Sometimes I wonder where I get my quirkiness from. The puns and quick wit are definitely from mom. My ears are from my dad. But why do I care about the number on my car’s odometer?

Grandpa Braun.

On one of Grandpa’s trips to town, his odometer hit a really cool number. I don’t know what it was, but you can believe he pulled over and waited for someone to drive by to show it off. (He must not have had his videocamera with him… he videotaped EVERYTHING!) The first person to drive past was my cousin, so thankfully Grandpa’s silly ways were only known to the family and those who heard the story.

Until now. Because I’m sharing it with the whole wide web. And because I had to somehow segway into my latest odometer excitement:

Mmkay so maybe I’m just as ‘cool’ as my grandpa was, but if you can’t find joy and entertainment in the little things in life, when can you? :-)

My parents make some pretty amazing homemade pizza.

Mom has the homemade sauce canned from the previous summer.

Dad starts making the dough hours before it’s pizza time.

Back in high school, whenever I had Cora and Emily over, Dad would ALWAYS make pizza. It might be the reason they came over so often. :-)

This past weekend when I was at my parents’ I invited Cora and Emily to come over – and asked what they wanted on their pizza.

We talked all afternoon. About life, about their husbands, about work. It was just like being in high school, the way we were talking and laughing for hours straight. Except they are both married women now and we all live different places and have grown-up responsibilities. :-)

Today is Grandma’s birthday!! I have been saving these images of my nephews from this weekend to share with Grandma (and everyone else) for her birthday!

Jonas is interested in everything Grandma does. From quilting….

To playing Wii Fit! Jonas is really good at navigating the Wii – except for this particular day. He logged in, started the body test (with Grandma’s help) and then the screen announced “you’ve lost 100 pounds!!” Jonas was signed in as Grandma instead of Jonas. :-)

Birthday kisses for Grandma!!

This is Isaac’s signature look – tongue sticking out and curled up. :-)

For anyone who knows my family – does this look familiar?? :-)

For everyone who doesn’t know my family – my brother (Jonas and Isaac’s dad grew up playing LEGOs. All the time.)

He’s three!!

Please, don’t judge my hair/outfit/lack of makeup. But when I have my baby nephew falling asleep in my arms, I am NOT going to get up and out of my pajamas!

Me with both my sweet nephews!

Grandpa got some holding time in, too!

I should really preface this story by telling you about my dad’s GPS. He used to have  “Susie” – I’m not exactly sure what kind of GPS it was, but my parents named it “Susie.” Well, Susie was one road short of a map and so for Christmas last year my brother and I got dad a new GPS – “Julie.”

Julie has much fancier imaging, easier menu options, and she shows you on a street-view-style screen which lane of the interstate you should be on for driving in big cities (like St. Louis for example). Julie goes everywhere with my parents. Even to church and back (a 5-mile drive to town from their house they’ve lived in for over 30 years).

Every time they drive someplace familiar, they bring Julie along just to see which route she would have taken compared to what they have already mapped out or traveled once before. “Oh, look, Julie wants us to take that major highway instead of this gravel road shortcut.”

It turns out that no matter where we’re going and what route we’ve planned, Julie always has something else in mind.

Which brings me to my cousin’s wedding in St. Louis. Lance and I met my parents in Sioux Falls and drove to St. Louis together. We had our maps and atlases and, of course, Julie. To avoid driving through Kansas City during rush hour, we take a divided highway across the state. We turn at St. Joseph… **recalculating** **make a U-turn** **recalculating**

After a while, Julie realizes we are going to take this highway across the state so she better just cooperate.

Then. We get to St. Louis. I have already announced which exit number we need to watch for, but Julie wants us to cut through town. At dusk. Excuse me, Julie, but my family is not used to big cities and we would prefer to stay on the road with the least amount of turns.

We make it to our hotel just fine. (Somewhat. I’ll spare you the “NO! DON’T MERGE LEFT!!” and the two cop cars in front of our hotel details.)

The next day we had free to do whatever we wanted. Sortof. Our car had a different plan. Our brakes were worn out (not because of Julie, or the quality of driving with Julie, but because of inclement weather back home). On our way to the St. Louis Arch, we spotted a Midas shop and made an emergency pit stop. The arch was only a few blocks away and the repair was going to take a couple hours, so we walked.

We’re so excited we made it to St. Louis in one piece!! :-)

Mom and dad were excited, too!

Thank goodness our motel was within 2 miles of the Arch as well as the wedding festivities on Friday. I don’t know if Julie would have survived. Because we all wanted to throw Julie out the window at one point during our trip. Except for Dad. He’s always interested in which route she’d like to go.

1. My nephews – okay, so maybe they will ALWAYS be on my ‘favorites’ list, but this month they have been so amazing. Jonas is learning his syllables (this video is the cutest thing EVER!!) and Isaac is working his baby abs by rolling over and sitting up!!

2. Walking – It’s been so nice here the past couple weeks that I’d rather be outside walking than sitting at my computer uploading photos. But then again, I can’t put off work for other people without feeling rotten. So instead I get my photography work done, put off exercise and let my muscles turn to flab. :-) And yes, this is my attempt to make walking shoes look beautiful. I don’t think it worked.

3. Keeping busy – I might have been a hermit the past week, but I did edit an entire wedding, photograph and edit a newborn session, and unpack my suitcase from St. Louis. And yes, the unpacking of my suitcase was probably the most rewarding thing I did for myself all week. That and treat myself to Armadillo’s. Twice. Key Lime with Candi on Wednesday and Strawberry Cheesecake with Lance on Friday.

4. Adele – ‘Rolling in the Deep‘ is stuck on replay on my iPod. The song doesn’t really apply to my life. At all. Her voice is just that good.

5. Being a tourist – This photo was taken with Lance’s fabulous camera phone skills after church at the Old Cathedral last Saturday while we were in St. Louis (hence the arch…). Also, expect to see a blog post from our trip to the arch in the next couple days!!