Les Miserables, La Crosse, and Swine Flu

This past weekend, Brent and I had the extreme pleasure of watching his daughter, M, perform in her school's production of Les Miserables. She was the only freshman involved (that's just how talented she is!) and was in the chorus. That means she was able to be in most scenes, as one of the singers/actors who didn't have a specific character part, but was one of the townspeople who added to everything that was going on. She even had a solo line in a song, and sounded terrific!

OH MY WORD!! This production was INCREDIBLE!

They did an amazing job, and the whole thing was wonderful. It never once felt like we were at a high school production, but definitely felt like a professional show that we should've paid big bucks for. The music was top-notch, there were numerous times the main characters singing brought tears to my eyes (Jean Valjean, Javert, Fantine, and Eponine specifically) and the acting was incredible. Like we told M afterwards, the facial expressions on everyone's faces were so believable, it seemed as though they were truly living their part! It really was so fun to be there! I just wish we had gotten some pictures, but photography wasn't allowed... bummer!

It was also really great just to get to spend some time with M over the weekend! We miss being closer, so any time we can spend with her is pretty precious. It was a short trip, because I had to work Friday overnights, so we left Saturday morning just after I got home and I slept in the car (on an air mattress in the back of the minivan, by the way, which was a great way to sleep!). We arrived mid-afternoon and hung out with M around town and had dinner together before she had to be at school for the musical.

Then on Sunday morning, we had brunch together before we had to leave and she needed to get ready for that day's show. Can you guess where we would've eaten? Why Perkins, of course! Living in Fergus Falls for 12 years of my life means that Perkins is an automatic choice for many a meal --brunch, late night appetizers, dessert... you name it, Perkins has it! :)

Here we are after a great omelet, and just before we took off.



It was hard saying goodbye, but we're looking forward to Christmas and M joining us for a while!

After we left, we decided to take a detour on our drive home, and went to La Crosse to see Brent's parents. They just moved into their new home so we wanted to see that, and also wanted to wish them a "Happy Anniversary" on their big day! Now, before any of my La Crosse friends wonder why I didn't call, we really were only there just a few hours --long enough to see their home and take them out to dinner to celebrate. It was a long detour and quick visit, but so completely worth every minute!

We got back late on Sunday night and fell right to sleep. On Monday morning Brent went to work, and when he came home, he said he hadn't been feeling very well. I took one look at him and knew he had a fever. The thermometer confirmed it so I gave him Tylenol and sent him to bed. On Tuesday morning I got home from work after he had already left so I didn't see him. On the phone he said he felt okay and I went to bed. When I woke up and called him he said he was coming home soon and heading to bed. It turns out he had a fever again by 9:30 in the morning and if I had known that, I would've ordered him home right away!!! So, he slept the rest of the day and night, stayed home from work on Wednesday and now today, and he's had a fever the entire time, just getting slightly better with Tylenol and Advil every four hours. I looked around at the CDC website quite a bit to make sure I didn't need to bring him in, but they really suggested people stay at home to stop spreading anything around, unless there are other medical conditions playing a part. We've seen at the hospital that they're not always even testing people because such a huge majority of people right now who have the symptoms come back with positive tests, they're just assuming it will be positive. (It's an overwhelming majority!)

We've had probably 40-50 kiddos at the hospital that have H1N1 so I got the vaccination a while ago. We wear gowns, gloves and masks in each of those rooms so as not to infect ourselves or our families, or any of our other patients. On the CDC website they suggested that patients can wear a mask at home to not infect their family, but Brent was pretty happy to hear I wouldn't make him do that!

I think he's liking that I'm a nurse and can know many ways to help him, but he's still been pretty miserable. Since hindsight is always best, as we look back we can see one or two signs that show he might have started with all this over the weekend, so we're sure hoping he hasn't gotten anyone else sick!

It's generally a pretty mild case of the flu, but is typically lasting about 10 days so it looks like I'll be taking good care of my sweetie for a few more days still!

Fall Fun Day

Back a few weeks ago, Brent and I decided to enjoy some Fall Fun. First off, we went to an apple orchard and picked ourselves some wonderful apples! I think we ended up with over 30 pounds of apples, and have already been enjoying some of the wonderful applesauce and apple crisp we've made, and have many more fun treats ahead of us!




After the apple orchard, we took a nice long lesurely drive through the countryside heading towards Green Bay, in order to check out the great fall colors that were showing themselves. We stopped at a little park along the way and it was fun to see that every single leaf in the park was a beautiful gold-yellow!



When we arrived in Green Bay, we went to Heritage Hill, which is this great state historical park, complete with old buildings that show us how people lived "back in the day". We happened to be there on the day they had a big Halloween Festival, so it was mostly little kids running around to get candy at each home or building, but it was fun to see their costumes! I'm sure we'll go back again, but maybe not on a "special" weekend.

When we got home again, I realized that our backyard tree was just as beautiful as any we had seen all day!


I was also able to zoom in on two of the ducks that live on our dock. We've got a whole family out there! If you click to enlarge, you should see them in the picture.


It's been a good fall around here, and while all the leaves are off the tree now, it's nice that we haven't had any snow yet!

Moss/Favre

My friend, Lissa, sent me this email that she had received as a funny forward. I loved when Randy Moss was with the Vikings, and now have him on my fantasy football team, earning me points in that league. So, of course, when I opened the email, I laughed right away at the creative-ness of one Minnesotan saving himself a few bucks.



But then.... I did was Lissa suggested and took a closer look at the picture. Lo and behold, check out that couple in the background! Yup -that's right! It's none other than my wonderful parents, hanging out at the Minnesota State Fair, getting themselves in a picture that's now being sent around the internet!

Too funny!! :) Thanks, Lissa!!

A Fun Fall Weekend

This past weekend we were able to host my friends, Susan and Sue, from across the state in La Crosse! I worked with both of them when I was a travel nurse at their hospital.



They wanted to come hang out for the weekend and I was excited to have friends visit! We had dinner and hung out at our place Friday night, and then on Saturday we left Brent to do his own thing while we headed out for a day trip. We first went to a nearby town for a little sidewalk sale or Pumpkin Festival. There was just one booth of pumpkins, so we laughed at the name. It was fun, though, and I found a new pair of winter mittens that promise to be the most warm ones I've ever owned (made from a recycled wool sweater!).

After that, we were going to drive around Lake Winnebago, which is the really big lake you can see on the east side of Wisconsin when you look at a map (different than the one we live on). We made a quick detour to the outlet mall in Oshkosh, and then headed on our way. We had a little picnic at a lakeside park, drove on a detour because of road construction, and ended up at our destination. Actually, it was two destinations, Calumet County Park and High Cliff State Park, only 15 miles away from each other. We explored, hiked, maybe went over fences to climb some interesting stairs, and took lots and lots of pictures!

Calumet County Park is where Brent and I ate a picnic dinner on our first date, and here I am on the bench we sat on.


Here are some of the many pictures we took. Both the county park and the state park are going to become some of my favorite places in the area. Enjoy the slideshow!

We finished up the day eating at a great Korean restaurant, went to church in the morning, and then Sue and Susan had to take off for home again since Susan was going to work last night.

THANK YOU both for coming! It was great having you here, and fun exploring my new home area a little as well!

Our Wedding Pictures!

Our wedding pictures came! Yippee!!!! It's been so much fun to re-live the best day of our lives so I wanted to share some of these images with you! As you can imagine, there are quite a few pictures all together. This will be a long post, but I'm only going to include some of the many wonderful pictures taken and you'll just have to come visit us in Appleton to see the rest! :)

Here are some of the pictures of just Brent and I, and I'll work on another post that includes pictures of our wedding party and family/friends. Enjoy!

























































Thanks for wanting to share in our special day!

A Perfect Outside Wedding in Idaho

This past weekend I had the wonderful joy of attending my cousin, Kristen's, wedding in Idaho! Brent and I decided that I would head out there without him, since he's in a new job with no vacation days just yet, and plane tickets are expensive. I will say that I hope it's a long while before I'm gone from my love again. I sure missed him!!!

I was able to get out there on Thursday, flying the second leg of the trip with my mom and dad. We got our rental car at the airport in Spokane, then went to Chili's for lunch. {Side note story: A funny thing happened there, when I walked in the door, I was greeted by "Hi Kari!". Lo and behold, one of my teammates from my Africa trip, who lives in the Seattle area, was there in Spokane (about 5-6 hours away) at a convention. It was so fun to see Ken again! Brent thinks that I know almost everyone in the world, so he thought this story just proves his point a bit! :)}

We got to Moscow, Idaho in time for dinner with my family there, and then some of us were invited to a shower for Kristen. It was fun to meet her new family, and to meet some of her friends as well. We've heard a lot about each other, so that was fun to meet in person! And, you might remember last summer Kristen and her friend, Merilee, came to visit me in California. So, it was great to reconnect with Merilee again! Funny to think that last summer we were all single women touring around Southern California, and now all three of us are married!

On Friday we were able to help with lots of wedding stuff, and of course it was all mixed in with perfectly wonderful times of visiting with Barb and Gary's family. That evening, we were really blessed to get to attend one of Heather's concerts! She's an extremely talented musician (remember the violinist at my wedding?!) and that night we were able to enjoy her singing with her choir at school (the University of Idaho). It was a jazz concert, and I can't even begin to tell you how much fun it was!!

Saturday was, of course, THE WEDDING DAY! It was perfect weather (sunny and beautiful during the day!) in a perfect setting (a great little hobby farm owned by some friends of theirs). Like a description of it that I read on Facebook, "it was beautifully simple and elegant all at the same time." It was everything that Kristen and Josh were hoping for!

I have quite a few pictures that I plan on uploading to Facebook when I get the chance, but thought I'd post just a few here so you can get a head's up of what the day looked like. Just perfect!

The bride with her parents:
The bridal party:

My beautiful cousins, Heather, Kristen and Tim:

The Perfect Pair, Kristen and Josh!

The stunning bride!

It really was a perfect day! It was cold by the end of the evening, but the heaters they rented were a great idea. The food was great, the dancing was fun (my uncle and cousin even took me for a spin on the dance floor!), and everyone in attendance just couldn't stop smiling at this lovely couple! You know, I've heard before how you fall so much more in love while attending a wedding, and now I know how true that is! I know there will be many times in life I'll be away from Brent (either every other night while I'm at work, or quilting retreats, or while he's off hunting, etc.) but I don't ever want to go to a wedding without him again. I missed him so much it almost hurt!!! It was good to talk by phone all weekend, though, but of course it's not the same.

On Sunday morning, we went with Barb and Gary to church, then back to their place for a perfect steaks-on-the-grill dinner with their family and Josh's parents. Then we looked at wedding pictures and videos, both mine and Brent's, and Josh and Kristen's! Don't you just love the quickness of modern technology?!

After the standardly long midwest-goodbyes, Mom and Dad and I headed back to Spokane. They dropped me off at my dear friend, Ingrid's place so I could hang out with her and her family for the evening. It was great to see them again as we always have such a fun time together! I love the perfect friendships of kindred-spirits. Even if we only talk once or twice a year and see each other every two years or so, we're able to pick up right where we left off! I sure wish it could be more often than that, but those kinds of friendships are definitely life-long ones!

Monday morning I woke up bright and early to hop on my plane, and let me tell you, I could hardly wait to see that hubby of mine! It was a great reunion again in Wisconsin!

Except for missing Brent, it really was a perfect weekend!

Good Ol' Fashioned Football Rivalry

Our good friends, Jim and Sara, invited us over to watch the Packer game last night on TV. Here is how we showed up. I guess it's lucky they let me come inside!

The (almost) Best Day of Summer!

Each summer I say that the Best Day of Summer is the day I get to go to the Minnesota State Fair. It really is incredible, and such a wonderful day each summer! Well, this year, I'd say that Our Wedding Day was the best day of the whole summer, but last Sunday was a close second!

I was really excited to have Brent experience the whole fair, but I also wanted to not overwhelm him. As my friend Aimee said, I'm a die-hard when it comes to the fair! I really wanted him to like it, but I also wasn't sure if it would be just up his alley or not. It even got to the point that I said to him a few days prior "if you don't love it, could you lie to me just this once and tell me that you had fun, just so I won't be disappointed?" He laughed at that request, and then agreed to follow it!

We drove to the Twin Cities last Saturday, and after church on Sunday headed over to the fairgrounds with my parents. As we were just inside the fairgrounds and Brent got to really see what it was all about, he said "it's not just a fair, it's a Food Fest!" He was right! The first stop on our Food Fest was the "Hog-On-A-Log" stand, where I had a wonderful porkchop on a stick. If you're not familiar with the Minnesota State Fair, it's famous for selling everything on a stick. (It's also the largest fair in the country, based on the attendance-per-day numbers, and has many other wonderful things to offer!) Anyway, Brent decided to buy something different, so that we could have a taste of each other's meals, so he opted for the turkey drumstick. They were both wonderful ways to start our day!

After the meat-on-a-stick lunch, we started wandering around to find some of our favorite things. This is my mom's most-loved stand, and not being a pickle fan myself, one I stay away from.
Another favorite place, and not food-related at all, is the Creative Activities building. It has all sorts of amazing quilts, wood-working projects, and other handmade goodies of the edible and non-edible type. It's my favorite building to walk through.
Cheese Curds! Yummy!!!!! These are one of my favorite things ever! It's funny, because now that I'm a Wisconsinite (yup, got my driver's license and everything!) I'm learning that people from Wisconsin are really in love with cheese. The whole cheesehead thing is pretty real. There are entire stores dedicated just to cheese (they might throw some bread or meat-sticks in for good measure, but it's all about the cheese) and you can walk through the grocery store and see that the cheese cooler is twice as big as I've seen in any of the other five states I've lived in. Anyway, back to the story.... in Wisconsin, another name for cheese curds are squeeky-cheese. They sell cheese here that is basically just cheese cut up into bite sized pieces, and since it was made earlier that morning (the fresher the better so says my husband) it actually squeeks in your teeth when you bite into it. It's not deep-fried at all! That's the only way I ever knew cheese curds to be made! It was good to be home again....

A quick picture at the top of a little hill just so you could see how many people were there. I just looked it up and found out that there were 186,324 people there that day and 2009 set a new overall attendance record! Almost 1.8 million people! It was crowded, but do-able, and the weather that day was just perfect: not too hot, and not too cold!
In one of the dairy buildings there are sculptures made out of butter! They are heads of each of the Princess Kay of the Milky Way women, and get this... at the end of the fair, each woman gets to take hers home. Now, I'd like to hear, just what would you do if you had a huge carved block of butter sitting in your deep-freeze?
I snapped a few pictures in the horticulture building, where they were showcasing dahlia's for the day.
Lots of color! It's fun to see what people can grow or make or build and then win blue-ribbons for their effort.
Another annual stop, mini donuts! I'm not even a huge donut fan, but this is a state fair must!
And one my husband was pretty thankful for!
We decided to do something I haven't done in years, and took a ride on the sky glider! We were at one end of the fair, wanted to get to the other side, and realized this would be a great way to get there!
While riding along, I saw this scene and thought it might make for a good picture. It was fun to see the sun at just the right point behind the clouds.
Looking down over some of the things we had just walked by, like the tractor area (machinery hill) and the carvings done by chainsaws.
A far off look at some of the rides. A funny story.... during high school, my youth group went up on the tall spire (you ride the round thing in the middle and it goes up to the top and circles around so you can have a 360-view of the Twin Cities) and while we were at the top, something happened to the ride and we ended up being stuck up there for quite a while! Obviously we made it back down.
A look at one of the trolley's that gives free rides around the fairgrounds. We didn't choose this option this year.
More Midway rides:

I caught a glimpse of one of my favorite stands where I had forgotten to take an earlier picture. Two years ago while enjoying the fair with my cousin, Krista, I tried a chocolate-dipped-salted-nut-roll and really, well.... fell in love. It was magnificant! I'm glad I was able to enjoy the sweet and salty treat again!
Taken just before getting off the sky-glider. Glorious!
A perfect way to end the day, with Sweet Martha's Chocolate Chip Cookies, and milk! It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day.
We were able to enjoy fun foods, see some beautiful projects, do a lot of people-watching, see some interesting animals, and enjoy a fun day together! It was great to introduce Brent to one of my favorite things about Minnesota, and get this.... at the end of the day, even though his feet hurt from all the walking, he told me he didn't even need to lie about it, he really did have fun!

The Lakehouse

We've been busy getting settled in at The Lakehouse, so I thought I'd show you our progress! We've been unpacking my boxes that have been packed up for two years, Brent's stuff either from his townhouse or things he had had in boxes for a while, and then of course all the wonderful wedding presents we were blessed with. We have more to sort, but here's a little tour of what we've done so far.

This is our kitchen, with a wonderful counter where we also have two chairs to sit at. You can see my Kitchenaid mixer in the back, a Cuisinart food processor we bought with gift cards, and other fun wedding presents as well.

Here's the other angle, and the white door you see leads to our one-car garage where I am the blessed one to park there, and we put together our storage shelves and set up one of them at the right height for Brent to have a work-bench. The double door is a closet/pantry.
Our dining room, opposite the kitchen (the long counter separates them). I haven't finished unpacking all my stuff that will go in my hutch, so I'll do some creative rearranging once that happens. My dining room table expands to 104" so when we had Brent's boss' family over for dinner last night (hence the clean-enough house for pictures!!) there was plenty of space. I'm SO thankful for that! Hosting dinner's will be a breeze!
From the dining room, there's a long hallway that has doors to the basement, guest room and bathroom, with our bedroom on the end. On the opposite side of that, is our living room. Here are a few pictures of it. You can see some of our wedding gifts like candle holders, Swedish vases from the Nordic Galleri, and picture frames that are waiting to be filled! The cool wooden chair was Brent's great-grandmother's, and she got it from a neighbor who once hosted Billy the Kid at their home. We like to think he probably sat in the very chair that's in our living room! It got chopped a bit by a shorter person, and now fits my mom perfectly! :)
I wish we were able to paint the walls, but the landlord said 'no' when I asked. It looks especially stark in this picture, and seems a little better in real life.
The bookshelves are from Ikea, and you can maybe guess that I'm going to paint the TV stand eventually, recover the mauve wing back chair sometime, get a different coffee table. I do like the chest we're currently using, just might use it for a different purpose.
The two windows go out to our front yard, which is still pretty private as it sits back far from the road. It would be nice to have the living room off the lake, but it also means that the dining room goes right to the deck, and our bedrooms face the lake instead. The couch is a fun story.... We bought it when I first moved into my apartment, as I had no couch and Brent didn't have one for me to use either. We searched and searched for just the right thing, but couldn't find something that we both "fit" well, and that I liked the looks of. We ended up buying a cheap couch at Goodwill to just tide us over until we found the right thing. We quickly learned that we actually really enjoyed it, just found it to be terribly ugly. After many months, we decided that instead of getting something new, because we really did like the feel of it and it fit us well, we would recover it instead. I was able to find some great fabric at an incredible deal and with the original purchase price, the cost of the fabric, and the cost of recovering it, we have an amazing couch for a fraction of the price we would normally pay for it!
Behind the couch we made a good "hallway" that leads to our hallway, and then our office space. It's maybe hard to tell exactly from this picture, but I've got this little desk for my laptop, as that's really all the space I need. Then Brent's got this bigger desk and printer stand and file cabinet for his area. Sometimes I laugh when I really look at the proportions of the two areas! By the way, in the picture, the door you see in the hallway is our bathroom, then our bedroom is to the left, and the guestroom to the right, followed by the dining room and kitchen.
Another angle of the office space so you can see where we put my Grandmother's secretary (which I just realized I haven't decorated the top of yet) and then that's our front door. The picture is one I had already framed and there's a nail there. I can see all this white-wall space and can hardly wait to get more things on the wall!
Brent's desk and printer stand are also from Ikea.
Our bathroom has a long counter and almost a "second" room for the toilet and tub. Just an opening, though, no actual door.
Our guestroom is ready and waiting for you!
And finally, our bedroom. We just got a different bed this past weekend. We both came to the marriage with a double bed but are now blessed to have a queen. We rearranged a bit, and now I know what and where I want things on the wall. I also need to find my queen-sized dust ruffle that I have in a box somewhere....
So, there you have it! There is still more to unpack and sort, but I'll keep making progress on that, and decide what else can come upstairs and have a home, what will stay in storage until we have a bigger place someday, and what will go into the garage sale pile!

We'd love to have you come visit anytime, and see it all in person!

I love this man!!

My wonderful husband said I was overdue in posting a few pictures, so I thought I'd just add a few favorites! :) I have a few different slideshows on Facebook since that goes so much faster to upload, but I also realize I'd like to keep this blog more up-to-date as our "online scrapbook".

We've had a few busy weeks, with Brent's job-change stuff all happening, and I also picked up quite a few shifts these last three weeks. We're like two ships passing in the night, literally, with me coming home from work just minutes before Brent leaves for work!

Besides work, what else have we been up to? We're working on getting settled around here, sorting through honeymoon pictures to post (there are hundreds!), waiting for our professional pictures to come so we can order our thank you notes, getting more involved at chuch (we'll be starting a choir that Brent will direct), and just spending time together. We're looking forward to the MINNESOTA STATE FAIR this weekend -my favorite day of the summer each year (except this summer, of course, because there was a wedding day that was by far the best day ever!).

It's been a good, but busy, first few weeks of marriage!