Major Update - April part 1

So April was a big month for us - mainly one weekend in particular.

The wedding plans are moving along nicely for us. I have just about everything booked and the only things we have left to do is pick out the cake, confirm with the DJ - waiting on that contract to be sent to us, take our engagement photos, plan the honeymoon, print out the invites, finish the centerpieces, meet with the pastor - when we figure out which one will marry us and then print out the bulletins for the ceremony - but that won't happen until about 2 weeks before the wedding.

So the first weekend in April took us to Colorado for an extended weekend. Our friends Brad and Cherie got married on April 4th in Golden, Colorado. Every time we go out there, we always try to see our family that lives in Denver. Jerad has his aunt and grandma out there and I have an aunt and uncle and my cousins out there. Unfortunately, due to timing, we weren't able to connect with my family, but we stayed with Jerad's Aunt Gail and family. We arrived late on a Wednesday night so there wasn't much time for chatting as it was definitely time for bed. The next day, Thursday, we basically hung out. Jerad took off to go run some errands and play his luck at Dave and Buster's with Brad, so his Grandma Chuck and I took off to do a little shopping. But you all know...shopping makes you hungry....so why not fill up on some Mexican.

We had all made plans to go to Lucky Strike Bowling that night so Chuck and I decided we would make our bowling games a little more interesting. I had purchased 5 prizes - one was for best overall score, one for best granny shot, one for best backwards granny shot, one for best non-dominant hand, and I think the last one was for the most gutter balls. I hope I got them right - as this did happen about 2 months ago. Check out the photos for that night:

And now you can see all of the great prizes we got (please do not ask me who won which title as I have no clue):

Chuck, Gail and I got some fun Easter candies, Cathy got a candle and Jerad got a little tabletop pool game.

It was such a fun night that we decided to continue on with the fun. Pretty much right outside of Lucky Strike is Coyote Ugly. Now if you know me at all, you would know that I love that movie as it is in one of my top 10 favorites. But I was not so interested in going in as all of that planning of the bowling wore me out. ;-P So Gail and I let Cathy and Jerad go hang out.

And while they were there (very short stay), Gail and I decided to chill out ourselves on the wonderfully comfortable couch.

What a great night with everyone. The next day I think we just hung out for a while before we took off for the rehearsal and dinner. I have some great photos of the rehearsal and the dinner. Something surprising to me was that the dinner was at Applebee's. They did a magnificent job there and apparently they are one of the very few locations that did that. I called one for our rehearsal dinner and it sounded like they didn't want to go through the effort.

I think I may have failed to mention that there was a really cool bison farm right by the church. And of course I had to go say hi and take my picture with them. :-)

So not only was the rehearsal good, but the wedding was beautiful. I ended up taking about 140 pictures during the rehearsal and wedding that I will spare you most of them but I do have a couple to share. Jerad did have a little buddy most of the night. His name was Preston and was the ring bearer. He took to Jerad the entire day and well into the evening.

Can anyone say, "Daddy Material"?

Congratulations to our friends, Brad and Cherie Bornhorst!!

Major Update time - March

So I have been very slack in posting...as you will see that my last post was about 3 months ago. So lets start at the end of March.

The last weekend in March, Nattie and I took a trip out to see my sister and my neice. It was quite a bit of fun. Alyssa still loves Nattie so much. As it had been snowing the weeks before it was really mushy outside a few days before so as the sun had been out during the week and that lovely Saturday, we were able to take the dogs out to run while we played with Alyssa with her toys - and she does have a lot of them - and we also played in the woods. Ok, mainly I played in the woods but for very good reason - and of course Nattie was there to help me.

(Don't you think Nattie would make a great country dog? She loves running around and chasing the squirrels.)

I was looking for branches for our weddng centerpieces. Heather and Micah have such a great wooded area around their house that I found some awesome branches. I bet you are all dying to see what we are doing with branches....but you will just have to wait until the wedding to see it for yourself. :-) Don't worry, it isn't a crazy idea...I learned it off of Platinum weddings on WE tv. If its on TV it has to be good, right? And while we were being productive working on some wedding stuff, Jerad had a night of fun himself. He was in charge of planning his buddies bachelor party. I think he did a really nice job. It turned out that he had a little bit of babysitting to do. Who would have thought that 28 year old men needed a babysitter?

A Busy summer

So as you all know, this summer was filled with wedding preparations. So much, that I really let all of my blogging go down the drain. I do hope you all forgive me. But in all of this hectic planning, Jerad and I were able to throw a little bit of fun in there. We were able to attend the Twins/Yankees game at the metrodome this summer and I remember that because I found the pictures on my camera for proof. :-) Really I forgot about it, but the pictures were fun.

So as you can see, I had to get some cracker jacks for the baseball game BUT what happened to the boxes of cracker jacks and my prize really wasn't that great. I used to get better prizes when I was little. And of course, we sat behind a true Yankee Hater. :-) I don't remember if we won or lost but it was just fun for the two of us to take off the afternoon and enjoy the game together.

This summer also marked my 10 year class reunion. A lot of my classmates got together over July 3rd at the local bar and reminisced of old times and got reacquainted with each other and learned about the growing families. It was truly amazing to see so many people. The interesting thing about a 10 year reunion is that everyone is in different stages of their lives. Some had been married with kids since before our 5 year reunion, some were just finishing college, some were just starting a career, some starting a family and of course there were those that just didn't change and were still doing the same thing they were doing 10 years ago. Here are some highlight pictures from the evening.

I got to meet up with my childhood neighbor, Rachel. She is now in social work which I am surprised about b/c she has such a soft heart, that the situations she deals with daily would break my heart. Of course, since we were at the local bar, just about everyone shows up to see people so I ran into my hometown hair stylist, Elisa. Her and her husband now own the Latimer Meats - I tend to frequent there when I come home. They do a fabulous job and I love the meat I get there. Top quality.

Of course there is the token picture of my best friend, Andrea and I. A fun fact about my 10 year reunion - it was my brother's 5 year reunion and my dad's 35th class reunion. So mom had to get a picture of all of us. This other picture in here with one man and tons of girls......Mr. Havel - he was the "hot" teacher of our days and a couple of the girls still drool over him. So of course we got a picture of Havel and his Hotties. :-) I wonder what his wife thought of that.

Dog Park and Date Night

Today was beautiful out. The sun was shining and it was a brisk winter day perfect for the dog park. There was a fresh coat of snow that showed up earlier in the week that made playtime that much more fun. I called my neighbor Robyn and asked her if she and her two dogs - Great White Pyrenees - Grady and Gretta would like to join Nattie and I at the dog park. She was all for it and we caravaned over there. Nattie hasn't been there for over a year so I sometimes get a little nervous with her over stimulation of so many dogs being there, but she had a FABULOUS time. She was running around on the frozen lake in the thick snow chasing other dogs who were actually playing fetch. Grady was a lone ranger and likes to wander around the perimeter of the lake and woods area and Gretta would cozy up to the humans and play with the occasional dog. They had so much fun.

Upon return from the dog park, my wonderful fiance asked me out for a date. He took me to this wonderful restaurant, Porterhouse, that we have been eyeballing as we drive by it when we go to and from my parents' place as it is in Lakeville. As you can hardly get a table in there last minute we were told to show up as soon as they open so we could get one of the few walk-in tables. We wanted to eat early b/c he was also treating me to a movie. The food was fabulous! We each had a different cut of meat and different sides and he picked out a nice bottle of wine. Our waitress was awesome too. When we go back, we will definitely ask for her section.

The movie we chose was Gran Torino starring Clint Eastwood. It was a great movie and I would have loved to see a different ending even though the ending they used was just as good. I won't ruin it for any of you who have seen it, but it tells a great story about getting to know your neighbors even if they are of a different culture and also about doing what is right and wrong. I know that little recap sounds a little boring but the movie itself was a lot more interesting. :-)

Over all it was a great night and it was definitely a treat as Jerad has been gone a lot of evenings for the Timberwolves as he was once again this year a season ticket holder.

Sunday ended up being beautiful too so both Jerad and I took Nattie back to the dog park and met Robyn there again with Grady and Gretta.

AVP Volleyball

For Christmas Jerad gave me tickets to go see professional sand volleyball at the Target center. My first surprise was that his buddy Brad also got tickets for his fiance also so it was going to end up being a double date. I had no clue they would be there. The second surprise was that Barefoot wines was a sponsor and were giving out free samples of wine. Lucky me!! This tournament was one stop on the AVP Hot Winter Nights tour. There were 4 women and 4 men. They played 2 on 2 for 3 games switching partners each game for both the men's and women's matches. The finale was a game played by everyone (4 on 4) with 2 men and women on each team. It was a great time and I really wished I had the skill to be out there too. But then again...I don't quite know if I want to be running around in those skimpy bikinis all the time.

Old Friends reunite!!

Tonight my best friend, Andrea, who I grew up with came to visit me with her daughter, Jordan. We had the weekend packed with dress shopping for the wedding. The plan was to decide on a bridesmaid dress and color FINALLY! Oh and my parents came up too. :-)

Andrea and Jordan drove up from Iowa earlier on Friday and stopped at several shopping venues on the way. When I got off work we met at the first bridal shop that was right by my house. Jordan and I hadn't seen each other in a long time so it took us an entire 30 seconds to warm up to each other. While her mom was trying on dresses, Jordan was able to try out the flower girl dresses as she is a flower girl in our wedding along with my niece Alyssa. Every dress she tried on was "BEAUUUUTIFUL!" Finally she decided that she was going to take the last one home with her. Eh....not gonna happen. It turns out that my future mother in law is going to make the flower girl dresses but we wanted to get ideas. As for Andrea, she was such a sport. She tried on everything we threw at her. We did end up liking one of the dresses and we had the lady write it down for future reference.

Finally it was time to head to the house for some dinner. That is when I introduced Jordan to Nattie. They were the best of friends....well for picture time anyway. As you can see.....Jordan was just an angel. Actually this little girl is always welcome at my house. Not only was she very entertaining, but she loves to do laundry. As I was giving the house tour, I showed her our laundry chute and oh boy did she love that. The first time we dropped clothes down there we had to go downstairs to see where it really went. And then later on in the weekend if she would start to get bored or whiny....all I had to do was ask her if she would like to do some laundry and she perked right up and was ready to go. Now my question is.....how come I don't see the fun in doing the laundry?

Saturday was the BIG day of lots of dresses. We started at 8:30AM when the crew of women left for The Wedding Shoppe in St. Paul. Our crew consisted of my mom, myself, Andrea, Jordan and my personal attendant Kristine. Right now I am kicking myself for not getting a group picture of us but I guess taking pictures was not on the agenda at the time. So we started at 9AM with me getting measured and trying on a similar dress to what I will be getting. When we finished with that, we went down to the main floor to order and pay for a portion of the dress and as we were waiting for that, Jordan was able to try on more flower girl dresses. And of course she entertained us all with her spinning and squatting. Yes I did say squatting. I really don't know why she would squat, but I'm thinking it was so her knees would kick out the skirt a little more. Looks like I will have to have Debbie make the skirts of her dress very full so she won't have to squat down the aisle. And now on to the big project...the bridesmaid dresses. We threw in every dress we could find that would come in the color we wanted. And what was the final decision......the same dress that we picked out at the store from last night. So with that said... Andrea was measured and she placed our order. It was so nice to have that picked out. I was going to try to do some price matching with the other store, but I didn't know if they would have come down $40 in the price of the dress and it is nice to have my dress and the bridesmaid dresses from the same place. Then it was Mom's turn. She tried on a number of Mother of the Bride dresses and found a couple that she really liked. The only downfall was that the price of those dresses were twice as much as a bridesmaid dress. Don't designers know that they need to make those dresses a little more affordable.....the bride's parents are already spending a lot of money already with the wedding alone. So we didn't find one for Mom.

We headed home as we were all tuckered out. My parents were going to head up to visit with my uncle who lives in St. Louis Park for the evening and Andrea and I would get some time to hangout with Jordan. :-) Jerad headed out to a T-wolves game so we all headed up to the mall to see if Von Maur had any holiday dresses on sale that would suffice for a dress for my mom. Well we found some ideas and then Mom and Dad headed out. As a reward for Jordan being so good all day long...and I'll tell you it was a long day for a 3 year old....we went to the little play area so she run off some energy.

After that we grabbed a bite to eat and headed home. Nattie was very excited to see us until she found out that if Jordan was wearing her Angel halo, then she needed to wear her reindeer antlers. As you can see they both loved it. Now I know that if you have kids come to visit and don't really have any toys....just pull out the Halloween costumes and they will keep them happy for quite a while. We had girls movie night and Jordan picked out a My Little Ponies movie and we got The Women. Both movies were pretty good.

Finally Sunday came and I was sad to see my friend leave. I can now understand why we were inseparable during HS. It is so easy to hang out and do nothing and it is just as easy when we are running around doing everything. After seeing how well she has raised her kids I'm thinking that I will send my kids to live with her until she has them all trained.

Can this night get any worse?!!

So let me lay this out for you. Today is the last day we have before we go back to work for a full week. We have been sleeping in and enjoying being lazy. So about 6pm Jerad starts a little project and as he is looking for some supplies he notices little black pellets in one of the drawers and pulls it out to find a whole stash.....MICE DROPPINGS!! OMG!! As we pull out more drawers we end up throwing food away (mainly our seasoning packets), throwing our wash cloths in the wash along with our hot pads throwing all of our utensils in the dishwasher. Now we don't have a very big kitchen, but when you start to pull everything out of the drawers and cupboards, you realize that we have pretty good storage. So we are happy that we have everything cleaned up with the sanitizer and it gave us (me) a reason to clean up the counter and get rid of things that have been piling up for a while. WHAT A JOB!! We now have those little rodent keep away plug ins in our kitchen now. They must have worked so well in the garage that it sent them into the house.

Well probably around 7:30 everything was cleaned up and put away.........and I walk through the kitchen and step in a huge puddle. The sink was leaking! The J joint under the sink had worked its way open and all of the water from the dishwasher - from the mice droppings clean up - was all over under the sink and all over our kitchen floor! Time to get that fixed. I would have loved to photograph all of this clean up...but I don't think Jerad would have seen the humor in it all when he was on his knees fixing the joint and cleaning up the water. I'll just let you all visualize it.

I just hope that we can get to bed tonight with out anything else going wrong! We have to work tomorrow!