Forgive the absence.

It's been almost a whole week since we've blogged! Gosh... I bet you thought we'd dropped off the face of the earth, or as sooo many bloggers do, start going months at a time without updating.

Have no fear! We're back and in full force.

We have a good excuse for the silence though. Luke and I drove... yes, drove... to Indiana for Easter. It's about 1100 miles each way. We left from Boling, Texas on Wednesday and arrived in New Richmond, Indiana late Thursday evening. I'm sure we've covered this before, but Luke's hometown of New Richmond, Indiana is actually the famous "Hickory, Indiana," that was in the basketball movie, Hoosiers. The movie was filmed in New Richmond, although they changed the name to Hickory for the film. Still, all over town, like the post office, the cafe, the town's welcome sign... it says Hickory. Pretty cool stuff. If this has already been on the blog... sorry about that!

Anyways, we had a great few days back "home," as Luke calls it. Of course Texas is and has always been my home, but as time goes by, mainly because of the people we love that live there, Indiana starts becoming more home-like too!

We snapped a ton of photos. I have a few to post on the blog now and I'm sure we'll be posting more tomorrow or the next day. We're lucky to have some real live people (translation: not our porch cats Beans or Buttons) to be in our photos. We have the cutest nieces, Hunter and Sophie, and their happy personalities were easy to catch on camera. These photos here weren't posed - I just snapped them during some fun moments.


Right at the start of the Easter dinner at Luke's parents house. Hunter's Easter dress was black - she looked like a complete diva and we all loved it!

My greatest discovery of the trip was pepper jelly. I was parked in the kitchen standing by the counter where my mother-in-law had all the food and snacks out. Everyone kept coming over and getting a Triscuit, putting cream cheese on it, and then this green jelly. I was just standing there watching, but finally braved the unknown and gave it a try.

After an undisclosed number of Triscuits+Cream Cheese+Pepper Jelly, followed by an outstanding dinner by Luke's mom, we headed outside for the Easter egg hunt. Luke had been helping the Easter bunny all morning so he was ready to let 'em at it. It's fun to learn how different families do things. When I was a kid, we hunted real eggs, and it was more about finding the eggs than candy or prizes. My parents and grandparents put on some great Easter's,


Now I'm realizing that Easter has turned into Christmas 2, because I overheard someone saying, "What are you going to ask the Easter Bunny to bring you?" Well... as you can see, the Easter bunny brought this family's kiddos plenty of treats, such as a hoola hoop in a tree, recorders (the musical instrument you play with your nose), and about 5 tons of candy. Crafty Easter Bunny, huh? Here, the Easter Bunny Uncle Luke is lining the girls out on the rules of the hunt. Sophie (left) has got her eye on the prize, already checking out that hoola hoop.



And they're off! Does this little angel look excited to be on an Easter egg hunt, or what?



We took a break from monitoring the egg hunt to photograph this cool, old but completely restored Chevy pickup that belongs to Luke's parents and... drumroll please... is their wedding present to Luke and I! How cool is that! Yes, right now it is in Indiana, but Luke's parents are bringing it down to Texas this summer and we can't wait. It's in Bulldog green, too! (Boling Bulldogs, by the way!)

Now... back to the Easter Bunny/Santa scenario. Hunter and Sophie asked the Easter Bunny to bring them baby ducks, and.....

.....they got them!

Easter morning Sophie and Hunter were the proud recipients of 2 baby ducks. I got to know the ducks quite well as Luke and I were responsible for feeding, watering, and keeping them alive from Thursday night to Sunday morning.

The girls named their ducks Theodore (owned by Hunter) and.... American Idol (owned by Sophie.) Last I heard though, American Idol was getting a name change, I think to Chrissie. So there's Sophie and American Idol. I mean, Chrissie. Oh.... whatever. Sophie and her duck!

All in all, we were gone for about 6 days, and a week gone means lots of laundry and things to put away. We came back with a full car due to many hours spent antiquing around west central Indiana. We found some really cool stuff... blog coming soon about that, too!