With a Family Like This Who Could Worry About Turning 30?

This weekend I was able to enjoy some time much needed time with my family.

My parents, sister and brother-in-law went out of their way to help me celebrate my 30th birthday (Sept. 2) and Nick's (Sept. 5) with a killer cake and a very special RURAL DARE.

Check out this cake! Seriously now....Nancy...she is some kind of awesome. The perfect DQ icecream cake...with the perfect black and pink skull motif.


I got a brand new 8GB iPod Nano. Also pink. Totally loving that also. Coffee, a skull coffee mug and a book also from Mom and Dad!

Greta and Nate got me loads of amazing gifts, to include an amazing scarf and necklace from Ireland. A cool bracelet! Candles, lotion, stationery, loads of great things. These people know me well.

Which LEADS me to the best birthday surprise! Greta and Nate really put a lot of thought into planning a special birthday surprise for me. And it was AWESOME. An Amazing Race-esque trip down memory lane, cleverly named RURAL DARE.

It was Nick, Finn and I against Mom and Dad, with Greta and Nate along as judges and referees!

There were 10 clues, all that involved some story or memory from my childhood. There were challenges and dares along the way. And at each challenge question, a photo was required to complete the mission.

It was hella fun. We were zipping around Viroqua, we could see Mom and Dad flying around in the truck. Finn was cracking up because we were driving bat shit crazy and running around laughing a lot.
Here are some good pictures of the action:
The Rural Dare Planners

First challenge! Successfully parallel park, at the site where I unfortunately failed my dricers license test, er...um twice. Good thing living in the city has paid off!

There was a "Becca through the ages" photo scramble at the American Family office - goal here was to put the photos in order by age. They put a couple of tricky "sensitive middle school age" photos together. The Sally Jesse Raphael glasses were the giveaway though.

Nick took the dare to do a shot of Irish Whiskey at the Viking Inn. Luckily for me, didn't mind it.

One of our last stops was the good ole' Liberty Store, a frequent haunt for my father, where there was a long list of beer names to unscramble. My love of beer helped me out on this one. I decided to drink one for inspiration as I solved the puzzle.

The final challenge was.....to balance a fake checkbook account. Greta knew ALL to well that this could possibly be one of the more difficult things in life for me. We were remembering all of the tears shed by myself as Reid and I would navigate the rough waters of basic banking at the kitchen table. Thank the Lord! Nick is down with the M-A-T-H....he lost out to Mom and Dad by mere minutes! The winners were generous to share their prize, a glorious bag chuck full of General Mills' goodness.

To top off such a fun event, the rest of the weekend was filled with delicious food, running, playing bean bags, watching Finn enjoy Erwin the Sprinkler and the Horse Show, complete with Tractor driving opportunities.

Here are a few more pics from the weekend.

Books Books and More Books

I did manage to get some reading done while I was on a bus road trippin down south.


Here are the last 4 reads I picked up:
Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez
My sister and I both read this book and we both liked it. It is a really great story about a woman that moves to Kabul and opens a Beauty school for women to free or attempt to free themselves from some of the contraints of marriage and being a woman in Afganistan. I think I could relate to a lot of the frustration and triumphs of starting a nonprofit as this woman did and I also enjoyed learning more about a culture that I didn't really know anything about.

The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro
Wanted a lighter ride for my first let to Fort Sill and this book fit the bill. Short chapters of hilrious antics and accounts from this woman's life were light hearted, funny and a couple of times had my snickering or laughing out loud.






The Road by Cormac McCarthy
This book is a must read. I have been telling everyone I know about it and I think at least 3 or 4 people from my unit have now read it. This author also wrote, No Country For Old Men. The Road is unlike any book I've ever read. It's concept, it's simply story line and it's lack of typical dialogue phrasing pulls you through the story. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, how much really is there to say about a man and his son walking through a post-apocolyptic existence? The writing is so brilliant you just can't put it down. My friend Lauren said it's also going to be made into a movie. Will look forward to that. LOVED this book.


Switching back to something a little lighter, I read, Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster. She is a local Chicago author and I met her husband while they were making the rounds at Printers Row. Her books is humorous, and has it's funny moments but I guess I felt like it was really long and kind of unorganized a little bit. There were parts that did make me chuckle, and parts on dieting and working out that I could relate to, but it was just "okay".







I am also pleased to announce the "Books Over Brooms" Book Club. 3 (maybe 4) members strong. This was an idea hatched by my sister and I, to get us all out of our reading genre comfort zones. Mom, Gert and I will be reading a book together every other month or so, and we each have to pick a different genre. We let Mom pick first and she chose Fiction,
The Secret Life of CeCe Wilkes - so I am pretty pumped to get reading that. More book reviews soon!

Finn Pics

I have gotten some requests!

Full Finn update coming soon.

Enjoy the photos :-)

Mama's first day at the pool with Finn.

A trip to the Hyde Park Fire Station with Mr. Foertsch!

So excited!!!

Some Pictures

Of other AT adventures/creatures -

Buffalo - just walking down the highway! Man this is a huge animal. Spotted at the Forest Preserve just off Base. Went right down the center line. Glad we didn't come up on him in the dark.

Prairie Dogs!

Longhorns!

View from the top of Mt. Scott

The Good Stuff

As promised - a post about the GOOD food I ate while gone.

I love BBQ. Must take after my dad, when I get a "hankerin" as he would put it for ribs!? LOOK OUT.

So! You couldn't imagine my delight, while spending the night en route to Fort Sill, in Sullivan, MO, the dining recommendation by the hotel.

Had just gotten back from a hot run, and I asked at the desk for the best place in town to eat. She said, "Homer's BBQ! I'll have to call him though, because he closes at 8 pm." I think it was like 7 pm.

So she calls, and says, "Sure! He'll stay open for you, shower and hussle up though, because he's an old man and doesn't like to be made to wait."!

So I dashed to shower, gathered up a crew of drill people and we walked on over.

Walking along this frontage road, you can imagine my surprise when we approached:

It's really almost impossible to do this place justice. A tiny little room. Smokehouse in the back. A small open kitchen. Homer, the owner is famous apparently. And after eating his ribs, it was not a stretch of my imagination. Here is Lisa, holding up the Ozarks travel guide, with a full feature on this place.

The BBQ was just the beginning! There was homemade potato salad, coleslaw, HANDCUT, FRESH FRENCH FRIES, and my favorite, a piece of white Wonderbread, in an individual baggie. Never has bread tasted so good.

But so! This BBQ. The most tender meat ever. Fell right off the bone, no fat, gristle, none. The sauce, sweet, smoky and just a little spicey. I think I ate 40 ribs. I just couldn't stop. Dad, I thought of you the entire time. If we ever have a reason to be in Sullivan, MO together sometime, we are going to this place.

And after you get your food! 74 year old Homer joins you in the dining area, parks it, right in his recliner, to make sure you are enjoying your meal. He says, "If you leave here hungry, it's your own damn fault! " Love it.

Completely on his own, to end your meal, he brought out plates and plates of fresh watermelon and peaches.

I ate so much I was ill.

Bonus! Homer loved our crew SO much, that when we traveled BACK through MO on the way home. He packed his tiny place with the ENTIRE UNIT and fed us all for free. His only stipulation, that we pay what we felt the meal was worth, and he would then donate the money to charity.

This was an amazing memory. I can still taste that BBQ. I'm ready Homer! I just wish you'd deliver to Chicago. :-)

OOOOHHHHKLAHOMA!

Sing it loud Sing it Proud.
I'm back people from another successful and hard 2 and half weeks of good old fashioned Army Training!
This year's travels took me to Madison, WI, Sullivan, MO, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Dallas Texas, and back.
For obvious reasons it was SO much harder leaving this year. This was certainly the longest I had ever been away from Finn, and Nick, and it seemed to last an absurdly long time. I am so blessed to have such an amazing husband and families to help hold down the fort while I was away. I really appreciate everything you do for me and for our family.

So! To catch you all up on what I've been up to, I present to you in photos and scribe, the life of an Army Band girl in Oklahoma.

WHAT I LEARNED AT FORT SILL

1) I have never really felt "hot" before until I went there. Never dipping below 100 degrees in the week + that we were there, the temp rose to 112 degrees on our second to last day. I can only describe the heat as intense and it would be super windy, and the hot flames of this heat would lap and lick at your ankles. Not bad in a tank and skirt...but in your full uniform, boots and BLACK WOOL BERET (genius Army, really brilliant) it would create an oven like no other

2) Sweating THAT much makes your skin glow and makes you feel pretty healthy

3) The South is SLOW. I nearly died. Anywhere we went that required any customer service I almost lost it. Must be my fast paced city life getting to me after all, but DANG. Pick up the pace! 8 minutes to make me a latte!?! (I did time her) You'd get shot in Chicago. SHOT dead.

4) You can sweat EVERYWHERE from your body. Not one part is immune.

5) Running in extreme heat can and does feel super good.

6) Just salute! Saluting high ranking officers is not SCARY. Just do it and get it over with already.

7) Ultimate frisbee is pretty fun. And I'm not too bad at it.

8) 6 racoons can and DO fit in one garbage can. And the quickness in which they can scurry out would alarm you.

9) There are a lot of ways to eat cottage cheese. With peaches, pears, just regular shredded cheese, with croutons, tomatoes, garbanzo beans, etc.
Here are some pictures to show you around:
My Battle Buddies; Val and Lauren - Spend just about every waking moment with these two.

The Turd - as lovingly named by the Fort Sill Band, otherwise known as the band hall, where we rehearsed. Super hot.

The DFAC (aka Dining Hall) - where we did, and mostly didn't eat. I literally survived on cottage cheese, ice cream cones and jello. Somedays there was kidney bean salad to look forward to. As Nick so kindly pointed out, "It sounds like you're in a nursing home." I was STARVING.


And our work! Our main objective was to perform at major military ceremonies, such as retirements, graduations, honors, etc. Here are some pictures of the band in action.
The half section is a really big deal at Fort Sill, they have all of these amazing horses as part of their ceremonies.



And there was also some fun.
You have to make it fun or you would shoot yourself I think.
I will post more about the fun tomorrow night.
Highlights include:
The best BBQ I will most likely ever have, plus the chef in a recliner
Buffalo, Prairie Dogs, and Longhorns, Oh My!
Real life Donkey and Goat Soldiers
Road trip to Dallas

Glad to be back!
Missed y'all