A Visit to Jordan and Jenny's!

Upon arriving at Jennifer and Jordan's Saturday morning we girls spent the first couple hours talking and catching up. We got a tour of the apartment - it is SO nice! I would link you to pictures on Jennifer's blog, but they have since hung pictures and decorated more as well as gotten bedroom furniture, so I will wait for her to blog updated apartment photos. Jordan came home around 2 in the afternoon with their new puppy, Macy! She is absolutely and perfectly adorable! Much of our weekend was spent playing with her - she's easy to get attached to, and quickly gives you the desire to have a puppy of your own! (of course, I am content with Josie...) Heehee! I am looking forward to seeing all she can do when Jordan is through training her - she will be a pretty amazing dog!Isn't she cute!? Lots of people are saying she looks like the Joker on 'The Dark Knight' - I think that is just cruel. She is cute. He is scary. But she does have pretty cool black lipstick ;)The proud Master! :) These are only 2 of the many kids who have befriended Macy - she is already a favorite among all the neighbor kids!We girls went shopping Saturday afternoon. We each found a steal at New York & Company, but otherwise just had fun trying things on and browsing around at all the neat stores. West Des Moines has everything!Cute coats, huh? It gets better...They have hot pink silk lining!...unfortunately they were too expensive.We found a friend outside of build-a-bear.
While walking through Dillard's, Mom commented on the ugliness of these sweater dresses w/leggings. Jennifer and I immediately communicated by look to play as if we thought they were cute and wanted to get them. Mom couldn't believe it and was trying to talk us out of it! We then started laughing and told her we were kidding and thought they were ugly, too. We decided to try them on for laughs and while we were picking them out a lady walked by and looked at mom like, "Are they serious?!" Haha! I guess we're not the only ones to think this style is pretty wacky!Haha!Mom & Jenny When we got home we showed Jordan what Aunt Jessie got for Macy - he wasn't too impressed.

Isn't she such a pretty little lady? Heehee! :)Sunday we got to visit the church Jenny & Jordan have been attending. Awe - aren't they such a cute little family? :)
Thanks for letting us come visit, JoJe! We miss you guys already! and I can't wait to come back down in just a couple days! YAY!

Mother/Daughter Date

One of my favorite restaurants in town is the Channel Inn. It's a local place that serves some really good food! And I love that you can eat right on the lake! I love the lake! Mom and I have been trying to find time to go there together for about a year now! (It's difficult to fit into our schedule because it has a pretty early closing hour). Last Wednesday we went for an early supper. We each got our own thing and then some sour cream & chive fries to share - I think next time we will not be sharing those fries! We may even get them as an entree and side EACH! Haha! They were SOOO good! Here we are with the lake in the back ground.All the duckies waiting for someone to throw them some sour cream & chive fries ;)One of them got tired of waiting and walked right on in and over to the order window! heehee!Us again in our cool shades! :)

It was such a beautiful day to be out in the sunshine!

Visit From Old Friends

It was such a wonderful blessing to see old friends last Sunday at our church! Christa and Charity both came back with their husbands to visit their family for the weekend, so we got to see them, too! There's nothing like the friends you grow up with - they will always be near to the heart no matter how far away they live or how few and far between the visits are. I'm so thankful for both of these dear friends, they have had such an impact on my life in so many ways. It's fun to look back on where we've been and to reminisce over all we've done and the memories we've made - the Lord has truly blessed us in giving us each other. It is also fun to look ahead as we all continue on in another chapter of our lives. Charity has started a family with her sweet and adorable little son, Kevin, and Christa is now pregnant! Yay! I miss you girls and love you so much! Come back to visit again soon! My dear sweet Charity
Christa ("Chusta")
Christa & Jules
Charity & Kevin
Kevin giving Aunt Charise "five"

Sister Weekend w/Jules!

The summer was busy between Julie's jobs, and my jobs and summer school, so when it was all over we stuffed as much fun as possible into Julie's last weekend home.Jules and I on our way to feed the Clay's dogs and KITTENS!!! The gold one is the cutest!

Enjoy the kitty video :) They're so cute and little! (1 min. 22 sec.)

Stopped for a chicken nugget supper at McDonalds :)

Dessert at the local Dairy Freeze - they have the best ice cream flurries! (or at least right up there with Storheims)

The races were packed out!

There's the fair! :) We got in free after the races and had some fair food!

Spectator warning sign (HAHA!) - watch out for all that stuff...you never know what's going to come flying at you!

In the stands (cheering for Mr. Malmanger) ;)

At Lake Sisseton on Saturday - Isn't this pretty? It was lying there right next to our spot on the shore!

Ready to swim and enjoy the sunshine!

The Channel Inn - It's a restaurant on the lake!

We walked over for some cheese curds before heading home.

The view off the dock from where we were sitting

Sunday after church, we followed Jules to Albert Lea for lunch at Applebee's

the 3 of us!

Mom & Jul

Me & Jul

Mom & I - all alone again...

MC Fair Video

A quickie 5-minute video conglomeration of our time at the MC Fair!

Martin County Fair

Here's some pix from the County Fair this year. I am working on uploading a video, but am having blogger troubles for now. Jules and I went in the evening after she got done with work. The fair is always a highlight of our summer!Here we are before we leftThe Buckinghams singing "Happy Together" After the first song they sang, the little guy on the left (I don't know his name, cause they're a 60's group - a bit old for me ;) said "Boy, I love New York!" Right away I knew what he was doing (I was wearing and I Love NY shirt) and He started talking to Jules and I and teasing us for coming in late. Heehee! I was going into this story, but it keeps deleting that part of my post every time I publish it, so there's the jist. Thanks for my shirt, Laura!

(I'm leaving that I was wearing an I love....because otherwise it won't post. tacky, i know)

(I was wearing an I <3>

Here we are listening for awhile. Even though he called us out for being late, we snuck out early when he wasn't looking cause we wanted to hit the rest of the fair before the night was over!

We went through all the animal barns, wished for some horses, and on our way back to the food (cheese curds - the best fair food ever!) we stopped to guess the weight of this bull to win $50 - isn't he huge!?! Jules guessed, but this is no ordinary cow, so I had no clue what to guess!...and at the end of the week we never got a call, so I guess we didn't win. boohoo :(

On our way to some rides! There's the ferris wheel! Isn't it pretty with all the lights!?
And here we are ON the ferris wheel. The creepy carny kid tried to grab my hand when I gave him my ticket and every time Jules and I came around the bottom we could hear them talking about/to us, so instead of having the enjoyable ride we usually take on there every year for the view, we were really just ready to go on to the next ride. Stupid kids. Here's Jules, anyway. Isn't she cute!? I deleted the pic of me cause it was ugly. That's the nice thing about being the only person with a camera at an event - the power to keep and delete pix! Heehee!

And here's a picture of the view! It's kind of dark, but it's the only one without motion fuzz. I'm not a photographer. The main ride you see (in the middle) is the Zipper! THAT is our favorite ride at this fair. It's here every year and it's a blast! I always determine not to scream, but it's S-O-O-O scary! :) Heehee! Thanks so much for going to the fair w/me, Jul! It was the perfect sister date!

Kaden is 8 Months Old Today!

Happy 8 mo. old birthday, cute little Kaden Dean!

I love you!

Boating in Okoboji!

Here are some pictures from our time at Okoboji on Mom's b-day weekend! I imagine if you read my blog, you read my sister's blog, because it's probably the link on her blog that gets me any readers in the first place ;) That being said, if you would like perfectly stated and full coverage of this wonderful day, refer back to her blog because i do not see how I could state it anymore perfectly! I will just share some fun pictures here :)This is the place from which we rented our boat for the day! Enjoying the ride and the sunshine :)Doug on the wakeboard - amazing! That thing is hard! Jules tried it and got up (above) - I tried it and couldn't even hold onto the rope once I hit the end of the line! It kept popping out of my hands till I no longer had the ability to grip anything! I had trouble holding onto things for the next couple days...Haha! Maybe I'll try again someday after I work on my upper body strength! haha! Or I'll just stick with skiing.This is kind of a neat shot of the 3 boys: Jason driving, Jordan watching (and waiting ;), and Doug skiing. The skis after they dumped Doug. The timing of the picture is incredible! (reminds me of another picture's incredible timing.)Here's Jordan taming the torpedo...it was a bit ornary after being in a box for 11 years.It still took him for a wild ride, but he didn't let it throw him....much :)Jules and I on the tube - crazy fun ride!Jules & I riding in the boat where it's a little easier to hold on :)Doug on the tube. He REALLY got a beating out there!Awe - Doug & Julie :)Jenny & Jordan getting thrown around on the torpedo! It was unbelievable how they could stay on with some of those waves. The torpedo is far more tipsy than any tube!Here they are - such a cute couple! :) Jason & Julia taking their turn on the torpedo.And here they are up close - so cute, too!And Kaden in his cool hat! He was quite the trooper ALL day! He never had a crying spell and gave good smiles for all our picture-taking. He really enjoys the outdoors, and seemed to get a kick out of all that was going on!Kaden spent most of the day with Grandma - see how she's beaming!? :)Jason on a ONE-ski!!! (Another good action picture! :) He's still got it!Swim Time!Kaden in his crab. He was busy kicking around in that thing almost the whole time he was out there! Daddy and Aunt Jenny were getting some good smiles and some "talking" out of him.This picture is so small that it really makes what I'm about to say seem so insignificant - but it really was so cool and bigger in real life. If you look in the very center of the picture you can see a little string of the cloud coming down. That was one of 3 funnel clouds we saw towards the end of the afternoon. They would come down from the cloud and lengthen out and then fizzle out. We would stop and watch them for awhile and then decide to ignore it and keep boating! :)This was the momentous part of the day - Mom on skis!

And she's UP on her first try! Mom just about outskiid all of us, and at the end of the day ended up being more in shape on her "significant" birthday than all her 20-something yr. old kids! Haha! Way to go, Mom!

I'm so thankful we had the opportunity to all be out on the lake again as a family! God is so good to us even in the little things that matter so much to us! I will never forget our fun and special day!