Supercross

Well this past weekend Brent and I finally got away together. Normally if either of us leave town we are doing it separately. However this weekend was different. For Valentine's day I bought tickets for Brent and I to go to Supercross in Indianapolis. A bunch of his friends and their "significant others" were planning to go, so I thought it would be a nice surprise for Brent to be able to go. We all stayed at the Embassy Suites, which was just about a block from the RCA Dome, and connected to the Circle Center Mall. Supercross, for those of you - like me - who have no idea what it is, it is basically a bunch of professional dirt bike racers racing around on a dirt track with jumps. Doesn't probably sound too thrilling...but we actually had a fun time. It was crazy to watch how fast these guys raced and how high they flew off the jumps. It was also nice getting to spend more time with Brent's friends and getting to know them a little better.

Without the internet at home I have felt very deprived. I really enjoyed blogging about what was going on in my life (as well as reading every one else's blogs! :)) If I was a little more organized I would burn new pictures to a CD. Then I could bring them to work to upload over my lunch break for you all to see. One of these days I will get around to it. Until then I guess you will just have to put up with boring posts!

The Last Nine Months. . .

May 2007 - Obviously we got married on the 25th, so the entire month of May consisted of moving back to Indiana, finalizing wedding details, and lots of celebrations.

June 2007 - Left on the 8th for our honeymoon in Aruba. We were fortunate to spend our time at a great resort provided by Brent's dad and step-mom. Weather was great. We were across the street from the beach so we spent a lot of time soaking up the sun and protecting ourselves from the harsh trade winds that slammed us daily with buckets of sand. :) Our favorite adventure was an afternoon of snorkeling. We saw so many colorful fish, especially the large blue fish that swarmed around me ready to attack. Scared me to death, fortunately they were harmless. :)

July 2007 - I found a job with a dentist in Nappanee which is about 40 minutes from our house. Thankfully the drive isn't terrible because I really love the dentist and my co-workers. Brent continued working at Albertsons' Sport Shop and spent his summer dreaming of fall and the hunting to come.

August 2007 - Brent's sister, Acacia, and I made our annual trek down to Missouri for the Washington Towne & Country Fair. While there we spent a lot of time with Ruthie and even went on a float trip. A couple weeks later I headed back to St. Louis for Tony's graduation and to help them all pack up for their big move to Florida.

Sept 2007 - I was fortunate to tag along with my friend Sara (my friend from high school), to visit our friend Meagan in Portland. I really enjoyed my time there, getting to see family and friends that I hadn't seen for a few years. I especially liked being able to share my love for Oregon with Sara who had never been there before.

October 2007 - OCTOBER 1ST - THE DAY FINALLY ARRIVED . . . OPENING DAY OF BOW SEASON!! Brent pretty much spent every spare minute in the woods. He even let me tag along a few times - this was my first year to go hunting with my bow. We had fun getting to spend time together anxiously awaiting the big one! October also brought about a fun trip - finally getting to visit Kaiya in Florida. It has been a lot harder for me to be so far away my sisters and Kaiya than I thought it would be. I didn't realize how nice it was living so close and being able to spend the weekends with them. My mom and I spent five days enjoying the warm weather and our time with everyone. We saw the shuttle take off from Cape Canaveral as we drove to Cocoa Beach, we also enjoyed an afternoon at Downtown Disney, and getting Kaiya excited about Cinderella.

November 2007 - Hunting still continues on the weekends and evenings after work. Brent also got a new job working for a heating and cooling company with one of his friends. I spent a lot of time hanging out with dad while mom was in Florida helping Rachel for three weeks. We had Thanksgiving with friends of the family and made sure to arrange a conference call with mom and Kaiya during the Thanksgiving meal.

December 2007 - I was very anxious for the Christmas Season to arrive. Brent and I had fun decorating our house for our first holiday together. December consisted of several Christmas parties and get-togethers with friends. Brent and I spent our usual Christmas Eve with his dad and their family. Christmas day was dull and boring because mom left us again - for her time with baby Kaleb and to help Rachel. We spent our day at home watching "A Christmas Story", Brent's favorite movie. Ruthie came home for a visit a few days after Christmas and it was nice to see her again.

January 2008 - Happy New Year! We rang it in with friends, playing games, and watching the snow blow in. We had our first big snowfall of the year. Hunting season ended with Brent having killed several dows and an older buck. We still didn't get the big one, however I suppose it was still considered a success. Now we're just dreaming of next year! :)

February 2008 - My birthday month! Another year older . . . they just aren't as fun as they used to be. I guess that's reality of being an adult. :(

I don't have the internet at my house anymore, but I will try to post pictures sometime in the future.

Chrissy's Bachelorette Party

This past Saturday I hosted my best friend Chrissy's Bachelorette Party. We had a lingerie shower at her house (in Indianapolis) with margaritas, chips and salsa, and chicken quesadillas. I worked hard (and thoroughly enjoyed) planning and getting decorations together for her party. I can't wait to have more reasons to plan parties!! I enjoy planning and decorating for small events - NOT weddings! :) Here are some pictures of the decorations I put together:

(I decorated these bright pink margarita glasses with puffy paint and black gems and wrote each girls' name on one.)

Spring Has Sprung...And Ziggy Can't Stand It!

This is where I see Ziggy most often...staring out the window whining and growling at our groundhog that lives under our deck. I thought this was a particularly funny picture because the groundhog was standing on his hind legs on the edge of our deck hanging onto the railing. Ziggy was about to die not being able to chase after him. (you can just barely see the ground hog through the window in the picture)

Here are just some more pictures of the animals in our backyard that taunt Ziggy:

(this is the groundhog)

Just yesterday all of Ziggy's favorite little critters (except birds) were having their dinner in our backyard at the same time! There were 2 bunnies, a squirrel, and our groundhog! He could hardly stand looking at them. Half the time he was standing on his hind legs just whining! :)

Weekend In St. Louis

Well this weekend I went to St. Louis for a Franklin Covey conference and watched Kaiya on Saturday. These are just some fun pictures I took this weekend.

Ziggy felt left out that he didn't get to wear a party hat for Kaiya's birthday. :)

Ziggy really just wanted to be friends, but as you can tell the cats wanted nothing to do with him.

Tony is already trying to pass his love for music on to Kaiya. She thought she was pretty cool stuff wearing the headphones. And she really liked taking them off and then trying to put them back on all by herself.

I took these pictures for mom. We drove past this house on Saturday morning when I went garage saling with Rachel, her friend Bethany, and Ruthie. The whole entire yard was filled with all sorts of bird houses. It was one of the funniest houses I've ever seen!

On Saturday afternoon Ruthie and I took Kaiya and Ryan (the boy Ruthie tutors) to the Zoo. We all had a really good time, but it was about 80 degrees so we were all pretty sweaty! :)

Kaiya was such a good girl in her stroller at the zoo. She is really liking Cheerios right now so while the rest of us ate our lunch at the zoo she sat very content just eating Cheerios.

She seemed to have fun looking at all the animals. She would say "ooo, ooo" and point and then let out a screach trying to get the animals' attention.

Kaiya Grace

Well, I had a couple of cute pictures of Kaiya (taken in the last couple weeks) that I thought I would post.

She was having the hardest time trying to figure out how she was going to get her ball, that rolled into the laundry basket. She was afraid to actually crawl inside the basket.

Rachel and Kaiya came down last weekend to help me with my wedding invitations. We went out to dinner at El Maguey's (mexican restaurant) and Kaiya had her first taste of a lemon...and as you can tell she wasn't exactly thrilled!

Wedding Dress

Well, I've waited 4 months for this day...my dress finally arrived!! The bridal shop here in Rolla called me on Thursday letting me know it could be picked up whenever I had the chance. I went yesterday and tried it on. It fits just about perfectly. The straps need to be taken in just a little...but other than that I think we're good to go. I tried on several veils yesterday, but had trouble deciding which one I liked better. I went back today with Linda (a lady from my work who is my mom away from home). She helped me decide on the veil that is in the picture and then took pictures for me. I absolutely love it and can't wait to be tan and have my hair and make-up all done. I am planning on wearing my hair half up (like it is in the picture) and curled. It feels like the wedding is really getting close, now that I have my dress. I wanted to post pictures of it so everyone would have a chance to see it. (Brent doesn't know about this blog so he won't be able to see it before the big day) The dress is an ivory taffeta material which i think will work really well for an outside wedding (no chance of snagging).

ICE, ICE BABY!!

Well, thankfully I survived the crazy ice storm we got this past weekend. On Friday I prepared myself by making a trip to Wal-Mart (with everyone else in Rolla) to stock up for the BIG STORM!! They were calling for a lot of ice, which could possibly mean power outages. I bought a book, a puzzle, snack foods, and bottled water. I also rented 5 DVD's (in case the power didn't go out) and checked 3 books out from the library. After all that I hurried home to buckle down for the storm. I spent my entire weekend watching movies, reading 2 books and completing this puzzle:

I actually finished this 1,000 piece puzzle in one day...which is probably not something I should admit because I'm sure it makes me sound like a pathetic geek! :) But oh well, I suppose sometimes I am. My power went out Friday night, came back on Saturday around 11:00a.m. and then went out again Saturday night, but came back on around 4:00a.m. on Sunday. I am hoping that this will be the end of the power outages, but there is a whole lot of ice on the branches and power lines so if we get any sort of wind tonight I would imagine the power may go out again. While I was at work today I took these pictures of all the ice. It was quite a sight for me to see - I don't think I've ever seen that much ice on tree branches before. I'm truly surprised there haven't been more power outages.