a tough race,  but good. It was fun to run past places I knew. And the medal HUGE

And later that day my cousin got married and it rained the whole afternoon and it was cold.

Saw some good friends

And my parents went on vacation and left me in charge of the house.

And being a good daughter I mowed the lawn and picked the berries...

I also dyed my hair for the first time ever!!!

And I spent a lot of time working on my fresh quilt, but I didn't finish it sadly, mostly quilted though... I tried to get it done so I could give it to my parents for their anniversary... maybe next year.

I met a friend and we picked apples and ate donuts!!! I love cider donuts!! 

And tried to catch this snake for my parents to no avail, I think it's hibernating in the garage for the winter!!! Eek!!! I even set rat traps! They said they didn't catch anything when they got home :(

Which was a learning experience, I had never set a mouse or a rat trap before, so thankfully my brother had been over earlier and set up one of the rat traps, so I could use it as an example.

Met up with more friends and hung out

And finally, 

Headed home

Homeward Bound

I flew home and spent 5 hours in the Atlanta airport.

I went to my oldest Niece's confirmation and afterwards we went out to lunch.

I took my MAT test, and after waiting a week I got my results, I was in the 87th percentile over all, And 78th in my intended major. I hope that means I can get in.

My Mom set up a meeting with my Great Uncle and we worked on some Ancestry, they shared some pictures they had.

Two of my nieces turn 13 this spring/summer, and since I don't plan on going back to Michigan until Christmas I took them out for their day with a

aunt Lisa. They both wanted to go shopping, one was looking for summer clothes and the other a dress for her spring formal.

I went ice skating

And bike riding

It really is a fun day to spend with them, I let them choose everything, from what we do to where we eat.  And we talk, and it's nice to spend some one on one time with them as they are becoming teenagers.

My family got together for Easter, it turned out to be a beautiful day, so after lunch we played frisbee and tag outside. My grandma even stopped by.

I also had to squeeze in a ton of shopping. Since I needed to get everyone birthday presents before I left, and I also needed to freshen up my wardrobe :)

And while I was out one day I met up with two girls who used to work for me in India, but they have now moved to Michigan! It was really nice to see them.

One of the girls brought some Indian deserts, they were pretty good!

The day before I left I accidentally broke a bracelet I had bought in China :( but luckily I know a girl in Mexico who was headed to China and she said she would pick me a new one up.

It was also my Dad's birthday, we went to Big Boy to celebrate 

And at night I finished up a gift for Josh, for our 9th anniversary present, some Willow coasters... Now to hold on to them until September.

Christmas

Well we headed to Frankenmuth for a tradition of dinner with friends.

When I was little we brought these home and I insisted my birthday cake be decorated with these... Lol, I still think they are adorable.

Then it was time for Christmas with my family, look how big these girls are getting! It makes me so sad. I wish that my siblings would have spaced all of the babies out and not had them all before I was even married, I think I could have been a better aunt if I wasn't busy being a teenager when the first couple were born.

But luckily Josh's brother has a little one, and we got to see them for Christmas too!

She really enjoyed opening presents this year, it was pretty cute.

More basketball and a little band

My brothers oldest two girls both play on the 8th grade team, even though the younger one is in 7th grade.

Here is a good picture of them playing together, the younger one is passing the ball to the older one.

And I love this one of the older one shooting a freethrow

Also I went to see my sisters oldest play in a Christmas band concert, and since Star Wars was coming out the same week they played like 6 songs from Star Wars.

She plays all kinds of percussion. I was pretty impressed.

Holiday sewing

In between the hustle and bustle of shopping I decided I was going to make my friends some hot pads. I had 6 people I wanted to make hot pads for.

So I sat in my parents basement and cursed the super strong new fan. And by new I mean newly put in the basement to blow the heat from the wood stove upstairs.

Real new huh? In fact one morning we woke up to the house smelling like electrical fire, and the old fan had had enough, and thankfully broke the breaker and didn't burn the house down, my dad went out into the garage and dug this beauty out of the attic. My parents had helped my grandparents move to their lake house the summer I was born, and this fan had been up there ever since. With a little cleaning it was up and running.

And I sewed

This is my first ever hot pad, the binding I felt was too big, so I made it smaller for the rest.

I made two sets of each print.

And some pockets on the back.

Baby basketball

all 6 of the nieces on my side are into basketball.
So what do I do after I am feeling better, hit up all the basketball games I can of course!
(basketball is not my fav sport, so this shows a lot of love)

My second youngest niece played during the Varsity half time. It was pretty adorable. They can bearly make it in the basket. And in this picture it looks more like dancing to me than basketball.

Tennessee Wedding and the aftermath

Josh's Mom decided she was getting married on Black Friday.

So the whole house got up and got ready in the morning, and then we all got in our cars and drove to the wedding site. My MIL went upstairs and put on her dress, and the wedding began.

After the wedding they just turned around and smiled... No walking back down the aisle or anything it was really weird. 

Then we took family pictures.

Only family attended the wedding, 

Then we ate dinner, and the happy couple took hundreds of pictures for like 2 hours, then we headed back to the cabin, went for a horse back ride and then walked around Gatlinburg. By the time we got home Josh's uncle got sick...

2am I wake up,to Josh getting sick... For the next two hours.

We had to wake up at 5 to go to the airport. 

He made it home to Mexico thankfully with out more more puking but laid on the couch for a day or two. 

 The groom and one of our nieces got sick about noon on Saturday. 

I thankfully made it to my parents house and hung out with them, until at midnight it hit me and I was sick for 8 hours straight followed by two days on the couch and only crackers and soup to eat. The bride ended up getting sick on Sunday too.

6 of us of the 20 ended up with food poisoning, the worst sickness I've ever had!

Thankfully I made it home so my parents could take care of me.

Happy Thanksgiving

We spent the day hanging out and cooking. It was nice to have everyone there.

Tennessee cont.

After hanging out at the house for he day while the boys had a "boys day out/bachelor party" fly fishing.

The girls finally got a chance to head out :)

We hot up the spa, 

My first pedicure ever, I've never had one because I've always been afraid I would kick the person, it took some serious control to not lose it to the tickling during this...

Also this little Asian man asked me where I was from and when I told him I lived in Mexico he told me my English was very good... Lol...

Keep in mind that Dave's daughter is 1/2 Mexican and Josh's Aunt that was with us is 100% Mexican... I do not look Mexican at all compared to them!

We got manicures, I tried out the gel polish, wow that stuff lasts forever, it's like 6 weeks later and I still have some of it on and can't get it off! 

We ate some lunch then stopped by the house to pick up my sister in law to go get our massages.

The massages were weird, they put three of us in a room, I went in with my mother in law... Awkward... And there were two male masseuses(sp?) thankfully I had a girl, but they did the hot rock massage part, it was pretty great.

Overall I've had better less awkward massages.

Teenagers

This year my oldest niece will be 13.

I can't believe it has been thirteen years since baby Amy was born, and I became an Aunt. She's not really a baby any more.

So I took her out while I was home to celebrate, it was a day about her. First stop the book store, where we hit up Starbucks and I bought her 6 books.

It was her first trip to a bookstore

Then she picked grinders for lunch.

And finally a movie.

We were the only ones in the theater for a long time! We saw the new Cinderella, I think she had a good time :) and I really enjoyed the one on one time with her.

Day 91

Josh worked all day, so I hung out at home with my MIL and Dave.

We baked cookies

This was my test batch for Josh's bosses visit, he likes cookies, so I make some for him these ones were tough, so I switched back to my Recipe with crisco in it. And they were much better.

I also finished these two blocks,

Now I just need to embroider on the white one to make it a snow man