Catch-Up

Wowza……lots has happened since my last blog.

First, my lovely niece got married! Devon is the only niece/grandchild in the family so this was a big deal!

We traveled to Eau Claire Wisconsin for the wedding and spent the entire weekend there. We stayed downtown at the Ramada Inn Civic Center. I am going to recommend you DON’T stay there ever. It was an old, nasty hotel. Devon’s reception was held there though and the people and the food were great. So, it was easy to put up with a dirty room if it meant having a blast at the wedding reception!

~ Amazing ~

Our whole family was there, including some aunts and uncles I haven’t seen in a long time that drove a long way to be there. It was wonderful to catch-up with them and spend two days together.

Me, Dad, Mom, Rick (brother), Lisa (sister), Carrie (sister).

We had such a blast. We danced and danced and just enjoyed being together.  We don’t get together like that very often so it was nice to spend family time like that.

Devon asked her mom to be her maid-of-honor. They are best of friends and only had each other for all of Devon’s life. It was time for Devon to throw the bouquet and many single ladies crowded the dance floor to catch the flowers. I caught the whole thing……

 

 

 

 

 

How great was that? In that fourth shot when Devon has her arms out she is saying, “I didn’t even know where you were!”

I love how Carrie looked right at me when she caught it. I love how no one messed up my shot by running in the front of me. I love how it wasn’t wrecked by her turning away from me or something. And the fact that those shots turned out in the dim light with having to use a horrible flash……..miracle.

I live for shots like these! Made me very happy!

 

 

 

I feel so bad, but this is one of the few shots I got of the two of them! I don’t know what I was thinking!! Apparently I was having a little too much fun at the reception NOT taking pictures! Bud still looks good, but obviously his eyes are closed. Sorry Bud!

 

 

 

 

They made us tell stories about the groom and bride in order for them to kiss. Lisa and I got up and told a story about Devon and her love for the musical Annie. She knows every word to every song and we used to have to listen to it while eating supper (she was at my house a lot growing up). My mom bought a tape cassette player and placed it on the counter and would play it while we ate. REAL FUN for a cool teenager like me to have to listen to every night (I was 14). Ha!

 

 

Mitchell (nephew), Michael (nephew), Lisa (sister), and Matthew (nephew)

Michael and Devon are the same age. They grew up together and for the longest time were the only two little ones we had! Devon asked Michael to be an usher in the wedding and he came all the way from San Francisco. It was SO GREAT to see him.

Tracy (sister-in-law), Rick (brother), Lisa (sister)

Somehow I didn’t get a picture of my brother’s family. How that happened I don’t know! I searched and searched my camera and then remembered I took a picture of them, but it was with their camera and not my own too. Duh.

As usual, no good family photo of the four of us. Poor Connor had been poked in the eye during family pics so he is winking in all of them. Maybe it’s time for me to learn how to use photoshop to paste a good head from Connor onto the winking head. We will see……

SUCH A GOOD TIME!! The newlyweds took off for Mexico Monday. I can’t wait to hear all about their trip. My mom said she was sad the wedding was over! I agree, it was such an amazing day and a great way to end the summer of 2010!

After a day to recover (did I mention we high-tailed it back to Owatonna for a 10:00 baseball game for Noah?) we started to gear up for school! Hard to believe Noah is already in his last year of elementary school! Next year he will be in my building and I CAN’T WAIT for that! I think it will be so much fun to have him there everyday. Connor is in 2nd grade this year and I am just hoping to still be upright by the time he gets to my school.

 

Noah has two more weekends of fall baseball left (which makes us sad because we love watching him) and we will miss the final weekend because we are taking my parents to a Twins game. Connor starts football tomorrow. SUNDAY SCHOOL starts this weekend. Mercy Me. Wish us luck with that one.

 

Hope you enjoy the weekend. I am exhausted and looking forward to some down time.

 

Peace,

LB

End of Summer

 

We made it to a Twins game! We got lucky and attended on a day where the humidity had dropped so we were happy about that. We did learn a few things about finding a good seat at Target Field.

#1. Spending a lot of money does not guarantee a good seat. We were two rows from the field. Sounds cool, right? Not so much. We were on the third base side so that meant turning your head sharply to the right every time someone was up to bat. After about two innings of that, my neck hurt.

#2. Spending lots of money does not guarantee good seats. Being two rows from the field means you have a hard time following the ball. It’s just too close! Who knew that being TOO close was even possible.

#3. Spending a lot of money does not guarantee good seats. If it’s a day game and you are on the third base line two rows from the field…..you will be in the sun. The whole time. It’s gonna be hot. You will sweat. You will leave with a headache. You will spent lots of money on liquids.

So, basically the moral of the story is you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get good seats. In case you missed it.

We did have fun though. I knew an outdoor stadium was not going to be my favorite thing in the world (I liked being spoiled with perfect 70 degree temps, no sun, no sunscreen, no headaches) but the stadium is nice and the seats are way nicer with more leg room and comfort.

We saw Oakland play. Unfortunately the two games we have tickets for the summer…..you guessed it, both Oakland.

The Twins won and are continuing to do well this month. Next game isn’t until September and Mike and I were sure to scope out the seats we have for that game and they are in the shade and higher up! Woo Hoo! We are bringing my mom and dad so that will be a lot of fun.

We have still been going to twice-weekly speech therapy sessions for Noah. Last week all of the same issues came back after being gone for most of the summer. This was pretty heart breaking and frustrating. Not sure why they are back, we never know why, but we will keep plugging away and hope for the best. I think I will meet with his 5th grade teacher about it before school. This is the first time I have had to do that. Makes me sad for my boy.

In other news, Noah got asked to play fall baseball! We are all pretty excited. 12 kids got asked and they will play against teams a year older than them. The games are only played on Sundays and are always played in town (how they got all these towns to come here every weekend is beyond me, but it’s great!). Noah has LOVED being on this team. He loves practices even, which shocked me. He said he likes that everyone wants to be there, tries hard, plays well, and works at getting better. First double-header is today so I am curious to see how this goes! I am kind-of nervous about “bigger” kids playing against them but we will see!

The local fair has taken up most of our week this week.  We only go in the evenings, and only go for a couple of hours. We are obviously not big fair people! At least we are all on the same page and no one is disappointed when we leave. 2 hours is about all we can take. The food was great, the weather was incredibly hot, and there were only about four rides the kids liked. We are wondering if those wristbands are worth it anymore. We spent $40 for a wristband for rides for the week and they probably rode only $25 worth of rides all week. Next year we may try just getting tickets.

My classroom is ready to go. I always try to have everything in my room done so I can focus on curriculum and lesson plans the week of work shop. I am starting to get so sad about losing my lazy days of summer. We will also be starting Sunday school for the first time this fall. That’s stressing me too. I am hoping it all goes well and I don’t regret my decision to sign them up. Connor will do a football skills class on Saturdays so the poor boy will not get any sleep-in days for awhile…..I should have thought that out better. That kid lives for sleep-in days and asks every night if it’s a sleep-in day the next day. Poor guy…….

My only summer chore left to do is organizing the kids’ clothes. I need to go through and get rid of some stuff and find a new way to organize it all. Maybe this week I can work on that. I am making the kids help….should be interesting.

Next on the agenda is my niece’s wedding! Labor Day weekend is going to be crazy busy and so much fun. I can’t wait! It’s going to be in Eau Claire and some relatives I haven’t seen for awhile will be there. I found a cute dress so we are ready to go!

Tonight is the BIG night and Favre is back! Gonna enjoy watching him take the field for a couple of plays in the preseason game tonight. We got a new TV for downstairs so I think we will enjoy the coolness down there after two ball games today! GO VIKES!

Peace,
LB

What a week

 

It’s been quite the week in our world. There won’t be any pictures in this post. You will thank me later.

We started the week with Mike going in for a hernia repair (see, aren’t you glad no pictures?). It was supposed to be an in-and-out thing, no problems, no issues, home-again-home-again-jiggidty-jig.

9.5 HOURS later we were still at the hospital! If any of you visit the ambulatory waiting room anytime soon, you will see a permanent imprint of my butt in one of the waiting room chairs.

I guess there was some kind of issue with the instruments. Everything went fine with Mike’s procedure, it just took much longer that they thought it would. Well, as a result of being under anesthesia so long, Mike was one sick buggar! He was so nauseated and had such a hard time coming out of it. I finally asked at about 5:30 what the chances of us staying overnight were! We did make it home, thank goodness. He needed to be in our bed, his back was killing him in those lovely hospital cot-like things. Horrible.

We spent the next days taking it easy and trying to get back to normal. It took him a good two days to actually be able to stay awake all day and he still walks awkwardly and has trouble getting comfortable, but I think the worst is over!

The funny thing is, my mom had a procedure the same day as Mike so I got to visit with them while Mike was being prepped. Then my dad had a procedure a day later and I picked them up from that because mom still can’t drive. Needless to say I know exactly where to go, what to do, and who to ask for in that department!

I made all the sickos cheeseburger soup last night. Poor things needed nourishment.

Mike went back to work today and the kids and I had such a productive day. One of the BIG things I wanted to tackle this summer was the toy room. Up until today that room was a windowless room with shelves FILLED with Tonka trucks and diggers, Thomas the Train track, trains, and paraphernalia, TONS of games (all missing pieces) and puzzles (also all missing pieces), match box cars, and 100 other miscellaneous toys. The boys no longer use this room nor do they use any of the toys in it. The Nintendo is set up in there with a full sized couch (it’s a decent sized room just has no window so can’t be considered a bedroom) but the kids only use the Wii anymore so they rarely go into this room.

Today (while Noah mowed in this horrible high heat) Connor and I started heave-hoing that room. I threw away so many toys. I still feel guilty about it, but I was not going to go through and find homes for every little tiny piece that was randomly thrown around that room. I saved nicer things and bagged them separately and may put them out for a charity that goes through town every other month or so and picks up things from the ends of drive-ways. I think we will hang onto the Thomas the Train stuff for our grandkids, and the rest is being disposed of.

I refuse to have a garage sale. I have only had one in my whole life and it may go down as the worst experience of my life. The amount of time put into getting ready for one of those events is just not worth it to me. I KNOW we could have made some money, but that would have required lots of organization and I was just not up for it. So a charity can benefit from my lack of love for garage sales and the garbage man will hate me.

The plan is to paint that room (it’s bright blue currently with 3478 nicks in the walls) a nice neutral color, put the big screen TV from the living room down there (imagine OLD….with a huge back on it so it comes out 2 feet from the wall) and entertainment center that goes with it into that room. Then we will move the Wii into that room and get a flat screen and smaller TV stand for out in the living room. It will open up our living room quite a bit, which excites me. 

I may tackle the paint tomorrow. We will see. It would be a nice job to have done.

This weekend is the Twins game! We are all very excited. Seems like we have waited forever. This heat is supposed to be gone for the weekend so that makes this woman very happy. I do not do well with heat, so the thought of sitting in it for 3 hours was not exciting me. Even if it was to see the Twins.

Hope you have a super weekend!

LB

Indiana 2010

I just returned from my trip to see my BFF Tammy and her terrific husband, Paul.

 

This will always go down as the “Year of the Hummingbirds” to me. Let me set this up…..

 

Tammy and Paul live in the sticks country and are surrounded by trees. They have numerous wild animals that visit them regularly and, as you can imagine, birds are commonplace.

 

Recently Tammy removed all the bird seed from the feeders she had and only left the hummingbird feeders out. Doing this made her yard a virtual “hummingbird airport” (as Paul perfectly described it).  Seeing ONE hummingbird is THE BEST! I call the kids over the window, I grab the camera, we tip-toe around so as not to scare the skittish rare animal away.

 

The number of hummingbirds flying around these two feeders was amazing and I have seen things I have never seen before.

 

 

I had never seen a hummingbird land. Never. Isn’t it the cutest thing ever?

 

Tammy said that when the feeders are low, the birds flit and fly in front of the kitchen window while she works in the kitchen to let her know to get her butt out there and replenish the supply! Can you imagine?

 

 

I have 100 pictures just like these. I could not stop myself.

If I lived there, I am not sure I would get anything done! I think I would find myself sitting outside for hours. So amazing!

She also has a large vegetable garden. She has one side of it that she planted with zinnias. Boy, do butterflies love zinnias! Of course, they made amazing photo opportunities.

 

 

 

And who could forget Stella? She’s such a sweet dog and joins us on our walks. I will miss someone being so excited to see me each morning!

 

 

 

We had such a wonderful time. The highlight of the trip was going to Jersey Boys. Although we were the youngest in the arena, we still loved it. We weren’t too young to appreciate that awesome music. You could tell the people from that era, it was like they had a hard time not clapping and standing up and cheering! Except it was a play so you weren’t supposed to interrupt at the end of every song. Kind of cute.

It’s sad to think that was our last trip of the summer and now it’s a downward spiral to school starting. We have a Twins game we are all looking forward to and of course, the fair, but August certainly starts my head filling with curriculum and lesson planning. Like it or not.

Thank you Tammy and Paul! SO GREAT to see you both. I miss my morning coffee friend already. Smooches!!

Love,

LB