The first day of school...

Technically in Nebraska, kids have been in school for three full weeks now. But I am still on my Minnesota clock, where the first day of school always fell on that highly anticipated day after Labor Day. I have sweet memories of waiting so anxiously to drive to Greenleaf Elementary school at the beginning of August to find out who my teacher would be for the year. They would post the class lists on the school doors and we would nervously chatter about what we had heard about Mrs. so-and-so and wonder if she'd be nice or mean or strict or funny.

This was also the time we would get our school supply list. I would hold that list so carefully as we shopped through the pandemonium of parents and kids at Kmart. One year I got these crayons that had different colors at each end. I made a special holder for them out of a check box that I decorated with stickers and wrapping paper. Oh how I love new crayons!

And then we'd go shopping for something new to wear on that first day of school. I specifically remember going to work with my mom in Minneapolis and making a special trip to the downtown JCPennies for this outfit. It usually was very comfortable, because I loved leggings and one piece outfits and sweatpants. (I didn't own a pair of jeans until I was in 7th grade!) And we'd get new sneakers and a hairthingy to go with it too.

Finally, the day would arrive, and with great joy, I walked my new crayons in my backpack to the bus stop wearing my new clothes from Pennies. That's me in the one piece white and purple striped outfit with the new hairthingy and sneakers holding Jennifer's hand.

The Great Minnesota Get Together!

Today is the last day of the Minnesota State Fair, my second favorite holiday right after Christmas. I love everything about the fair, love that I am a part of the fair and love the tradition and sameness of our routine from one year to the next. This year, in the 12 days recorded (today's attendance hasn't been added into this total), 1,663,573 people will have walked through the fair grounds, consuming an estimated half-a-million corn dogs. (I helped with that stat...) Below are pictures of my favorites at the fair:
Here's what you're seeing in these pictures, going left to right, top to bottom...
1. The Butterheads. The lovely ladies of the court of Princess Kay of the Milky Way hold this honor of having their busts carved in Minnesota butter.
2. One of my favorite food stops, up there with Sweet Martha's cookies and Hawaiian Shaved Ice.
3. Family friend Marcus and one of the pigs he showed his year. Last year, the pig he showed went home to have five piglets, but died during labor. They removed the piglets by c-section and Marcus and his folks BOTTLE FED all FIVE piglets every TWO hours for the first THREE weeks of their lives. Marcus brought three of those piglets-all-grown-up to show at the fair this year.
4. In the Creative Arts building, all of the quilts, canned goods and baked goods are on display. It is a life goal to enter cookies at the fair. Maybe next year...
5. Could there be a better center picture for a photo collage? I didn't think so. Behold, a finished Butterhead.
6. This was my favorite new experience at the fair! We watched the 4-H cow show. Oh my word. You cannot tell this from the picture, but these cows are naughty. And they don't like to be on leashes. And the poor middle school 4-H'ers have to do their best to pretend like they have serious control of these large, opinionated animals. There were scuffles, and tempers and I couldn't get enough. This is a new fair tradition.
7. The reason I love the fair like I do: My family arranges flowers for competition with the Minnesota Gladiolas Society. A lesser known of all societies (please smile here), we are a fascinating combination of people who love beautiful flowers. This is my Uncle Carl and one of his AMAZING arrangements. He always makes stunning, huge, glorious arrangements.
8. This is the white ribbon I won this year for this sweet little arrangement.
9. Pork Chop on a stick. Be sure you get one of these. Salty and perfect. And my mom's favorite fair food.


So, basically, if you haven't ever been to the Minnesota State Fair, you've just got to get there. I drove 12 hours round-trip from Nebraska down for 12 hours of fair fun because it's just great.

I'm proud of this one...

Today is Pastor Brad's birthday, and since I think he's a great guy and a great boss and since I love a good birthday celebration, I thought I'd throw a little party. So I decorated the program office with yarn strung all across the ceiling, made some happy signs and used his favorite Tigger's for decoration. But the room was missing people to celebrate, so I found our resuscitation Annie's used for camp staff CPR training and put our staff uniform on them complete with party hats. Truth be told, I had enough Annie's to fill the table, but I found two to be plenty. They are very happy as they smile non-stop, but tend to lean more towards a happy-creepy-birthday feel. Never the less, Happy Birthday Pastor Brad!!!!

Beautiful Weddings.

I went to three weddings in August, all beautiful and so fun to be a part of. These pictures are from Betsy's wedding, my next door neighbor for 17 years. The Anderson's have always been as family to us, and this wedding was a true celebration of this friendship. Dad performed the ceremony, mom did the flowers and Rory and I did our part by eating lots of Coldstone wedding cake (brilliant. every wedding should have ice cream cake.)

Betsy's older sister, Jennifer, was my best friend all growing up and basically we tormented Betsy as the little sister. When I was scanning family photos a few weeks ago, I came across this picture of me and Jennifer having a sleepover. It is amazing how life flies by.

BeccaGroves Font.

I typed that. And it's my handwriting!!! Isn't that incredible?!!!

And it wasn't really all that hard either. I simply wrote out my letters on the following sheet (printed from yourfonts.com), scanned the sheet, and uploaded my personal letters. The letters you see above is my first attempt...the scanner picked up something on the small p, so it has a long space after it (hence the uppercase P's used above.) Rory helped me fix this problem, so I'm about to upload a clean-little-p version. It cost me $10 per upload (should have only taken one time) and I know from reading about it that I should have been able to do this for free. But by the time I got to the actually typing my handwriting stage I was so excited I was happy to hand over the money. (again, if you do your research, you should be able to do this for free and you really ought to give this a try...) Here's the sheet I scanned:

So go play!! I love digital scrapbooking but the thing that has bummed me out is always using a computer font instead of personal handwriting. Well lookie now. The BEST of both worlds!