Wow...yet again we went for a loooooong stint without an update. It's been a crazy time of life. Please accept our humblest of humble apologies. Now, let's catch up. Here we go!
FEBRUARY (post Alis birthday)
- Go Gonzaga...G-O-N-Z-A-G-A! Our Friend Tony (a.k.a. Tone Luv) came up from San Diego to visit and to take me to a Gonzaga basketball game. He had won some crazy raffle contest that gave him airfare, put him up in the sickest hotel in town, AND got him tickets to a Gonzaga game. These tickets are hard to come by...extremely hard. In the last 5 years I have lived in Spokane, I have not been to one. Tickets basically start at sold out and you have to wait outside the arena and hustle some tickets out there. Anyway, Tony was able to come up with some extra tickets so we took Sean and Danny with us.
GYEAH! Good times with good folks. Thanks Tone!
Baby shower in Minnesota: At the end of the month, Ali and I went to Minnesota. Some of the wonderful ladies in her life threw her a shower. I think the ladies just had
amazing advice and experience to share with Ali and we got some great gifts. Thank you all for your extreme generosity and for your care. It means so much to us. Anyway, the shower was an all female affair...so the boys went ice fishing. Here is Jonny and Dale drilling one of the holes.
This machine (called an auger) was burly! The ice was so thick that it took the whole bit to get through the ice. This was the view for the majority of the day.
No fish. I think I had 2 nibbles all day but other than that...nada. The silkies, the euros, the minnows, the glow in the dark lures...nothing was working. The fish were not buying it. That kettle corn next to my ice hole kept me nourished. Every now and again a quick pull of Pendleton kept us warm. It was freezing out there! The lake kept making this deep thud sound that the boys told me was the ice cracking. Not super comforting but...oh well. I'm still alive! It was sunny, and I got to hang out with my family from MN, right? The boys had a friend came with us who kept saying "That's why they call it fishing, not catching." True. Anyways, the trip was short and awesome...stellar baby shower, time with friends, Mama Nins cooking, shooting pool with Dale, meals and fishing with the boys, and of course time with Rocky and Charlie...
...just what we needed.
MARCH
-March has been crazy! We knew this was going to be crazy with me doing RA hiring and hopefully doing some job hunting...we decided to take a night off. Our good friends the McGonigals gave us a credit to a hotel they had won in a contest and were not going to use. (Thanks Keats and April!) Ali got back in town from a work day-trip to Seattle and then we spent the night downtown. Far from noisy residence hall life. The silence totally put us to sleep by like 9:30pm. But we woke up and had a MONSTER breakfast buffet that was so good.
It was sunny out. Beautiful morning. Wonderful wife. Life was yummy. I mean, good. The rest of March is kind of a blur to be totally honest. This is probably the most crazy month of the whole academic year for me. There was March 17...
The best St. Paddy's days greeting ever. Sent by none other than Sir Paddy Mulcahy. So good! We had an amazing dinner with the McGonigals and the Mulcahys that was so needed. Hiring was done (for the most part), we were a few days away from spring break (and closing the buildings), and we needed to toast to those things. Keatser gave a blessing before the meal that reminded me of what a special time and place we are in. It's going to be a crazy time of transition with Kiki coming, moving out of the place I have been living in for the last 5 years, and having to find a new job but we are going to make it. We are blessed to have amazing friends (who are more like our family) here. Thanks for everything!
On that note, thanks to everybody for taking such good care of us and for being a part of our lives. It's so important to have community. If I have learned nothing from travelling, from life, and from my work...it's that we need people. Thanks to all who have been blessings to Ali and myself (even to Kiki). We appreciate all of you...for real.
That's about it for now. Thanks for sticking with us and these slow updates. Ali will be getting into the rotation any second now...right, my dear?
IN THE NEXT EPISODE (a.k.a. things that haven't happened yet but are on the immediate horizon)...
-Ali and Tyler go to birthing class
-New tattoo for Tyler...really?
Stay tuned folks.
PEACE,
Tyler (pre-papa)
