Hey brother

Yesterday my brother Ryan came up and interviewed for a job at the company Geoff and I work for and he got the job! I am so happy because Ryan has been a little stuck living with my dad and really needs to get the heck out of there. So he is moving up to Madison with us. That's right! I just finished unpacking and now we are moving into a bigger apartment in our building so that my brother can have the spare room for a little while he gets on his feet. I'm really excited about having more space and eventually a room to put all my books and craft things in.

After the interview we went out to the Terrace and had a pitcher of beer and a little dinner. It was perfect in the shade and we feed the birds until one of them pooped on my head.

 

The terrace is one of my favorite places to hang out in Madison. Afterwards, Ryan headed back and Geoff and I had a lazy day off. I'm a little at a loss because I have finished my triangle quilt-top and at the moment have no quilt projects! Basically I want to go fabric shopping because I have roughly 500 ideas and am not inspired by the mostly basic fabric I have now.

Rachel hits the town

Yesterday a big chunk of my family came up to visit us and we took Rachel to the Madison Children's Museum. It was such an amazing place, way cooler than the educational kid museums in Rockford. Everything was beautiful, artsy, light, and just fun.

This cute little bench was just hanging out in the elevator. Rachel had a blast. She is very sensitive to sounds and got a little overwhelmed when babies were crying, but she loved it. She set up house in a little hut with fabric foods and a fake fire, she really loved this water exhibit they had and painted on windows in the art room.

She seemed to have just as much fun scraping the paint off of the windows too. My favorite was the rooftop exhibit, even though it was 95 degrees out. They had so many plants and a great view of the Capitol and there were critters up there. And I got to see Geoff hula-hoop.

Ryan looks impressed. We met a chicken named Roberta and Rachel and I got to pet her! She was so sweet and then there were also baby chickens which made me pout at Geoff that I wanted a big flock of them someday.

Basically this place is amazing and if you have kids of any age and are around Madison, you should go. My 14 year old brother had just as much fun as my 8 year old sister and I will admit that I even climbed up on some things and went down a slide that I am probably too big for. But it was great.My mom was super impressed and I can safely say that we will be going here a lot in the future.

The heat was super gross, but we walked down State Street afterwards and had a little dinner somewhere (I forgot the name and the food was iffy anyway). After a mishap with someone running back to get the car and pick everyone up, we trucked off to Trader Joes so my mom could stock up on some gluten free items and I could stock up on two-buck-chuck.

Leaving my sister is always difficult, and she wanted to move right in with Geoff, Taft, and I. But luckily we are coming down tomorrow so we'll see he soon. I love living so close to her and being able to see her twice in one week as opposed to twice in six months when we lived in Ohio. I am super pumped about going down tomorrow because my brother Mikey and I (and Geoff) are finally going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II. My dad called me yesterday and asked if I would go with Mikey if my dad paid for me because he doesn't think he can sit through it. I think I will be able to handle it.

wedding what-nots

I have been having a rough couple of days, mentally. I am prone to stressing out about everything under the sun and recently I have been so tense that I cannot even think. My neck and shoulders feel like cement. And to tell the truth, I don't really have that much to stress about right now. But I have been told that with anxiety issues, it isn't about the outside circumstances that stress me out, it is just something off with my body that puts me into panic mode while watching and episode of Project Runway in bed with a cup of hot tea. It is all just very frustrating.

In other news, Geoff and I are seriously looking into a few places for our upcoming wedding and I am getting very excited. This seems like it would be a HUGE thing to stress about, but really I am just looking forward to it. While I want the day to be wonderful and beautiful and us, what I am excited for is not having a wedding but being married. I have found the person I want to tie my life to and the details aren't the important part. They are pretty fun, but I'm not freaking out over my wedding colors or anything. In fact I don't think I will have wedding colors per say, as my hair will probably clash.

One of the things I am super excited wedding-wise for is that my brother, Ryan, is going to perform the ceremony. We thought about having a wedding in a church for about half a second, but realized that it would just be to please family members and since neither of us is drawn to any religion, we wanted a more custom ceremony. Ryan and I have gotten a lot closer as we have grown and I think he will do a great job of making the event serious and fun at the same time. He has been trying to figure out if he will wear a Darth Vader costume or this number:

Crazy outfits aside, I am pumped to have my brother do this for me. My other three siblings will be a big part of the day as well. With the boys I'm not one hundred percent sure in what capacity, reading something? playing guitar?, but I know they will be great. As for Rachel, if you think I am missing out on a chance to put her in a flower girl dress you are out of your head. She's going to steal the show.