Happy Birthday George!

George William Bates (unofficially the III)

Born 15 August 1981 at 10:37 p.m.

Weighed: 8.11 lbs Length: 22"
(Once again, unofficial stats)

We had a little redneck party for George. We went to a town in Nebraska called Wisner, about an hour and a half outside of Omaha. It was their annual truck and tractor pull. There was some great people watching, and I've never seen so many souped up tractors in my life! It was entertaining, but a little too loud.

For his birthday I made him rhubarb pie, we ate the WHOLE thing in less than a day. Which was good because we were leaving town for a week, yay Cedar City! I got him his favorite board game Ticket to Ride-Europe... I'd never even heard of this game before I met George, but it's pretty fun. As well as some replacement camping gear that was lost during our epic kayak trip this spring.

I love being married to George and am so happy that he was born!

Successful FHE

I laughed so hard when I got this photo, I just had to share!

For those of you who don't know, our church sets Monday nights aside for "FHE" or Family Home Evening. It's a fun time to have a short lesson and do an activity with the whole family. My sister, Sara, recently had a successful "object lesson" for her family home evening. She taught about sin and repentance. We had a lot of leftover chocolate from the wedding so Kaden learned how sin makes us unclean, and repentance can make us clean again (no repentant photos, sorry). I'm not sure how much he got from the lesson, but at least he'll grow up enjoying family home evenings!

Buttercup - George's "other" love

After a long (1 whole month) separation this was George's reaction (yes that is a balloon on his head)

Yep, Buttercup is back in our family and George is QUITE excited about the reunion. When we moved from Cedar City to Omaha we decided to just bring Wrigley (my subaru) and leave Buttercup (George's truck) parked back in Cedar...you know to save gas, money, and so we could ride out together. After all it's just 2 of us, we should be able to get by with one car, right? Well as it turns out a few things changed at work and another car was needed so Buttercup is now in Nebraska hard at work.

This is what George likes to do with Buttercup...hmmm, I'm glad Nebraska is flat :)

Alaska in Nebraska

That's right, I have a little piece of real Alaska to make me feel more at home here in Nebraska. It's called a tundra terrarium. My oldest sister, Abbie, made it for us for our wedding. She traveled over 3,000 miles (thank goodness for planes) holding this on her lap. She even made it herself! She chunked together different parts of the tundra, including cute little flutes and a black spruce tree! She layered the bottom with small rocks and some activated charcoal for adsorption purposes. She wasn't sure if it would work, but so far it's looking good. I take care of it by using a spray bottle to water it and then removing the lid when it gets too moist inside, pretty low maintenance. I wish I would have taken pictures right when I got it because it looked even better then. It's so fun to have in our home, thanks Abbie!

Mi casa es su casa

About 1500 miles and 20 hours later, we made it to Omaha! We took a slight detour (only 5 hours out of the way) to go camp for a night in Jackson Hole, visit my lil sis Alethea, and of course raft the Snake, thanks Walter! It was George's first time to go rafting, and the river delivered with high water (18+ cfs that morning). The lunch counter rapid was by far the best run of the day. And I was happy because George stayed in the boat this river trip :)

Our car was PACKED and our memory foam made it look like we were mooning other cars the whole way. We did have it set up so the front passenger seat could lean back, that was nice.

And now YOU have a place in Omaha! And so do we...welcome to our humble abode. It is SO nice to finally have our own place. It's so calm and peaceful with just the two of us. We have settled in nicely and are grateful to be back in the normal routine of life. June was a busy month and all the activities wore us out! We were really blessed once we got here because most apartments we looked at were unfurnished and wanted a 12 month contract, BUT thanks to http://www.craigslist.com/ we were able to take over a guy's apartment for the remaining 3 months of his contract AND he left a couch, bed, pots & pans, etc. etc. Pretty much everything we needed. It's a simple one bedroom apartment. Oh yes, prob the most important part of all of this is that we have a pool, yay! Since it's so hot and humid here we jump in at least once a day to cool off. Come on by for a dip sometime!

View from our balcony

Our first visitors - Christine (sister-in-law) Nieces: Chelsea, Dominique, & Alexis; Nephew: Isaac

We didn't have a table yet so we had them spread their beach towels out for a picnic-style dinner. They're a fun bunch!

Our bedroom...my favorite part (besides George:) is the quilt that the Torgersen's made us for our wedding.

Bathroom came already decorated with a fish theme, we liked it so we left it.

Our ugly green couch...it now has a cover, well a quilt really, but it's comfy and that is all that matters!

It's great to have my own kitchen, I've never had one before and I've been enjoying this opportunity to cook. Lucky me I have a vita-mix (2 hp blender), kitchen aid, and George Foreman grill...the perks of getting married :)

Can you believe our apartment comes with a real wood-burning fireplace? We thought that was really random, but fun, especially if we're here when it gets cold.

We miss you all and love visitors, no reservations necessary :)