Tulips

On Tuesday, my mom, the kids, and I went up to see the tulips. Most of the pictures were taken by my mom and I haven't gotten those yet, but here are a few I took on my phone.

 

 

These tulips are called Anne Marie! I tried to get the kids to take a picture in front of them (in front of these, in front of the ones in the field, etc, several tries) but they were not into that idea. Sorry aunt annemarie!

These ones are called Claudia. Anne maries and claudias were my fav single tulips of the day. Grouped together I really liked the "bold" mix of solid red, solid yellow, red/yellow, and solid deep purple. 

Riding a tractor around tulip town. this picture cracks me up 'cuz the kids are so weird looking! (she typed with love)

they grow more than 100 different varieties of tulips at tulip town. amazing to see.

Lunch was a little rough that day (over 50 minutes to get our food) but the kids were AMAZING while we waited so it wasn't that bad, and the rest of the day was fantastic. thanks for suggesting the outing and for driving mom!

katie and brent

I haven't posted in forever, I know. There are many reasons for this, many of which follow the ever-present theme of busy-ness. another reason is that life has been so great and horrible all at the same time and it's hard to feel and wrestle with both emotions so intensely. the great parts of life have been all the fun things we're up to around here. kids are happy, we've done a couple triathlons and whatnot, jobs are going well, life is good. the horrible has been the death and dying. there's nothing that I can write here that can honorably sum up either Katie or Brent or their deaths. The facts are that their deaths were rough, they were un-related, they came so close together, and they both affected Blake's group of guy friends so much. Brent's memorial was wonderful. Katie's is this weekend and I know it's going to be amazing too. The world is a little worse off without them.

It gets you to thinking about all the loss in the world. The boston marathon bombing has been rough as well; I think because although we don't run marathons, both Blake and I run, so it's hit a little close to home. Later this month will be the third anniversary of my cousin's death as well. It's kind of easy to be depressed, and hard to write about how great life is, although really, life has been so great.

So this is my sad, mournful post. Next I'll post pictures of tulips and maybe Easter and other fun, wonderful things. But I also wanted to recognize the loss, and ask for your prayers for Blake, for Ryan, Ryan, Kennedy, Michal, all the boys, and all the families. Thanks.