Bittersweet

Lynn

Lauren and Jenna

I lost my good friend Lynn today. She passed peacefully around 10am. Lauren only asked for Jenna to come over so Jenna is there now, hopefully comforting her.  I saw Lynn on Thursday and she did not look like herself. She didn't know me and could barely talk. She was a true fighter and friend.

Fortunately, Lynn's parents are selling their house in Medina and moving here to help Joe with the kids. What a blessing that will be! 

I made a video for Lynn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlqIBdlZJBs

I love you forever Lynn!

My friend

By now I need to face the facts.

My friend is dying.

http://thelittlelump.blogspot.com/2013/03/remember-when.html

Last week I had a long talk with Joe and he was not himself. He is usually so hopeful about Lynn's cancer but he was so down.

It's just not fair. She only has a week or two to live right now. We can't lose her. She is funny, smart, beautiful, and so young. It's unbelievable to me. I've been crying since I read this last post, and the pit in my stomach is huge.

I will miss her so much!

The real March Madness

March Madness takes on a different meaning when you are chasing children around a field to gather Easter eggs from other egg-crazed toddlers. Sarah and Matthew attended an Easter Egg hunt at her preschool. Matthew was all about the candy in the eggs. He didn't even want to smile for the picture, he was too busy chomping on sweet tarts.

Sarah and Matthew at her preschool Easter Egg Hunt

 We colored eggs a few times too. Actually Jenna colored eggs and Sarah ate the eggs. She ate 5 eggs without coloring a single one. I think she just likes taking the shell off and then eating them.

Sarah and Jenna coloring Eggs (Matthew jamming to music in the background)

 We babysat Mclaine and Kael and colored eggs with them as well. Kael made a yellow and blue egg with "Go Blue" on it. His parents would be so proud.

Mclaine, Jenna, Kael, and Sarah coloring eggs

Kael with his "Go Blue" egg

For Easter our church is having a pancake breakfast and Easter Egg hunt. I'll be making a ham dinner for our family which will make our tummies very happy. We love ham but neither my parents nor Erik's parents like ham so we have turkey for every occasion. Sorry turkey, you're just not as good.

The first day of Spring was last Wednesday (and we are supposed to get a blizzard tonight). We are so excited for this summer. Erik's parents will close on their new house April 5th and are moving here June/ July. It will be wonderful to have them down the road. We have tons of camping trips planned and the kids will be going to some fun day camps.

Most importantly we booked our trip to Paris, France this fall. We will be staying in an apartment near the Eiffel tower. It will be fun to live as real Parisians do in an apartment.

88 points on Quiddler today

The blushing bride...or maybe it's spaghetti sauce

The bride

On Saturday, Jenna, Sarah and I went to Missy's bridal shower at Papa Bears Restaurant. The girls had a great time and were ripping into Missy's presents with enthusiasm.  Missy, Amanda, and I all got baked ziti with meatballs showing how alike we all are. We played only one silly game where we had to tally up the items in our purse in which each item was worth a certain number of points. Missy had 111 points of items in her purse and the person with the next highest score was 75. I think she has a little too much in there.  Overall the shower was a lot of fun.

Missy, Me, Amanda, and Megan - I couldn't take the glare out of this pic

As I've mentioned before, Erik and I are trying to make things on our own and reduce the number of chemicals we have. Erik made his own soap. We've also made our own dishwasher detergent and laundry detergent. Since dryer sheets are full of chemicals (which in turn is all over your clothes and sheets), we bought these natural dryer balls. They work well even though they are expensive. I've also bought some Norwex microfiber cloths for cleaning and bathing. Now I"m not using soap but just a microfiber cloth in the shower. We are just trying to reduce chemicals. So if I stink - that's why.

In the most important news, today is Pi day! I made pizza dough and we will be making our own pizza for dinner (pizza pi get it?). I also made a key lime pie for us too (Erik loves tart flavors). At some point I'll make a chocolate peanut butter pie for me.

88 points on Quiddler today. I made the word "cloister" too which is totally awesome.

Game Mechanics

Erik was in Boston for his birthday so we celebrated when he got home. He wanted a key lime pie, grilled cheese on sourdough bread, and fried pickles with hot sauce. Yum! He wants another key lime pie for Pi day this Thursday. We'll see. I'm in the mood for chocolate (I guess I'm always in that mood). 

Happy Birthday Erik!

 Lately I've been a little obsessed with Greek Yogurt. I had to snap a picture when I realized one shelf of our refrigerator was taken up by Greek Yogurt. Erik and I both eat Greek yogurt every day with honey roasted peanuts and raisins. Yummy! I've also made smoothies with Greek Yogurt and added peanut butter, bananas, and frozen strawberries. It's divine!

(Greek Yogurt)^6

To celebrate Erik's birthday we had a board game night. It's very hard for me to make a list of my favorite board games. It's like choosing my favorite chocolate chip cookie or fantasy novel or episode of Firefly. It's just all good.

So I made a list of my favorite game mechanics. This was also difficult since many games fall into a few mechanics (as you will see from my list below). I know I left some out and probably didn't categorize everything exactly. I used some ideas from boardgamegeek. I listed the game mechanic along with some games that fall into the category.  Of course a lot depends on my mood. Maybe my list will be different tomorrow!

1. Worker Placement - Agricola, Lords of Waterdeep, Stone Age, Caylus, Le Havre
2. Route/Network building - Ticket To Ride, Railroad Tycoon, Settlers of Catan, Transamerica, Thurn and Taxis
3. Hand/Resource Management - Agricola, SanJuan, Goa, Race for the Galaxy, Acquire, El Grande
4. Cooperative games - Pandemic, Shadows over Camelot, Battlestar Galactica, Sentinels of the Multiverse
5. Auction/Bidding - Goa, PowerGrid, Ra, Amun Re, Aladdins Dragons, Tikal
6. Role Selection - Puerto Rico, Navegador, Citadels
7. Tile Placing - Carcassone, Princes of Florence, Castles of Burgundy, Acquire
8. Pattern matching/Deduction - Set, Clue, Sleuth
9. Word games - Scattergories, Boggle, Quiddler
10. Party/Family - Taboo, Scattergories, Apples to Apples, Balderdash
11. Card games - Rook, Euchre, Pinochle, Magic the Gathering
12. Set collection - Lost cities, 7 Wonders, Bohnanza

85 points on Quiddler today. I like quiddler - it's #9!

My indoor tri

I survived finals week and have now moved onto a new semester. This semester I am teaching an onsite class on Tuesday nights, giving a live lecture on Wednesday night for one online class, a live lecture on Thursday night for another online class, doing online tutoring for C# Sunday nights, and grading/discussion threads/preparing for lectures on the other nights. My nights are pretty much booked this semester. 

But I still need to get in shape for the triathlons I'll be doing this summer. I started on Sunday by doing an indoor triathlon. Erik doesn't think it is a "real" triathlon. Too bad for him. I had fun! 

Last year I did the indoor triathlon with Kate and Tricia and we did it again this year with another friend from church MaryClaire. MaryClaire competed in Masters swimming when she was 40 so she is in pretty amazing shape. She was in a different wave from Kate, Tricia, and I so we had to take a picture at church later.

Kate, Me, MaryClaire, Tricia

Kate, Tricia's friends, Tricia, and Me immediately following the triathlon

I did so much better this year! I swam 15 laps (last year 13 laps) in 10 minutes, biked 14.4 miles in 30 minutes and ran 2.11 miles (last year 2.03) in 20 minutes. I wasn't sure how I would do since I did not train. All I've been doing lately is videos but apparently that has been good enough. We shall see how I do when I enter a "real" triathlon.

I finished the Hero of Ages book (the last book in the Mistborn trilogy). We were not supposed to finish the book yet according to the book club but books always pick up velocity towards the end and I can't put them down (sorry...can't do it). 

71 points on Quiddler today

Living on a prayer

Since we've had kids, we have not had any family living close by. In the past we have had siblings living with us or near us but not lately. Well that's all about to change. Erik's parents are in contract on a house that is 0.8 miles from our house.

0.8 miles!!!!

If we walk through people's backyards we can walk to their house. I'm so excited for them to be close and see them all the time (built-in babysitters! Yipee!).

My in-laws new house

The house is beautiful too. It's new, has 4 bedrooms, and a large basement for a train layout. It will be nice for them to work with Matthew also and help him talk more too. 

Matthew loves dinosaurs

 Sarah went to a bowling birthday party this weekend and had some trouble with the ball actually reaching the pins to knock any down. As Bon Jovi serenaded us over the loudspeaker, Sarah's ball rolled so slowly I think I saw some moss gathering. So I stole this nifty ramp Sarah could roll the ball down. Take that - you give love a bad name!

Sarah bowling

 I was the mystery reader in Jenna's classroom. I read 3 books to her class and passed out twizzlers. Mrs. Tolford took the picture below. I love Matthew's face in this picture and Jenna's posing. Having Sarah in the background singing or drawing would complete the scene.

Mystery reader

Only 47 points on quiddler. I could never make a word with the z and that's a 14 point card. What's the point of z's anyway?  Besides twizzlers and zebras.