Easter

The Easter bunny visited our house while Eva slept and I think me telling her 47 times that, "the Easter bunny will have left a present for you when you wake up" contributed to her 6:00am rising this morning.  Silly me.  Nonetheless it was cute to watch her face when she saw all the candy and while we didn't have a huge Easter basket, we did work on the response to "He is risen!" (which, is "He is risen indeed!") and she had it down come church time.

Jason had to work and Baba lead the singing at service so it was just myself, Richard and Uncle Noah to ride herd on Eva... we did alright ;-)  Then it was off to Baba's for way too much food, good times with the family and an Easter egg hunt!

"The joyful news that He is risen does not change the contemporary world. Still before us lie work, discipline, sacrifice. But the fact of Easter gives us the spiritual power to do the work, accept the discipline, and make the sacrifice." ~ Henry Knox Sherrill

Working on the car in her Easter dress, duh

"Sweden" in Swedish for the non-awesome of you

Mini bunny cake for Eva

In the wind he's still alive...

Today marks 7 years since Curt passed away.  For those of you who don't know who Curt was, he was my mom's long time boyfriend who was a major part of mine and Noah's lives. He drowned in a work accident and it was pretty rough on all of us.  It's become easier to talk about him and losing him as the years have passed but I still get a little choked up at times when I hear a Ted Nugent song or see a man wearing camo pants and a tan cowboy hat- oh yes, he was a dresser ;-) 

Curt, we still love and miss you... wish you could have met Jason and Eva but I know you're up there watching over us and I hope we still make you proud. 

Water for Elephants

One of my favorite actors, Rob Pattinson, and one of my favorite actresses, Reese Witherspoon, star in the newly released Water for Elephants movie.  It's based off of the book by the same name and was great (book and film)! 

I went with my fellow RPatz (that's Rob Pattinson's nickname for the non-Twilight obsessed) loving friends Tina and LaRae to the midnight showing on Thursday and despite being pretty damn tired at work on Friday, it was SO worth it.

Go see it!

Things I'm Thankful for Series- #2

Our Jobs

It's been a little over 3 months at my new job and I love it.  I have a great, easy-going boss who let's me handle/learn many different tasks and does not micro manage at all.  The coworkers who sit right around me are all kind and so helpful whenever I have a question.  The City as a whole just has a really positive work environment.  For example, we have an employee wellness program that pays you cash and extra vacation days for things such as attending wellness seminars, being a member of a health club, reading a book for pleasure, running a 5k etc.  We are also working to become a "high performing organization" which is a workplace philosophy based on employee empowerment and less traditional levels of decision making.  Pretty progressive for the public sector!

I have also been asked to be on the newly formed ITS Steering Committee, due to my experience as a Business Analyst at the City of Minneapolis.  We had our Steering Committee kick off today and I think I'm going to be able to give a lot of good insight from things I learned at Minneapolis and also make some great connections with people in other departments.

The last awesome part about my job is my boss has already asked me to go full time next January when the new budgets are created!  It's a perfect transition period; I'll be able to drop Eva off right before her lessons start and pick her up right when they are done for a year and then once she's a bit older she can start staying for after school care.   

Now for Jason's job.  He was promoted to Assistant Superintendent of the golf course this year and while it means a raise, the most important part is it means lots more responsibility and now he is only one spot away from being the boss :-)  His boss, the Superintendent, has said he plans on moving onto a larger course within a few years so we're hopeful that Jason will be promoted again by the time Eva is in kindergarten. 

After years of questionable employment in the Parks house, it's nice to have some stability!

Eva's Random Song

Do not ask me the name of this song, as I have never heard it before.  For all I know she made it up.

"Eva, where are you going?
Upstairs to take a bath!
Eva jumped in the bathtub
Pulled out the plug and then...
Oh my goodness
Oh my soul
Eva just went down the hole!"

900 Mile Weekend

I'm fairly certain I never want to be in a car again.  After logging almost 1k miles on my car this weekend, I think I may have permanent damage in my right driving ankle!

Baba, Eva and I all left Friday after work for my friend Casey's baby shower in Chicago.  Little did we know that there were major wind advisories for the entire state of Wisconsin that we were driving through.  My car, which was getting 39-40 miles per gallon the previous weekend on our women's retreat, got a whopping 26-27 miles per gallon this time around.  We were almost blown off the road by the gusting winds countless times.  It was no bueno.  Grandpa Bryan even offered to get us a hotel all the interstate so we wouldn't have to keep driving.  But I pushed on and we finally made it the in-laws house outside of Madison, WI around 9:00pm.

Saturday was the actual shower and aside from annoying tolls (which the state of Illinois obviously does not use to keep their roads in good condition) there was no traffic- amazing for Chicago!  The shower was fun and swapping mommy stories is always a hoot as I have some of the "best" ones around.

After the shower we drove back to Stoughton (southeast of Madison for the non-Midwestern blog readers) and had a cook out with Jason's mom, dad, stepdad, stepmom, sister and sister's good friend.  The cook out turned into a wine fest in the hot tub... which turned into a trip to the Pour House on Main Street... which turned into way too many beers and shots of Patron... which led to massive amounts of dancing and singing along with the live band... which led to more hot tubbing and drinking back at the house... which all ended in Mallori gloriously praying to the porcelain god this morning while everyone laughed at her from down the hall.  The weekend was truly awesome.

Now we're back at home in Minnesota and ready for week two of Montessori school.  Life is good.  But driving still sucks.

Big girl champagne flute at the shower (which Baba quickly put the kabash on!)

Cheeeeese

Helping Auntie Casey open gifts

Mmmm chocolate popsicle

Eva's ready for the hot tub!

With her new BFF Dustin

Let the dance party begin

She was feeling no pain

Crashed

Shouldn't we all start our days the Eva way?

There she is... she's Miss America!

That's all folks :-)

First Day of 2011 at the Park

It been a painfully long winter, we even got over an inch this past weekend; hello mother nature, it's April showers bring May flowers... nothing about snow!  But I was able to take Eva to the park a few times last week and snapped some photos.

Ruuuunnnniiinnnnnggggg

The lonesome solo teeter totter

Examining a twig