New Year, New.....

Wow,where has the time gone! With a new year, we are taking on new ventures. First of all, Jason is no longer working in the field painting. He is still working for the same company but has been promoted to estimating jobs. Although he didn't like the thought of sitting behind a desk all day, he really likes his job. He is in a much better bood in the evening, too.

As for me, I have started a new job. A couple of weeks ago, I started with the Nebraska Corn Board as an Ag Program Manager. My work will deal with ethanol programming, promotion, and education. I will be working with ethanol plant, fueling stations, state fire marshals, auto dealer, and I will be educating the general public about flex fuel vehicles (FFV) and using ethanol as fuel. Although I have only been there for a couple of weeks, I have a full travel schedule for the next 2 months. I will be in Tampa, Dallas, Phoenix, South Dakota, Missouri, and the list goes on. The month of February only has me in the office for 10 days.

I have also began tweeting for the Nebraska Corn Board @NECorn4Ethanol. Follow me.

Oh yes, how could I forget! To celebrate our first anniversary, Jason and I took a much needed vacation. We went to Cancun for a week. What an experience that was! We swam in the ocean (a first for me), went ziplining, rapelling, snorkling in underwater caves, and RELAXED! The resort we staying in was fabulous! We had waiters bringing us food and drinks all day long! What else can you ask for!

Enjoy some of the pics from our vacation in Mexico.

Kim and Jason

It's that time of year again....

Yep! Husker football has begun. Football season is great. It gives us a great reason to get together with friends and family and be loud and obnoxious. This year is the first year in a long time that I wasn't working at the state fair for the first Husker football game of the season. Although I didn't watch it, we still displayed our Husker gear and decorations.

Last week was the second game of the season. One of my friends, decided she wanted to go downtown to watch the game. So at 9:30 in the morning, I put out our Husker flag and decor on the house, and began the venture to downtown Lincoln, along with 100,000 other Husker fans. I was fortunate enough to find a parking spot right away. Although I was dreading getting into a sports bar, I got there early enough (10:45) that I got us a table right away.

The game ended with a victory, but on the way home I received a text messsage from one of our neighbors. Something happened to our house. I was thinking Oh no! Is it on fire, did someone break in?

Well, a couple of minutes later, I received this........





Yes, our house was invaded by the K-State flag. The same neighbor that sent the text message also took down our Husker flag and replaced it with his K-State flag. Jason and I knew it would happen sooner or later but not this soon.

Just remember, paybacks are a bi***!

Babies, babies, and more babies

It seems like everyone I know is pregnant including my sister, Bonnie. Our sister, Melissa, and I decided we should give Bonnie a baby shower so she could receive some much needed items for her soon-to-be addition. Bonnie is due the end of August so time was ticking away and we needed to get the ball rolling.

Finding a date seemed to be a challenge working around everyone's schedules, but we finally decided on July 10th. I volunteered to host the shower at my house. It was a big surprise to find out....well, you will just have to read on to see why I was surprised!

After some thought, disussion, and SHOPPING, we decided to go with a "duck" theme. We were fortunate enough to find decor that matched at one store. The hard part was, how many people do we account for? If anyone knows my sister, she invites anyone she talks to and we ended up sending out about 70 invitations! Yes! About 70 invitations (now you know why I was surprised after I volunteered to host the shower at my house). So, Melissa and I decided about 25% would come to the shower.

Our next dilemma, what do we do for prizes? I've been to showers where the gifts have been for the mother-to-be and other showers where the prizes were for the people that won the game. Melissa and I decided to do both. Bath and Body Works was having a GREAT sale on their lotions, soaps, and sanitizers so we got one of each for each every prize that would be given. Also, we chose a small gift from Bonnie's registry and placed one item from Bonnie's registry and a lotion, soap, and hand sanitizer into each prize bag. So in the end, each prize included a gift for the winner of the game and a small item for the baby.

The shower was good. All-in-all, there were about 15 people that showed up and showered Bonnie with baby gifts. Both of my grandparents were there along with my Aunts, cousins, Bonnie's mother-in-law and a couple of her friends. We played 4 shower games and enjoyed a wonderful duck cake made by our Aunt Stacy. Stacy is taking cake decorating classes and wanted to put her skills to work. She did a wonderful job! Thanks Stacy. I thought I got pictures, but I must have used someone else's camera.

I'm glad the shower is over. It is a lot of work and costly to plan and host a baby shower. Now, I just have many to attend between now and the end of September. As I mentioned earlier, almost everyone I know is pregnant. Maybe I'll be next!!!!

The decor in the living room. It's difficult to see the ducks, but everything looked great.

These are the balloons we put in the front entryway.

My grandmother Machacek and my Aunt Stacy.


Back from L to R: Grandma Spulak, Bonnie's friend, Bonnie's mother-in-law
Front from L to R: Bonnie, our cousin Michelle, and our cousin's wife Mindy

Bonnie is opening gift and our cousin Lillie is helping!

One down, a couple to go

As I'm sitting in my hotel room in Denver, I thought this would be a good time to update the blog. It's only been about 3 months! Yikes! I'm behind. There has been a lot that has happened since the last blog, but I will just update you on one of the project we had for the summer and upload photos of the project. What we thought would be a weekend project turned into a month long project. It took a while, but I finally got Jason to draw up landscaping plans and decide what he wanted to do. (Yes I said what Jason wanted to do.)

The weekend we started the landscaping my friend, Tammy, came to help. It took nearly all day Saturday to get the ground level and lay 5 feet of brick. Just when we were beginning to roll, a storm came in out of nowhere and washed out all our dirt work and bricks. So Sunday after church, we took the bricks out that were laid the day before and started over. Finally, we were on a roll and got the front of the house done on Sunhday. Well, needless to say, once we stepped back to look at our hard work, we discovered it was slightly uneven. From where we started to where we finished on Sunday, there was nearly a 2 inch elevation. Although that doesn't seem like much, we could tell it was uneven and once again, decided to start over.

After beginning the project 3 times, we were finaly able to complete the brick work in about a week. Now, everything is done: the brick work, the caps, the planting, and the mulch. Whew! I am so glad that project is completed! Now for the next one.

The third time is the charm. We were going to get it right this time.

Jason was bound and determined to get this project done! Even working late at night.

I had to make him come in the house so the neighbors wouldn't get upset by the noise.

The finished project in the front of the house.

The front of the house and part of the side.

The back of the house. I actually got to pick out the plants for this part of the house.

Let's All Join In

As many of us already know, heart disease is one of the leading causes of death. Once again, it has taken the life of a dear friends' (Elaine and Audrey) father. Last year, their father passed away from heart disease so I have decided to help take action.

I join Elaine and her family by walking in the American Heart Association Walk to help raise money for awareness and research about heart disease. Help me reach my fundraising goal of $250 by making a donation to the American Heart Association. You can make donations by contacting me by phone (402-350-5003), email: kjmachac@hotmail.com or by following this link.

http://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=317677&lis=1&supid=289417105

Thanks for all your help and support!

Busy as Bees

Our household projects have been outdoors for the past few weeks. Now that spring is finally here, there is LOTS of yard work to do.

My wonderful, and only, sister-in-law visited us a couple of weeks ago. She lives in the hustle and bustle of Chicago so I thought I would show her how we live. (She forgot how it is to live in a small town. Also, since there wasn't any noise at night from cars, horns, people, etc. she didn't really sleep.) We went to the local nursery and bought a bunch of flowers for my flower pots. After we had them all planted, I said to her, "Do you think it will be warm enough at night and not kill the flowers?" Why didn't I think of that BEFORE we got everything planted? Oh well, so far so good. I think we have reached the point where the temperature at night is warm enough. Thanks for all your help Jenny.

This past weekend, we painted the foundation on the house to match the color of the siding. (Sorry, I forgot to upload pics to my flashdrive last night so I don't have any pictures to post from this project, yet.) All the neighbors managed to find their way to our house ask Jason about painting or the lawn or fishing or hunting, but not a one of them offered to help. I would have gladly given up my part of the painting!

Also last week, the sprinkler company came out to move the sprinkler heads away from the foundation so now we can start landscaping. Our plan is to start the landscaping this weekend. We still need to get the sand (or gravel, whichever Jason decides to get), dirt, edgers, and people to help.

Anyone who wants to help, as I may have said before, we pay with beer and pizza. :)

Dear Rain,
You can come anytime after this weekend. Oh yeah, you should probably hold out until the farmers are all finished in the fields, too. Thanks.

Jason and Kim

Spring has Sprung.......I hope!

Just like everyone else, we are tired and depressed from all this snow and cold weather. Starting today, it looks like the temperature will finally be in the 50's. Can you say, "heat wave?" Can't wait for some nicer weather and get outside to work! We already have a laundry list of projects for this spring.

The first thing I want to do (I haven't asked Jason about starting this one first) is landscape around the house. When we moved in, there were 5 little bushes (no, we still don't know what they were or how big they were supposed to get) along the front of the porch. Over the summer, they seemed to die so Jason just dug them up so we can start fresh. Now we have no curb appeal. If anyone has any ideas for landscaping, we are open to ideas. We've been doing a lot of searching on the internet, but there are too many good ideas. I can't seem to finalize an idea!!!!

We also plan to tear up the back patio, which is currently 4 6'X6' slabs, make it larger, and lay brick. That's going to be a large project, but bring it on!!! Have I told you how much we love to be outside?

Another project, that I'm a little hesitant about, is building a shed in the back yard. No, I'm not hesitant about building the shed. It's the idea Jason has for the shed. He wants to make it 12' X 12' with a 8-10' ceiling and have electricity in there. Doesn't it seem like he wants to live out there? That's what I thought!!! Hahaha. I don't have a problem with the shed, but the size and electricity part, we need to discuss. We will see who wins at this one.

As we begin the projects, I will post pictures. Until next time, enjoy the melting snow, warm sun, and birds chirping!