this is my blog: Photo dump Spring 2014 Part III

This is what a controlled prairie burn looks like... that would have been a bit scary for early settlers! Luckily we had someone from DNR knock on our door and tell us what was going on. :)

Our first "scary storm" of the season. The above pic is the tiny hail on the deck... about a third of the size of a nail head.

The cell as it made its exit.

Self dressing!

Not sure if you can see all the Grackles in these trees. I took this pic in late April, when we were really inundated by Grackles. We have very few around now.

The annual Pow Wow!

Travis was brave enough to take Sophia out on the dance floor. Sophia is very proud to be a very watered down Chippewa, from Travis' side.

Some friends of our looked at a horse property close to our house, then swung by for a visit, then ended up staying for several hours. Ayden is Sophia's age, and they get along really well! The horse property they looked at had comparable buildings to ours, was less than half the acreage, was listed for $50,000 more than we bought our place for, and had 3 offers on it the first day on the market. It's amazing how much the market can change in 2 years!!

Marathon weekend! The happy photos don't reveal the incredible stress. Travis was again in the hospital at this time, and his parents were basically living down in our territory helping me with the kids, visiting Travis, helping us get hay for the horses (of course they ran out of hay while Trav was hospitalized!), and participating in the marathon we had all signed up for months ago. These pics are from Thursday the 8th, when we were picking up our race packets and cheering for Sophia in the kids (1/2 mile) race.

This is on Friday the 9th, when Carmen and Ralph and niece Jaylin ran the 5K. Jaylin ran with Travis' bib, since he had to bow out of that race, obviously. We were so glad Jaylin ran for Trav!

Waiting for the 5K to start...

The 5K was over 7,000 people, a beautiful evening, and tremendous fun. Fun felt weird while Travis was in the hospital and life was so stressful. But we had fun.

Sophia cheering for our family wearing her kids marathon T-shirt. Standing with cousin Gabby.

Go grandpa!

This pic of Ralph wearing his grandkids T-shirt walking with Kaia and DJ makes me tear up!

Grandma post-5K.

Marathon day! Since these pics are mine there are no pics of me. :) This was after I ran the full marathon, waiting for Laura to hit the finish line. All of the little nieces and nephews were so good! I was fortunate to feel good enough to enjoy this family time. My first marathon I felt so wrecked. This one was still painful, but not as bad!

Yay Laura! This is her approaching the finish, after running 26 miles! She felt good too!

Mother's Day. I was home along with the girls all day. We actually had a beautiful day together, and a nice visit with Travis in the hospital. It wasn't until evening when I started looking at FaceBook that I felt sorry for myself. I should have stayed off FB! I had no cards or flowers or breakfast in bed yaddi yadda, but I did have a lovely day with my girls, and that should have been enough.