Trying to blog more

It has been a crazy spring and we didn't want it to end this way but unfortunately my sister passed away this past Sunday. She fought colon cancer for a little over 4 years but it would seem that God needed her more than we did. I think there are a lot of us here that would disagree but she was so very uncomfortable in what her body had become that I think in many ways she is happier where she is now. We love and miss her dearly.

Because of Sandi and the way that she has handled her illness, many of us find ourselves changed in many ways. I always gave her grief about the fact that she always sounded like Pollyanna. In everything she did or anything that happened to her she always saw the silver lining. I find myself being the same way these days. I mention that it is unfortunate that she died but didn't it work out well that she didn't die two days earlier on my twins birthday. It is unfortunate that we had to cancel our family vacation and not stay at the beach this summer like we had looked forward to but then I realize that it would have meant cancelling anyway and we would not have been with her when she died because we were supposed to have checked in to the rental the day before. I guess this is one of those things that will alwyas stay with me about Sandi. She was the eternal optimist even when she was sick and confined to a bed for the last three months of her life. I know that is part of what she meant by God using her to reach others.

Ok, enough sad for this post, I have a funeral to go to this afternoon so I will get all the sad I need later today! I am going to try to post more now that I no longer need to maintain two blogs. I have gotten pretty good at blogging on a fairly regular basis, it just hasn't been here. I will try to do better!

What's been going on....

It has been a busy busy busy month. I am sorry that I have not been so good at updating the blog here but for some reason after I finish updating Sandi's blog it seems like I am out of things to say. Ok, those of you who know me know that is certainly not true but I do get distracted easily! We have done the Relay for life and then spent last Saturday with Jo and the Girl Scouts helping to build a commemorative butterfly garden.

It was a lot of hard work but with so much help the first phase was done pretty quickly and since it rained all night Friday night we actually got some sleep instead of being up all night at the Relay! The kids had a lot of fun, even my nephew who got stuck helping against his will! He did get to use a sledgehammer and a power saw so it seemed to make it all worthwhile!

Sunday we spent Mother's day going to church and then headed off to go to a baseball game. The Springfield Cardinals were in town playing the Arkansas Travelers and Kevin and I noticed that there weren't many people in our section cheering for the Cards! Kevin's office has great seats in the new stadium. We were sitting in the second row up behind home plate although I don't think there was a bad seat in the stadium. We had great weather and the girls seemed to enjoy the game and didn't ruin our fun which was a big change from the last time we tried to take the kids to a ballgame! Maybe we will have to give them another chance with flying someday too!

Katie got to bring her friend Katie to the game and they enjoyed a bit of freedom that comes from being so much older than your sisters! She did get tired of Mom constantly calling her cell phone though, just to make sure she was listening for it in case I REALLY needed to get in touch with her!
The game was fun and the cardinals beat the trav's so it was a good afternoon all around!Since then I have been back in Missouri with Sandi and ...here is where the knitting comes in!
I have been knitting a baby blanket for a friend who is in the process of adopting a beautiful baby girl (Bobi, don't read ahead if you don't want a spoiler!) Mom has been helping me because it keeps us both busy as we sit here with Sandi and it is knit in squares so we can crochet it all together at the end. We did run into a few snags though. Turns out that gauge really DOES MATTER! Mom it seems, knits quite a bit looser than I do and the first squares we each knit were off by a few inches! Mom had to go down a needle size and I went up a needle size and we still were off! These were the colors and squares that we began with...

The colors were pretty and the yarn was yummy soft and it was only going to take one ball of each yarn so I was not going to have to take out a second mortgage for this beautiful girl to have a soft pretty blanket but as we got to working on it I just wasn't very happy with the way it was turning out! We kept plunging forward and it turns out the yarn was so yummy soft that it was difficult to distinguish the stitch pattern on the squares. The patterns just blended together and made all that work for nothing. Mom doesn't know it yet but these are the new colors and the new yarn....

This yarn is so soft and is cotton with a hint of wool so it will be washable and is more springy so it holds the stitch pattern much nicer! Bobi will also appreciate that the yarn is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece from right in her home state of Nebraska!

We Relay, do you Relay?

We tried at least! While the Relay for Life for Cabot raised over $43,000 we did more moving of stuff than actually walking! We got the ok from the committee to set up on the football field at 1pm so Kevin and I made a few trips over with tents and chairs and coolers and such and went back at 5:30 with dinner and the cookies to get started in earnest. With all of us there we had a great tent set up next to the churches youth tent so we were all set to have a good time.

Just as we went through the starting ceremonies and did the survivor lap then the caregivers led off the beginning of the event and we walked one lap, they told us to move everyone to the field house for a short while to stay out of the lightning that had just come up with a storm that was north of us. We got the kids to the field house and the wind started kicking up so Kevin and I stayed behind to try to batten down the hatches just as Jo and Marty's screen house started to blow away.

We spent a while breaking everything down so that we could throw it all inside the tent and hold it down with the coolers. We all ran up the hill to the field house to wait out the storm and get back to business. We waited and waited for the rain and the committee decided that we needed to just stay put so we all ran back down to the field to bring everything up the hill before it began to rain. After a bunch of trips back and forth to the cars and the building we got everything set up. Notice I haven't said yet that we had even felt a raindrop! It did finally rain a bit but not the kind of rain the event committee was expecting.

The event finally got going and people finally began walking inside but the mood was kind of lost when we had to relocate so as soon as the entertainment was over it was pretty much done and we all packed up again and went home! We were all home by midnight and got a better nights sleep than we counted on in the first place.

We had fun, the kids had a blast and our team raised $1500 and won the trophy for most money raised online. Does that really surprise anyone that knows me? Thanks to everyone that helped or walked with us or donated! We even got a survivor t-shirt for Sandi!