Friday, May 29, 2009

Happy Birthday, Brent!

It was somebody's birthday today!



That's right, this happy guy turned the ripe old age of.... oh yeah.... once you hit a certain age you're probably not supposed to share that with everyone except on the "big" years, right?

Anyway, we were able to celebrate on Thursday night with family and friends by using their help to unload all of Brent's stuff from his rented pods into The Lakehouse. It was so wonderful to spend the evening there, enjoying each other's company, eating a meal together, and finally feeling like I had a place to host people! I've been waiting a LOOOOOOOONG time for that! And even though the unloading part wasn't as enjoyable, it actually still went really quite quick with all the help that was there. 30 minutes maybe? I'm looking forward to posting lots of pictures of lots of picnics at our place on the lake, but for now, you'll just have to imagine it. Kids and adults all around, sitting on folding chairs, the floor, or the deck, and lots of time spent down on the dock.

Today Brent and I drove back to the Twin Cities for a bridal shower, which should be a super fun experience, and pretty strange being on this side of it! :) My mom had a cake for Brent when we got here, so I think he's feeling pretty welcomed into the family!

Happy Birthday, Brent, I hope it was a great one!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The Lakehouse

Check this out:


Well, that's the view that Brent and I will have at our new townhouse! We've signed the lease to rent what we will forever call "The Lakehouse"!!

In the month since we found out about Brent's job, we've spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out just what to do. And, that question was really in two parts, consisting of a career for him and a place for us to live. We've gone 'round and 'round on a wide variety of ideas that would take too long to list here! For a while, it seemed like stuff changed every single day!

Back to the story of The Lakehouse... We started looking for places to live here in Appleton, and in our price range all we found was JUNK! I kept telling myself:

"Self, it will be okay to live anywhere, in anything. You can survive anything and it might even turn out better than expected! After all, you never thought you'd enjoy living in a tent for an entire summer, and that turned out to be lots of fun, and you never expected to share one tiny townhouse with six other women, and that turned out to be fun, and you never thought you'd have a total of 23 roommates before getting married and look what fun friendships you have because of it! You hadn't planned to move every three months all across the country, and what an adventure that turned out to be! And now you'll get to have fun living-adventures with Brent! What joy! I mean, who cares if your stove is from 1964 or who cares if the Rottweiller's next door look like they'll attack at a moment's notice or who cares if the odd-shaped house is so grimy you don't want to ever actually use the bathroom provided? There's always the locker room at work, right?"

Anyway, I digress... back to The Lakehouse. Well, it's true. All of those things were our potential living arrangements, and there were a few other scary things as well. So, when we drove by this little sign next to a driveway that said "For Rent, Lakeshore" we decided to call. We both actually thought that the price would be out of our budget, but I know I just wanted to see something fun at that point.

Well, we were so surprised to find out that it was within our budget! And, when we went to look at the place, we were excited to find that we actually liked it!

The huge bonus is that it happens to be on a lake! WOW!!

So, this will be my new kitchen:


I love all the counter space!


Our dining room, overlooking the lake, is open to the kitchen so I'll be able to be part of the activity when we have people over for meals (which I'm hoping happens often!)


I love that the dining room goes right out onto a great deck, so I'm planning on our summer meals taking place outside!


The deck, complete with seating all around.


The living room is really big. I know it's hard to get perspective from an empty room, so I'll show you again when we get furniture in place.


The only downfall is that these window face the front yard, not the lake, but really, there are no complaints about this house allowed!


The master bedroom faces the lake.


The bathroom has a big counter, and there's a light that's off in this picture in the second part with the toilet and bathtub/shower. (We don't have to shower in the dark!)


The guest room will be ready and waiting for you!


There's also a full basement with washer and dryer hookups, and after having my own for six years and then using apartment laundry for the last two years, I can hardly express how excited I am about that! Yippee!!

Really, we feel so blessed by getting to live here. Our landlord is the neighbor who lives in the other part of the duplex, but it sounds like he's often gone for his job. He seems really nice, and I think a little grateful that we're pretty normal people. If you can call us normal... :)

He already gave us the keys so Brent will starting moving in this week sometime. Oh, and for those of you asking about his job, at this point it looks like he'll keep the 1/2 time job at his school district and then look for something else to supplement it.

It'll be fun to keep sharing pictures with you as we get settled in The Lakehouse!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Door County

On Saturday Brent took me to Door County for the day! We had a wonderful day, enjoying each other's company, the cold and windy outdoors, great food, and fun little shops.

After passing through Sturgeon Bay (note to friends visiting Door County: be sure to stop at the Visitor's Center when you first get to town, before the bridge, open 24/7. It has GREAT info regarding absolutely everything about Door County, including all the special events going on each and every day. VERY HELPFUL!) and getting into Door County itself, we first went to the county park I was able to visit last fall. It was still beautiful!
Sitting on my favorite little ledge overlooking a shallow pool of water.
My friend, LaVonne, and I "discovered" this hole in the rock last fall. On Saturday we must've been there at high tide, as the water came right up to it!
The lovebirds, practically IN Lake Michigan!
We continued around the peninsula, stopping at fun shops, eating at "Shipwrecked" (a restaurant in Egg Harbor that was a favorite hang-out of Al Capone's!), and finishing our day at a fun wine and chocolate tasting at Door Peninsula Winery!

Thank you for the wonderful day, Brent!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Birthday Present!

I had a special delivery yesterday, in the arms of the man I love. Look what he got me as a birthday/wedding present! WOW!!! You are looking at the KitchenAid Professional 600 Series stand mixer, complete with all-metal attachments, splatter-shield, and securing pins so the bowl doesn't wobble at all. What a wonderful gift!



The truth is, I decided to post this for my friends that have heard me say that this is the one thing I've been most looking forward to getting this summer, hoping to put a whole bunch of Target gift cards from our wedding together to make this purchase. It's the one kitchen appliance I've always wanted! Now my sweetheart made this corny little dream come true!

And the second part to the gift might seem a little strange, but it truly was a gift to me! Brent knows that my frugal self would worry about the cost, so even though you don't typically tell the gift-receiver what was spent on a gift, he shared with me that he was able to purchase this using a gift certificate he had been saving and a bonus check from school for extra work he had done! He also bought it during a promotion so we'll be getting a FREE ice cream maker attachment!! Who-hoo!!

What a blessing my sweetheart is!

Now I better go get ready for the day... I've already been busy as I woke up FOUR HOURS EARLY because working nights sometimes really messes up your schedule. Yuk! But, the day is about to turn around because Brent is taking me to Door County for the day! You might remember my fun weekend there last fall, talked about here. Today we're hoping to see the Cherry Blossoms in bloom, visit a fun state park, and catch some of the quaint shops and antique stores. It should be a wonderful day!

Monday, May 11, 2009

Two Months!

One of the best parts of my day:



Getting to cross off another day!
Only two more months until I get to marry the love of my life! (It'll go quick, right?)

Saturday, May 2, 2009

He's All Boy

I'm out of words for a while ("phew", right??), so here are just some pictures of the fun time we had this weekend playing with David while visiting my family in Burnsville. He loves playing with balls, loves running, and loves having Grandpa around.

It's easy to make a basket when it's that close to the ground, right?

He's become a really good kicker as well, although he's usually found carrying the ball around.
Any game involving balls and/or chasing or being chased by Grandpa is a great game!
"How many can I hold?"
Where's David?
Peek-a-boo!
Hanging out at the park...
Posing for a picture...
Just swinging along!

The only way to get David to leave the park was for Brent to throw the football "long" and have David run after it.

We've had a busy weekend, as usual, but it's been productive and fun as well, and how could we not enjoy ourselves when this little guy is around??!!