I might be a bit biased but …

My little family is the cutest. 🙂

There is nothing on earth I love more than coming home from work to my husband, two adorable dogs, and cute little house. Bliss.

The emptying of the iPhone photos

American Archaeology, AKA the American Pickers place, in LeClaire, Iowa

Danielle, who runs the place, and the inside of the American Pickers' place

The lighthouse in Clinton, Iowa

A view from an overlook in Eagle Point Park in Clinton, Iowa

Creepy soap dispenser at my grandma's house. Haha. Any guesses as to what that animal is supposed to be?

Sweet Netta-B in one of our flea-market find chairs

Rufus cuddling on the couch with me on a sick day

There are no words for how much I love game day at Pittsburg State University

Go Gorillas!

Library in the distance

Rufus and I watching the Pitt State game on TV

Poor puppy

So usually on Sundays, I preschedule my blog posts for the remaining week, ensuring something is posted no matter how crazy the work week gets.

However, sometimes this backfires. My previous post, my tribute to sweet Anna, actually posted 1 day after she passed away. She passed away peacefully, in her sleep, while under the vet’s care. We were actually away for vacation/my step brother’s wedding at the time, and got the call early Friday morning. It was a heartbreaking start to a vacation, but probably the best. It was nice to be away from our house when starting to deal with the thought of the loss of one of my best friends.

Now we are home, and it’s strange to be here without her following me from room to room, hearing the click clack of her nails on the hardwood floors.

I am so thankful to know she is somewhere where she is not in pain, terrorizing our Scottish Terrier, Maggie. I am thankful she passed peacefully, and we did not have to make a tough decision. I am most of all thankful for our happy 15/16 years together, for the thousands of hugs, licks, walks, naps, pets, road trips and numerous other happy memories. She leaves a very noticeable 40 pound hole in our life, and will be so sorely, sorely missed.

Rest in peace, sweet Anna. We sure love you.

Awesome gift

When our second anniversary was nearing, I was searching through Facebook, looking for photos of our first 2 years of marriage. While we had documented many of the fun things we had done together, there were many things we were missing photos for. One of the main reasons (besides forgetfulness), is that I have a beautiful camera that’s too large/lovely to take along for occasions like walking, camping, hiking, dancing with friends, etc. We were discussing that one of our main goals for the next year of marriage is to do a better job capturing some of the fun times we have together, so we would have photos to job our memories as the years rolled by.

Which, is what made this such a perfect gift. For our anniversary, this weekend, my mom gave us the following camera:

I am super excited to use this to capture the next years of our marriage, and look forward to having more photos to look back on. Thanks for the perfect gift, Mom!

Thrifting Thursdays

So before you declare a triumphant return from the almost dead … you should probably make sure you have triumphantly returned from the almost dead. Alas, still fighting some sort of illness off. However, I wanted to make a very special post for Thrifting Thursdays. This probably doesn’t completely count – as it was a gift, and not a thrift – but I think it fits.

This, along with the beautiful quilt featured in an earlier post, was one of the most meaningful wedding gifts we received. Matt’s aunts gave me, collectively, this Pyrex bowl that belonged to his grandma, who unfortunately passed away before I could meet her. This came along with a copy of a family recipe book they had put together. Each of the grandkid’s wives receive one of the grandma’s bowls as a wedding present. What a neat tradition. It was especially neat in our case as I collect Pyrex bowls just because I like them – and this one obviously means so much more. Matt’s grandparents didn’t have much, and his grandma cooked all of the meals for her very large family. They had a huge vegetable garden and his grandma used everything they grew, canning much of it to make it through the long South Dakotan winters. I’m sad I never got to meet his grandparents on that side, as I would have loved to seek their gardening advice. However, I am thankful that thanks to his kind aunts, a piece of his grandma will always be a part of our kitchen.

See other great vintage items here.

Meet Rufus, a sodaholic

You know that old joke about kids liking wrapping paper/boxes/bags better than the presents they contain?

Dogs aren’t much better. Ours have more toys that I can count or trip over in the middle of the night. Rope toys, squeaky toys, stuffed animals, nylabones … But what they want most are discarded socks or empty pop bottles.

Glug glug glug

Hey, it’s recycling, right?

Looks like we're not the only ones addicted to soda.

Good to the last drop

Sorry about the lack of crafts tonight. Feeling a bit under the weather and the most entertainment going on around here is watching a big, dumb dog pretend to drink soda. Ha!