Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving Jerad and I spent it apart. He stayed up here in the cities and hung out while I did exciting wedding stuff!! Jerad's mom Debbie came to Iowa with me and met the entire Miland clan. Scary...I know. But she did survive. Debbie and I went down to Belmond on Thanksgiving day and had a nice informal dinner with the family at Grandma and Grandpa Miland's house. Then on Friday....it was a whirlwind of wedding dress, bridesmaid dress and the mothers' dress shopping. Oh boy was it a long day. I found 2 dresses that I liked for myself and they are COMPLETELY different dresses but they are the same price. I still haven't decided on exactly what I want. As for the bridesmaid dresses, there wasn't anything there that just stood out to me. We found a great dress for Debbie and a few options for my mom. The great thing about the Bridal Theatre in St. Ansgar is that all alterations are free when you purchase any dress there. AND the prices are not as inflated as they are here in the cities. So I have and option to get my dress there, but not the bridesmaid dresses. (I would post pictures of the dresses I liked, but there is a chance Jerad will see it so...sorry, you are just out of luck)











On Saturday Grandma made another big dinner for us as a few more of the family came over. She loves having everyone over and spending time together. One of my highlights on Saturday is that my mom, Debbie and I took my niece Alyssa out to the Aldrich Tree Farm to pick out a wreath for my mom. They had horse rides and crafts and ponies and goats to pet. Alyssa just didn't know what to think...it didn't help that her mommy wasn't with us. So I didn't get any big smiles out of her for picture time and she liked to stick to Grandma and also to Debbie.There was NO WAY she was going to join me up there! We tried, but she clung to Grandma like you wouldn't believe. But she would pet the little horse or donkey or whatever the little one was. :-)




Alyssa sure is getting big. I think they should take her out there every year just to see how much she has grown. She is such a little doll and so much fun but in that shy stage so she didn't really want to play with me much. But I had a great time playing with my cousin Abbie's son Talon. He is about 5 months older than Alyssa but looks almost a year older as he is a big boy now. And he just talks up a storm. He would keep calling Alyssa "baby". When she would run off, he would go after her saying, "Baby, come back, come back". How cute is that?!!

Just Getting Started

For my very first post, I would like to apologize if this does not come out as planned. This is my VERY first blog and obviously my very first blog post. My hopes are to keep all of our friends and family updated on what is going on with our busy lives. A lot of changes have happened in the last month or so. First off - THE BIGGIE - Jerad did propose to me on October 12, 2008 and we have decided on a wedding date of September 19, 2009. Another big change is that Jerad has taken an awesome opportunity to start working for Cargill in Wayzata. He started on December 1st and so far is very excited about it. The third big change is that my company Benfield has recently been purchased and it is still up in the air as to what changes will be made and if it will affect my department. I don't think I'll worry too much until the time comes that they start looking at our departmental structure.