June

Those of you who read my blog posts regularly (which is all two or three of you, not counting friends on facebook...) know that I am woefully bad at keeping this thing updated. One of the bad sides of having fun, I guess. In any case, here is a brief summary of our wonderful June.

We started off the month with a trip to Texas to visit with my family. It was originally going to be just a trip for me to help my mom clean out her garage... It turned out to be a long visit with friends and family with Jeremy along, and no cleaning was done. We sure did have a great time though! The highlight of this trip was visiting Carlsbad Caverns, NM with Mom and Papa and Grandma.

Eeek, a bear! :)

White City is always good for a tourist trap moment.

At the Natural Entrance. Notice how rested we looked - this was BEFORE the trek down.


Jeremy took this great shot of me with my grandparents and mom.

Papa and Grandma at the Rock of Ages.

I didn't know until this trip that they had gone to the Caverns on their honeymoon, fifty-something years ago.

Peek-a-boo, I see you!

Posing at the sign after our tours

Also on this trip, I got to finally meet Grace, the daughter of my good friend Margaret and her husband Brandt. Grace was a blessing long overdue to this couple, and I was so excited to get to meet her in person, finally!

Keri and Grace

The Sayger Family!

And finally, Jeremy really got to enjoy spending time with my uncle's dog, Brownie. Jeremy has a little bit of puppy fever, but since our rental charges a ridiculous amount for a pet deposit, he'll have to wait a while longer.

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After we returned to Kansas, Jeremy's mom and niece came up for a visit. The trip was designed to be a little special time with Grandma as well as aunt and uncle before Natalie's little sister arrived. During the trip, we also attended Jeremy's cousin Katherine's wedding in St. Joe. Busy weekend for sure!

At the T-Rex restaurant at the Legends

Katherine and Corey with both sets of Katherine's grandparents

(the Wagners on the right side are the set that she shares with Jeremy)

Uncle Jeremy and his favorite girl

Katherine, Corey, and Adriana Sanders

Keri and "Baby Ana"

Aunt Keri and Natalie on the first ride of the day

Uncle Jeremy and Natalie on the carousel

Uncle Jeremy and his other favorite girl

Grandma Alesia and Natalie

Yes, this ride DOES look familiar, we rode it twice!

The wonders of traveling with your Aunt, Uncle, and Grandma instead of your parents

"We went here, and then here, and then here..."

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Two weeks later, we took a trip out to Hays to see Jeremy's grandparents and his Aunt Marcy (who actually lives in Palco). We had an enjoyable weekend spending time with them. We heard lots of old stories, looked at tons of old pictures (which I loved of course!!), saw some sights in Hays (no, really, there are a couple) and Jeremy even made a Civil War Quilt Block under Marcy's tutelage.

Grandpa showing off his garden to Jeremy. He is a master gardener.

Jeremy sewing with lots of concentration

Marcy and Jeremy working on the quilt block

Jeremy ironing. Did I get a catch or what?

Jeremy and Marcy with the final product!

Jeremy with Grandpa at the Super Croc Exhibit at FHSU's Sternberg Museum

This is how big its thumb claw was. Huge!!

Bad timing, Jeremy - it's Super Croc's lunch time.

We had a traditional Danish meal consisting of frikadeller, boiled cabbage, and potatoes. Thumbs up to all but the cabbage, which allowed for plenty of leftovers.

Jeremy concurs.

And of course, no meal is complete at the Wagners without Grandpa's Rhubarb Delight. I'm not sure it's Danish, but it's delicious all the same.

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So that ends your whirlwind tour through our June! Things I left out: a trip to Springfield for Jeremy to do research, high school autism ESY for Keri, and preparing to go to England for July. As I said, it was a crazy busy month!

July is here and I'm catching up on blogging from Cambridge. More posts coming soon!

Springfield Day 2

Another day, another blog post from not-so-sunny Springfield, IL. Actually, the sun seems to be peeking out as I type this, but it's definitely not the sunny and 62 predicted for today. Yesterday was similar. Where's Gary Lezak when you need him?

We spent yesterday morning in the archives. They had a little bit of a rough start to the day - a housekeeper had watered a plant as a favor, but it had just been watered on Friday, so it leaked water all down the card catalog. The archivists were pulling out cards and hanging them to dry as rapidly as they could, and employees from other areas came to help (or gawk at the damage). It's a pretty quiet building, as you could imagine, so it was very exciting for a few minutes. Luckily, the cards were the only things potentially damaged, and those are easily replaced - no actual manuscripts were nearby. Today we were able to take a picture of Jeremy and I by the catalog for posterity. They have fun up here. :)

Jeremy researched for several hours and then we went out on the town. We ate at a fun local restaurant called the Garden of Eat'n which serves salads and sandwiches and organic food. Then we went to see the Lincoln Home. This is the only National Park in the state of Illinois. They have Lincoln's home set up as it would have been in 1861, and have several other neighborhood houses preserved as well. Several are used as offices now; notably Senator Dick Durbin works out of a home here. If you're interested in what we saw, click Lincoln Home and you can get more information.

Next, we went to the Lincoln-Herndon Law Office. As you probably know, Lincoln was a successful lawyer and not-so-successful politician before he was elected President. The office where he had his last partnership is set up similarly to how he would have had it, even down to the trash bin. (Don't worry, I did get a pic of that!). We talked with a historian there who was very interested in Jeremy's project, which was an added bonus.

We took in Bennigan's for dinner last night (side note for John: there's no Bennigan's in Lawrence so it doesn't technically break the vacation rule). Jeremy ate a "horseshoe" there which is considered a Springfield specialty. This thing is basically a heart attack on a plate. There was toast, then hamburger, then bacon, then fries, then cheese sauce over the whole thing. I stuck with a french dip which was marginally more healthy. I'm not sure my cardiologist would have been a fan of either meal, but hey, we had a salad at lunch, we've walked lots of places, and we're on vacation. :)

We capped off the evening with a tour called Lincoln's Ghost Walk: Legends and Lore. I would highly recommend this if you're ever in the area. Garret, our tour guide, was exceptionally knowledgeable about Lincoln history, the paranormal, and the Civil War, and was entertaining to boot. I kept thinking Jeremy would stump him with questions, but Garret was well-prepared... I guess Jeremy will have to ask tougher questions next time. Here's that website if you're interested too: Springfield Walks

Jeremy's now finishing up his final day of research in the archive for this trip. He seems to have just scratched the surface of the available materials here, so I'm sure he'll be back. If you know of people wanting a houseguest in Springfield, let me know! :) Today we are planning to head out, probably back to Lawrence but we've been tossing around the idea of stopping in St. Louis too. On tap this afternoon: eating at Robbie's for lunch, touring Lincoln's tomb, and possibly checking out the Old Capitol building (however, that's probably something we'll save for next time).

Whether it's early tomorrow or late tomorrow, at some point I'll be reunited with my camera cord, and you'll get to actually see what I'm describing!

And on a final, totally unrelated note... One year ago today I was having foot surgery. If you want to reminisce you can check out this post.
In tomorrow's post of pics, I'll post one that I took of my foot today, 100% healed except for a scar. I am so thankful for Dr. Laha's expertise, for Jeremy and Mom and Kristi taking good care of me, for health insurance that paid for most of it, and for a generally speedy recovery from such a painful condition. I am also very thankful that this St. Patty's day does not involve general anesthesia or scalpels of any kind!

What's up, guys?

Wow, what's this, a blog update from Keri?!?

Ok, now that you've had a moment to recover.... yes, it is really me, and we didn't fall off the face of the earth. Really.

For a while there, we just didn't have anything exciting to blog about. No babies crawling, no injuries healing, no vacations, just plain ol' boring work and school. It snowed excessively, and I think everyone in Lawrence had a case of the blahs that lasted for months.

Then the past few weeks have actually been a little blog-worthy, but I have hardly had time to check email/facebook, much less update the rest of the world in more than 160 characters at a time. So, here goes.

And, this will be a picture-free post. I left my camera cord in Lawrence, and we're in Springfield, so... use your imagination, and then I'll have a picture extravaganza when we're back home in a few days.

Over Valentine's weekend, we had a visit from Jeremy's aunt Marcy and Grandma and Grandpa Wagner. They came to spend the night with us so we could go up to St. Joseph for his cousin Katherine's baby shower. Katherine is expecting a little girl named Adriana very soon! She looks absolutely fabulous and seems to be all baby, which makes for an adorable pregnant gal. We had a great time visiting with Jeremy's mom and brother who also came to St. Joe for the shower, and with all of the relatives as we celebrated this new life to come.

In the beginning of March, I was blessed to get to help throw the baby shower for one of my dear long-time friends, Margaret Sayger. Margaret and her husband Brandt had tried unsuccessfully for years to conceive a child of their own, and didn't think it was possible when... surprise! She discovered at a routine doctor's appointment that she was expecting. This has been a miracle we've been waiting for for a long time, and so I was very excited to get to be a part of celebrating with her. There will be a zillion pictures from this shower in a future post. Margaret is another all baby super cute pregnant gal - I hope that when the time comes for us someday that I'll be half as cute as these ladies!

And speaking of pregnant gals... we're excited that our friend Emily is no longer. :) She and Ryan welcomed Ainsley Claire into the world on March 13. We saw her just before we left on our trip when she was still less than 18 hours old, and she is absolutely beautiful!! We had no doubts that Ryan and Em would make pretty babies, but it's nice to see the proof. We're looking forward to getting to see Ainsley more and watch her grow up.

And finally, we're at Spring Break vacation. Jeremy talked me into accompanying him to Springfield, IL where he's doing research for his dissertation. Honestly, it wasn't too hard of a sell - I get to spend days hanging out in the library (awesome), afternoons checking out museums (super cool) and then in the evenings I get to explore a new town with my hubby. Pretty much a perfect vacay if you're a super nerd like me. Although it might have been nice if he was researching Obama and we could have gone to Hawaii... but I digress.

We arrived late on Sunday night and had dinner at an old Italian restaurant, Saputo's, which was very delicious. Nothing better than baked lasagna from an old family recipe. Yum.

Yesterday, we spent the morning in the archive. Jeremy's already learned a lot and the ladies who work here are so very nice. Then we spent yesterday afternoon in the Lincoln Presidential Museum. You can see some information about it here http://www.alplm.org/. I'll save a little more narration on this for when you can see a few pictures. We couldn't take many but those we did take are fun. :) We learned all about Lincoln's childhood as well as his political career. I particularly loved an exhibit featuring the 1860 election and what it would have been like with today's news coverage. It was created when the museum opened five years ago, so it featured Tim Russert, and they had a nice memorial to him there as well.

We are spending another morning in the archives this morning. Debbie, one of the archivists/librarians/ladies who work here, took pity on me and brought out a couple of rare collections that she likes to show off to people. One was the Ricks Collection that had many autographs that this particular man collected over the course of his life. It included letters or autographs or bills of sale from a lot of people you've heard of: U.S. Grant, Mary Todd Lincoln, Napoleon, Benjamin Franklin, William Seward, and Robert E Lee. It was humbling to hold some of these records in my own hands! The second thing she brought out was some relics from Abraham Lincoln. Much of this stuff is actually in the vault now, but she had many letters to Lincoln from admirers and opponents, bills of sale for the 1865 election, a piece of Lincoln's coat he was wearing when shot, a piece of the cloth that they used to wipe his blood, and a piece of the gallows that the conspirators were hung on. Can you believe this stuff is open to the public, and it's free? By appointment, but still. Unfortunately, I can't take pictures in the archive, but I will definitely treasure the memory of getting to see such amazing things.

A side note - public pressure, Mom. Can you find that genealogy where it shows that we're related to Mary Todd Lincoln? The letter in the Ricks Collection was written to a Browning so I was wondering if that was a relative. I was thinking she was on the Porter side, and not the Browning side... but wouldn't it be odd if that letter of hers was really to a relative of ours?

For the rest of the day, we're planning on checking out the Lincoln Home and also the Lincoln-Herndon Law Offices. We also have a ghost tour planned for tonight! More on these adventures tomorrow.

Finally - one last thing. Jeremy's sister Ariane is expecting her second, and we found out this morning that she's having another little girl!! I am so excited for our niece, Natalie, because I know firsthand how awesome being a big sister to another sister can be. Congrats to Fred, Ariane, and Natalie, and we can't wait to meet the new baby girl in July!