Daisy is older than us!

Our cat, Daisy, turned 5 years old a couple weeks ago. We were trying to figure out how old she would be in human years, so we looked online to help. Well, that sort of worked. Depending on the website, it showed that Daisy is anywhere from 35 to 48 years old! So she's now the eldest member of our household and is therefore, the boss...as if she wasn't already. Haha! Here are a few recent favorites of our cuddly kitty!

Those first couple pictures show how we recently found her sleeping. All 4 of her paws were together, all stretched out in front of her. She's all folded up! It oddly must have been comfortable, because she slept like that for quite some time!

Here's another angle of the folded up sleeper. How funny!

This one and the next one show her latest routine. If either one of us stretches out on the couch with this blue blanket, she hops up and will sleep on us! It happens almost every single time!! It's sure cozy!

I just had to throw this one in the mix too. She's normally either all curled up when she sleeps or completely stretched out...rarely anywhere in between. Ha! She'll stay on this rug for a loooong time during the day if the sun is shining in! What a cutie. :)

Happy Birthday Sara!

This Tuesday was B's "little" sister Sara's birthday...and she's 17!! I first met her when she was just 10, so it's been fun to be a part of her life when she's grown up so much! Here are a few pictures of Sara over the years! Hope you enjoyed your birthday, Sara! See you soon! Love ya!

With B at his graduation from Dunwoody

At our wedding, looking fancy with Brad

Auntie Sara...holding Cayden when he was first born last August

With B and me last October

With B this spring

Triplets!

A few weekends ago, B&I went to the wedding of one of my camp friends, Traci. The summer of 2001, I worked at Camp Emmaus near Menahga, MN. 2 of my best friends that summer were Sonja and Traci. I was later roommates with Sonja at Concordia too! Anyway, the 3 of us somehow were given the nickname "The Triplets" during the summer. Here are a few pictures from the wedding weekend! After those pictures, you'll find some pictures from our summer together at Camp Emmaus years ago. Enjoy!

Me, Traci, and Sonja

B&I tried taking a good picture of ourselves in the car...you be the judge. :)

Sonja and her fiance, Trevor. They're getting married next weekend! B and Trevor had a nice visit while Sonja and I talked the night away...imagine. :)

The best picture of us Triplets. This picture and all the pictures following this are a bit fuzzy since I took a picture of the picture, then posted it here. Not ideal, but it worked ok!

Sonja and I being weird

Each of us acting very counselor-like

Traci and me

This picture shows us in our favorite outfits. :) Ha! No...it was for a skit, which come to think of it, didn't really require us to dress up so terribly, but we took every opportunity to be crazy that summer. Ah memories!

5 Years Ago!

Today is our 5-year anniversary! I just spent some time looking through all our wedding pictures and that in itself was so fun! It was such a special day! These aren't in any order, but these are a few favorites!

This was taken right before we went into our reception

This was before the ceremony when we were taking all the formal pictures

Everyone helping me get ready before pictures!

This is one of my favorites of me and all my "sisters"...Carrie, Shelley, and Sara!

At the reception by the wedding party's table

I think this one is my favorite picture of B & me on our big day!

Snuggling Sweetie

Daisy has always had a knack for finding the coziest spots around our home. If the sun is shining in, she's likely sprawled out in the sunlight for her nap. Here are a few of our recent favorites of her doing what she does best...being snuggley!

This one has a bit of a story with it. I had gone to a Women's event at a church in town where a co-worker of mine was speaking. She spoke on the book of Esther and her story. The talk that night was fairly brief, so there were parts of the story I didn't catch the first time through. So I looked it up in my own Bible that weekend. This picture was the result of me leaving it unattended. Daisy loves to plant herself directly on top of things...and if it's in the sun, that's just an added bonus!

A common sight on a sunny day. She doesn't appear to be concerned with acting like a lady, now does she? Her front paw always seems to be up by her face when she sleeps, just like the first picture earlier on in this posting.

Another common pose of hers. The loveseat on which she is perched is at the top of our stairway. She oftentimes is there to greet us as we come home! She normally gets up and has a big yawn and stretch, then is ready to greet us and take in all the attention. Daisy is quite the kitty!

Daisy's bed

It's been a while since I've posted anything on Daisy, so I thought I'd do a couple posts this week on her. She continually keeps us laughing at her funny poses and cute personality. This first post is all about her in her pet bed. We've had it since we adopted her, but she uses it a lot more at the townhouse here than ever before! Here are a few of our recent favorites of her and her crazy positions in her kitty bed.

All curled up

Just about tipping out, but she doesn't seem to mind!

Snuggled up with her kitty

More lake pictures!

I'm finally now posting the rest of the Labor Day weekend pictures! This post is mostly funny pictures of Christopher interacting with the rest of the family.


At the lake, there is a kid's inner tube with Donald Duck on it. CJ found it and chose to wear it the only way that made sense to him...around his neck instead of around his waist!
These next 2 are of CJ and LeAnn playing around! At one point, we were playing keep-away and LeAnn was hiding it behind her back. CJ had a fun time running around her and trying to get it from her! He then was lying on the ground on top of it and told LeAnn to "mow" on him with his toy mower. Crazy kid!

My Dad also got in on the fun and got the inner tube and got CJ to laugh by wearing it as a hat! Here's a couple cute pictures of that. Dad can always get a good smile and chuckle from CJ!

Labor Day

Last Monday, we headed to my grandparents' lake cabin northeast of Fergus to "winterize" things and get the lifts and dock out. The guys in the family did a wonderful job with the heavy lifting and maneuvering to get everything out safely. They were assisted at one point by 2 very brave young women who helped move the dock board sections out. Each of these sections were full of creepy-crawly spiders, but these brave gals kept lifting anyway! Here's the after-picture to prove they survived the gross spider encounters.

Speaking of Shelley and Carrie, here they are playing with CJ in the water. Shelley was skipping rocks and since she made it look so effortless, CJ thought he should do it too. He had less success than Miss Shelley, but it made for a cute picture anyway. Haha! I also found some wild daisy-type flowers growing on the shoreline, so thought I should include those too. Pretty!

Part of putting away all the summer gear included moving the picnic tables back up to the shed area. Grandpa, being the creative tinker-er that he is, figured out a way that took the lifting out of the process completely. Tie a rope around 2 of the bottom posts of the table and hitch that up to the back of the riding mower and wah-lah! Those picnic tables were moved in record time! Here are a couple pictures of that crafty solution in action!

More Labor Day pictures to come in the near future!

Weekend Getaway!

A couple weekends ago, B&I took a trip to Minneapolis. We went to the Science Museum on Saturday, then to the State Fair on Sunday! The weather was beautiful both days and the getaway was a great time to relax and not think about work back home!

One of the big reasons we wanted to go to the Science Museum was a Titanic exhibit that is there. We couldn't take pictures inside the exhibit, so there aren't any pictures to share from that. But it was fun when we entered the exhibit, we were each given a "Boarding Pass" of a real passenger aboard the ship back in 1912. B was Mr. Frederick Goodwin and I was Mrs. Nellie Baumgardner. Throughout the exhibit, they had artifacts and stories of passengers and what life was like back then. We really enjoyed it!

Here's a picture of B at one of the regular Science Museum exhibits, dealing with sound waves and piano tones. It was pretty neat! And I thought it was a good chance to get a picture of B at a piano. Haha!!

Sunday we went to the State Fair, which we always enjoy going to at the end of the summer. We had our fill of fried goodies (mini donuts and cheese curds!) and enjoyed listening to some live music too! One fun surprise was seeing that there was a parade going on in the fairgrounds. We got closer and I was then surprised to see that it was the U of MN marching band! Our first thought was to see if 2 of my cousins, Trevor and Reid, happened to be marching...and yes, they were!! We followed them along the parade route for a while and got a couple quick pictures! It was so fun to see them!! We ended up not seeing them when the parade was over, though. They must have gotten mixed in with the rest of the 189,000 people that attended the Fair that day!! And yes, that's an official number, according to the State Fair website. Haha!

And to end this lengthy entry, here's a picture that we took of ourselves at one point when we were tired of walking on a hot day. We stopped at one of the bandstands and listened to some live music for a while and relaxed in the shade. It was a great weekend together!