Kari and Brent

Thanksgiving and Christmas 2011

2012-02-04T19:37:00.017-06:00

First of all, I'd like to say thank you to everyone for your loving comments on my last post about Hannah. We are very blessed with such a great circle of family and friends!

Instead of continuing to wonder where in the world I should start with catching up on this blog, I'll decided to just pick something and go with it!

Here's a little insight to how we celebrated the holidays. Julie and David invited us, along with our parents and our cousin, Sara, to their home for Thanksgiving. Like most Thanksgiving celebrations around the country, there was a little bit of "resting and relaxing" going on.

At our celebration, there was also a little bit of wrestling and tickling going on between uncle and nephew.Sara, Julie, and I had a great time reconnecting again!

It included a lot of laughing!

Of course there was yummy food as well. There was the standard Thanksgiving dinner, and then there was all the other deliciousness...

That same weekend David came over to play at Grandma and Grandpa's. There wasn't any snow with the warm winter, so we had a great time playing tag and soccer in the backyard. We ran around so hard that someone needed a water-break.

My awesome dad. I think the older I get the more I become Daddy's Little Girl.

My awesome husband. I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful partner in life!

My favorite little guy. What a fun goofball, who is also smart and hilarious and gives great hugs!

Back in Appleton later that weekend, we got to host some great friends at our house. Jim and Suzy are leaving for Ecuador in a few months, and they just became parents this weekend. I'm sure Stan and Cheryl are excited to be grandparents! It's fun to get to see them each year when they return to Wisconsin!

I'm a big fan of our tree this year. In fact, we just took it down 2 weeks ago because I was enjoying it in our living room so much! I started wondering if we could leave it up all year, but decided against that....

It was fun to experiment with the close-up settings on the camera.

I couldn't find the topper I thought we have, so here's my homemade version.

I enjoy nativity sets, and here's a great one that's been given to me piece by piece over the years.

We had a few things going on in Appleton over Christmas weekend, so we went to the Twin Cities the weekend before so we could celebrate with my family. We weren't able to see David and Julie, but my little buddy was able to join us on Friday night for a celebration. Here we are listening to Uncle Brent read the Christmas story.

Then we had a fun time watching David open his presents from us. Gotta love that excitement!

When we were at his house for Thanksgiving, it was easy to see how much fun he had playing with dinosaurs. We knew he'd love this book!

He immediately went through page by page to read all of the dinosaur names.

We didn't skip a page!

He asked for help on the hard names.

Then it was time for the rest of his present from Uncle Brent and Aunt Kari.

A dinosaur sticker book!

It was a hit!

As you can tell from his grin! Wow, I love this kid!

He also got to open a gift from Grandma and Grandpa, and loved his new flashlight! It has this big light, and then also a powerful beam light and some other fun functions.

We love spending time with him!

And I think he likes us too! :)

No time spent together could be without wrestling or climbing or, well.... boys being boys!

I think someone loves his grandparents!

And I know they're pretty fond of him, too! :)

The next day I got my haircut and she curled it. Then we took some of the traditional pictures in front of the fireplace.

After our photography session, we got to go to an amazing concert event, called "The Story". It was the story of the Bible from Genesis through Revelation, hitting some of the big stories along the way. There were songs and videos that were incredibly well done! There were big-name artists like Steven Curtis Chapman, Selah, The Newsboys, Natalie Grant, and others. I'm so thankful my mom got tickets for her and my dad, and Brent and me! It was such a blessing!

After we came back, we decided to open presents. I took this picture because it was pretty funny to realize that we all skipped out on wrapping the presents this year! Often times in my family, people are found finishing the last of the wrapping just moments before the opening. I guess this year we just decided to skip it altogether!

My mom purchased a special ornament in honor of Hannah. Thanks, Mom!

On Christmas Eve we had a beautiful service at Hope, and it was easy to see just how hard Brent worked with our choir -it sounded amazing! On Christmas Day we hosted Brent's family for dinner. Here is what our dining room looked like for the occassion.

We had roast, potatoes, broccoli salad, rolls, and all sorts of other fixings. I just took a few pictures of a few items, mostly as we were waiting for everyone to arrive.

Once they arrived, this was the only picture I took, otherwise we were just busy having a great time together! Here's the whole family:

Which reminds me to ask you to pray for our family. Brent's grandpa, pictured above, is now on Hospice, and of course that means a lot of difficult emotions for everyone. Please pray for peace and rest and comfort.

Well, there's a little insight to some of our celebrating. I'll do a separate post of our time with Micaela, as it's time to close for now.

Dear Hannah

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

Dear Hannah,

My arms are aching to hold you. This is the week we were supposed to be welcoming you into this world, but instead you've been gone from me for a while now. I'm so glad you're in heaven with Jesus, but at the same time your Daddy and I wish you were here with us!

I think about you each and every day. I look at myself in the mirror and know that you should be growing inside of me, and now today you'd be ready to meet us face to face.

Daddy and I have friends and cousins who are having babies this month, and I know that every time I see those precious little ones I'll be thinking of you playing and growing with them.

I'm so thankful that Jesus is watching out for you. If you can't be here with us, you can be with the One who cares for you even more than we could! We read in the book "Heaven is for Real" that Jesus especially loves the children. I get so much comfort knowing that you're with Him and that He can help you understand how much we love you.

I will always love you and will never forget you.

Love,
Mommy

Moving In

2011-08-29T12:04:00.000-05:00

I know you've been waiting for pictures from our house. Me too! :)

Actually, I had started this post back on July 12th, before we went on vacation to Montana, but then the "publish" button wasn't working for me for some reason. Now we have our house really pretty much all settled, but our data card for the camera broke (luckily just after I had downloaded pictures) . Once we can afford a new card one of the first things I'll do is take pictures of our house, settled in. If you haven't heard yet, Brent got layed off from his job (extreme financial difficulty at the company) and while we were told it would just be for one month, we'll see.

One good thing about his layoff is that he's made huge progress in fixing up the upstairs apartment. I haven't been able to take pictures during the remodel phase, but I have "before" pictures and we'll at least get something so I can take "after" pictures when we're done.

In the meantime, to tide you over, here are some pictures during the moving and getting settled stages. We spent a month moving little things here and there every day after work, and then at the very end hired help to move our furniture, some boxes, and of course, my piano. I was really nervous since I had only moved with the help of family and friends in the past, who I trust, but I have to say, it went very well! They wrapped everything so I wouldn't get damaged, and that alone was worth it! That, and the fact that our really heavy piano made it here in one piece!

We've made huge progress since these were taken last month -with basically our main floor all settled. The only thing really left is the final decorating, getting things on the wall, etc. I'll be excited to show you what we've done!

Two Years

2011-07-15T06:45:00.000-05:00

On Monday, Brent and I celebrated two years together! I was blessed with a beautiful bouquet of flowers at work and decided I needed a little more practice with my camera before our upcoming trip to the mountains of Montana.

I am so blessed to love this man more than I did two years ago, and can't wait to see what the next 60 years hold for us!

I love you, Sweetie, and am so blessed to walk this journey with you!!

Updates....

2011-05-26T13:08:00.001-05:00

Here are a few posts with updates from one weekend in the middle of May. Enjoy!

Birthday Surprise!

2011-05-26T13:05:00.000-05:00

I celebrated a birthday a couple of weeks ago. It was a great birthday! Brent had taken me out to our favorite "celebration" restaurant, The Melting Pot, for a delicious dinner. Then, he took me back to Minnesota for the weekend. I was able to celebrate with family and with friends, and had a really wonderful weekend!

As we were driving to MN, I got a call from my favorite four-year-old. He told me that there was a birthday surprise waiting for me at grandma and grandpa's house. I asked what the surprise was, but of course was told "I can't tell you, it's a thurprise!" I tried for a good 3-4 minutes to get it out of him, but he held his ground!

We got to my parent's house, and walked in and found it all decorated! It turns out he remembered how fun it was to have a birthday and wanted me to experience the same thing! Melts my heart.... :)

The table decorations all set for birthday dessert.

When I first opened the door, I could see that the hallway had a streamer, and then a bunch of posters that had my name, age, his name, etc. He had fun showing them all to me.
He also pointed out the smiley faces that he drew for me, but he couldn't really give me a good explanation on why he drew some frown faces or flat faces. He just said "cause I like them!" Weirdo :) Gotta love him!

He also decided to be goofy and would only say cheese and look at the camera when he was leaning backwards.

Uncle Brent didn't want to miss out on the fun!

Thanks for the super birthday surprise, buddy! You made my day very special, I love you!!

A gift of love...

2011-05-26T12:30:00.000-05:00

We got a great gift a couple of weeks ago... Lumber! (Not what you expected, huh?)

My parents are in the midst of putting in a new deck. The old one gave them 20+ years of great service, but there were a few holes that had rotted through. With little feet running around frequently, it was time to make a change. They gifted the new home-owners with the lumber that was still good. Lucky us! They'll help make some great shelves in the basement. We picked it up with our empty mini-van, but some of it had to be cut in order to fit okay.

Before getting started, it's important to follow a few steps. First, put on hearing protectors:

Next step? measure twice, cut once.
Next, run around the yard and burn off some energy.

Finally, load it into an old mini-van.

I just love this face!

Here's my dad, hard at work, always willing to help out his kids. Thanks for the generous gift, Dad!

David was a big help, making sure to pound a board on the ground like he saw Uncle Brent do, in order to take care of a few sawdust shavings before loading it up.

After we finished with the lumber, we wanted to help my dad a bit with his deck project. He had some stone delivered so he could re-slope the ground while the deck boards were still absent. David was a big help, shoveling as much as he could into an ice cream bucket and carrying it around back.

Showing us how he was helping.Watching Uncle Brent get a few scoops into an even bigger bucket.

David loves his grandpa, and clamored over the boards to be able to be near him.

I love how his tongue sticks out when he's hard at work.

Two peas in a pod.

He's become such a hard worker, taking it serious and wanting to do a good job. It's great to see his work ethic being developed!

Grandpa's are the Best!

2011-05-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

After a hard day's work, the most logical thing to do is start rolling down the hill. Wouldn't you agree?!
I'm not sure if it's because I missed knowing either of my grandpa's (and I hear they were both really, really wonderful), but I really think that grandpa's are the BEST! I think it's because I get to see such an amazing example here in my own family! We all know this little guy has wonderful parents, a super cool auntie and uncle :) and if you've ever met his grandma you couldn't doubt her love for a second, but one of the best influences in his life is GRANDPA!

Don't you just love how they're relaxing on a nice spring day? After what must've been an inspiring conversation, it looks like a fun game of "you can't get me" needed to be played!

I love how excited he gets with trying to stay close but not too close!

Caught!

Getting tied up...

Flipped over...

And tossed aside.

Somehow I don't think he minds! You wouldn't either, now would you, if you had such a wonderful Grandpa?!

Our New Home!

2011-04-18T11:42:00.008-05:00

We bought a house!

Brent and I have been looking on and off again for the last year, knowing that we loved our Lakehouse, but that we've both been anxious to own again. It's been the best way to house-hunt, in that it's such a seller's market right now, with great interest rates, but we didn't have to move if we didn't find the right thing. Well, we found it!

We've also been talking a lot about the possibility of income property, so we kept that in the back of our minds as we looked. We looked all over a couple of the smaller cities around here, knowing that they have some good neighborhoods and some not as good ones. We sure didn't expect to find our home just a few blocks away on the same street!

It's got really good bones, with great character and old, wide, rich woodwork. The basement is tall enough for my 6'3" husband, and is by far the best basement of homes we've seen in our price range. The home is totally liveable for us right away, and will also be improved by some of the work we'd like to do.

Here's a little tour for you! There are some pictures from the realtor's website, and others that I took in order to remember specific things before we move in at the end of May.

The current owners just put on all new siding and trim this past fall, but they did forget to paint the door red, which will happen soon after we take over!

You can see some of the character with the arched entryway, and you might also notice that there are coved ceilings -which I love! The front windows are all new as well. The wall they have their TV on and the one right next to it should be big enough for our piano and TV -exact arrangement to be determined. Standing at the front door you can see the arch to the dining room. The living room opens to the dining room, which opens to the kitchen. It's not the same as a square-shaped open concept room, but that's pretty hard to find in a character home. Standing in the kitchen I'll still feel like I know what's going on in other rooms. That door in the dining room leads to the 3-season porch. There will be plenty of room for my hutches! (I measured!) This picture also shows the door on the left that leads to what will be our office, and through the kitchen you can see the master straight ahead, and then the bathroom is on the right and the guest room on the left. Looking back at the living room. The kitchen. It's totally functional now, and we'll definitely be making some changes. The kitchen re-do can't happen first, but when it does I might make this a wall of pantry cupboards.... We'll see.... There's this half-wall separating the dining room and kitchen, and it bugs me. They raised the counters from the main counter, and since it hangs over on both sides there ends up being wasted space. We'll see what happens with this... The master bedroom. The closet is deep and organized in what seems will be a helpful configuration. This room was added on at some point so the two windows don't have the same great woodwork. I snapped this picture so I could remember just how much space there would be for our dressers. The guestroom will have enough space for a bed and dresser, but probably not much more than that. This is one room that will proabably stay that color, though, as it's one I like. We will also use this room as our office/library, but the white walls will go. This helps show the perspective that it's just off the dining room. I love our new porch! I am excited to get back to reading a good book a lot more often. Here is our first project. We'll focus on the upstairs apartment so that we can get it rented right away. At first I thought I'd quickly paint the cabinets, but now we're thinking we might just start fresh. I'm hoping to document our progress much better than I've been documenting life lately so you can see just what decisions we make. We've been watching a lot of Income Property on HGTV!! The space for a table and chairs. Here's a hallway leading to a back door only used for a fire escape. There's a 'butler's pantry' on the side with lots more space. Here is the master bedroom, which is really quite large. It actually has a sitting area as well. The photographer took this shot from the farthest corner and you can see the closet door on the left and the living room door on the right. It's really two rooms separated with that opening, but there's only one closet so we'll market this as one room. This is the living room and looking ahead is that bedroom you just saw. The other half of the living room, which leads to the kitchen and bathroom. The door frame on the left is for the second bedroom. The second bedroom with original wood floors. I can hardly wait to rip out the awful carpet in the rest of the apartment and see what we've got underneath. The bathroom. The yellow and white sponge painting will quickly be gone. It has a nice counter space, but I'm not certain what to do about the mirror height. Let's just say it would work for my mom, but not for my dad! Right now there's a medicine cabinet to the left of the toilet which allows people taller than my mom to look in a mirror standing up. I'll need to think about this one a while.... There's a nice shower behind the door. There you have it! I'm sure I'll take "before" pictures in an empty house the day we close, but we're hoping to start making some good progress right away on some of the changes we're invisioning.

Anyone want to come help??!!

View from the Deck

2011-02-22T20:56:00.003-06:00

The weather here in the Appleton area has generally been much more mild than other places I've lived in the Midwest. It isn't Sunny Southern California and the ocean, but still a nice view!

We have pretty sunsets....

and last week just about all of our snow melted and you could see grass all around. You might even notice that the lake had lost all of the ice, except for just a few feet at the shoreline.

We really like the view from our deck! Here it is on either Friday or Saturday this past weekend.

Then Sunday came.

And we got more snow. Again.

I heard we got about 10 inches.

It's pretty. But it needs to melt.

Valentine's Weekend in Door County

2011-02-14T22:03:00.002-06:00

Brent surprised me with a trip to Door County! He actually had some work to do there, but instead of going on some random Tuesday, alone, we went up together on Friday after work and got to stay in this wonderful Bed & Breakfast! We stayed at The Chanticleer, which I saw on a website as rated the best in Door County. I loved it! They have cabins, a guest house, and we stayed in the restored barn. It was beautiful! Each of the rooms have a different theme. They were tastefully done, with huge rooms, private bathrooms, and a double-sized whirlpool tub in each room! There was a wonderful continental breakfast delivered to our door the next morning, and if it had been just a little warmer, we could've eaten out on our own private balcony. We opted to stay inside by the working fireplace instead. :) I'm looking forward to heading back there again someday!

Brent did a couple hours worth of work on Saturday, but we had the rest of the day to tour around. Brent said that I could plan that time, so I opted for Sister Bay. When I've spent time in Door County in the past, that's one little town we tend to just drive through. There are so many things you can see or do, we always have to choose our time wisely. I knew Sister Bay has a Scandinavian history, so I thought it would help me feel like home! We had a great lunch, and a fun time in a few little shops.

We were able to do a few other fun things, but then headed towards my favorite park in Door County: Cave Point County Park. It's become my favorite spot! My friends that I usually travel there with will most likely recognize the little tiny cove that we usually take pictures around. Check out what it looks like with an almost-frozen Lake Michigan! Pretty strange, and unique, and oddly beautiful!

It had been really nice and warm during the day -I could wear just my sweater without my winter coat on, until we got towards later afternoon and right on the lake. Then, it seemed really cold all of a sudden!

I've had a number of pictures taken on this little ledge, but this time I couldn't, or wouldn't, sit down on it and dangle my legs over the side. That snow looked too cold!

We couldn't get into the "hole-in-the-rock" that my friend, LaVonne, and I have taken pictures in before. I didn't dare walk on the snow/ice/water that we inbetween those stages every few feet!

We had a great weekend, and I was so glad I got to go along with Brent, even if he worked a little bit! It was way better than him telling me later he had spent a day there without me! :)

Thanks for the fun, Sweetie! Happy Valentine's Day!!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-29T12:14:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas everyone! We've had a great Christmas, and this year it's lasting us quite a while. We've had Micaela here with us the last few days and we've had a great time! We are bringing her back today, but wanted to share this family picture with you first.

Peace!

2010-12-19T20:54:00.006-06:00

Peace to you! We've been enjoying a number of Christmas celebrations around here in the past week! Brent and I were invited to Christmas parties on Friday night, Saturday night, and this afternoon. They were all lots of fun and a great blessing!

We agreed to bring desserts (or candies or treats, whatever you prefer to call them!) so we spent Thursday making the following items. It was nice to make big batches and bring similar plates to each event. I did make a Fudge Truffle Cheesecake for this afternoon's family festival at church, but didn't get a great picture.

Brent's helped get together a quartet at church that sang at today's festival. I thought I was hitting "record" on our new camera (which I LOVE!) to get a video, but I guess I still have a lot to learn about it. You'll just have to pretend that you can hear how great they sounded!

Here are a few more pictures of our Christmas tree, taken on my NEW camera! Have I mentioned yet how much I love it?

Yes, that's yours truly, and yes, I'm wearing my Vikings jacket. It takes a lot of guts to wear Vikings gear here in Packerland, but I'm brave enough to stand my ground! It's been quite the year to have to do that! Earlier on the night of this picture, I convinced Brent to take me to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Vikings game that moved unexpectedly to Detroit. Interesting!

There's a little picture of our Christmas season so far. Have a blessed Christmas week!

Thanksgiving Celebrations

2010-11-28T21:50:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you each had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! This post will show you some pictures about our weekend, but first a few housekeeping things:

1. Yes, we're still alive!

2. I've had problems getting online with my phone. This means I can sometimes see Facebook, or even blogs, but have had a real hard time uploading any messages or commenting on other people's posts.

3. My computer has been giving me more and more problems even getting started up, until finally Brent just cleared it out and started over from scratch. It's been a big, long, ongoing hassle.

4. I love my new job. I really like my co-workers, my patients, what I actually do, and of course, THE HOURS! I feel normal again -at least as normal as I'll ever be! :)

5. Brent's been back at the appraisal firm and things seem fairly stable.

6. We've gotten much more involved at church and it's been a great way to make friends and have Appleton start to feel like home.

7. I have lots of pictures of all the things we've been doing since (gasp!) my last post in July, but being the chronological person I am, I haven't wanted to go out of order. I finally gave up so I could at least get something online, and I have high hopes for back-tracking. Someday.

---------

Okay, onto Thanksgiving! In fact, it turns out, this should just be labeled "Entertainment by David". I guess I didn't take a single picture of anything having to do with Thanksgiving!

We went to the Twin Cities during a snow/sleet/rainfall that made our trip an hour and a half longer than normal. We had Thanksgiving dinner with my family on Thursday, and I'm sure my mom will post a picture of that someday. Afterwards, they had agreed to watch David for my sister and brother-in-law so he entertained us for the rest of the night. Here is is with his favorite truck, carting around his other toys to make a "pile of junk" as he called it.
Getting out the Lego blocks, which helped us build a BIG tower.

My mom serenaded us throughout the afternoon.

Brent sat back, watched some football, and probably thought to himself "what did I get myself into marrying into this family?" Actually, he fits right in.

We tried to take a Christmas picture, so here is just one of the many to choose from. I don't know if we'll get around to it or not, but I guess you'll have to watch your mailboxes to see! If we don't mail them out, I'll post the ones I liked even better.

The funny part was, that this little guy REALLY insisted on being included in the picture. It's interesting how sometimes he'll ignore the camera or look away, and other times he gets super goofy. This was a goofy moment!

At least Uncle Brent goes right along with the goofy-ness.

I sure love these two and their big grins!

Early in the evening, he decided to play "bedtime" and brought a big blanket over and some books and put himself to bed on the couch.

Reading "Pajama Time".

Grandpa decided to join in on taking a little nap. I guess the only floor space to be found was in a tube. Hmmm.....

David decided to join Grandpa, and climbed right up.

Goof-ball!

I guess something on the TV caught his attention so he sat right up and stayed awhile.

Then, he got really silly and climbed through the tube to try and join Grandpa on the inside. He got a little stuck at the point you see in the picture and of course by now we were all laughing pretty hard!

After the "tube incident" we decided to build a fort. He was pretty proud of it and made a doorway so I could come in and join him. We read books by flashlight and told stories. It was fun! Don't you just love that goofy grin, too?! (I also have to add the side note that I can't look at that plaid wool blanket and not think of my Grandma. It was hers, I miss her daily, and am reminded of her often with little things like this.)

The next morning, Brent and I did some Black Friday shopping (and found some great deals on things we've been planning on for a while!), then we drove back home during some great weather. On Saturday Brent went hunting with his dad, uncle, and brother-in-law while I stayed home to work on dinner. We had invited his family over for Thanksgiving Dinner Round Two, but after the guys decided to go hunting all day I decided to just think of it as an "Andrews Family Dinner" so it would feel less stressful doing it all alone. It helped! Brent's mom and sister did bring a few things, so that sure helped too. It turns out I didn't take a single picture from our time with them so you'll just have to imagine our fun together.

Today we were able to have a fun afternoon with friends! Stan and Cheryl were in town visiting and it was SO MUCH FUN to reconnect! We go way back, with connections left and right through family, Bethel, and CLBA activities. I'm friends with each of their kids as well so it was fun to hear updates about each of them!

Well, there you have it! A little update on us, and a view of our weekend. Like I said, I'm hoping to backtrack on older pictures, but I guess I should learn not to make promises, and just surprise any of you that might still check this blog! :)

Chicago's Shedd Aquarium

2010-07-26T20:36:00.003-05:00

This post is for all of you to enjoy, but it's especially for MICAELA, who loves all things dolphins!

While Brent and I were in Chicago for our first anniversary, we knew we would visit the Shedd Aquarium. We walked there from our hotel the last morning (we were covered in sweat by the end -it was a HIGH humidity weekend!) and spent quite a bit of time there before heading home on the train. After drying off a bit, it was fun to discover what a great place it is! I'm excited to go back again someday, and especially excited to take Micaela there someday!

There are a ton of pictures here so you can see all the ins and outs of the place, but I'll only highlight a few. Like this one of an anaconda... Yuk!

Shiny little blue fish. They glowed!

Please excuse the glare that you'll often see in pictures. Around the top of each tank was a neon sign which was cool, but not great for photos.

Okay. You gotta check this out. Except you might not want to. If you can click on the picture below and see it enlarged, check out the eyes on these eels. YUK! They're SOOOOOOO creepy! There were these two gross eels (one is hiding back in that hole) that were really light in color, and then they had these beady, blue eyes that just stared at us. They even seemed to follow us around the room. Ewwwww!!! I still get shivers thinking about them. So I had to share with you. Maybe that'll make my shivers go away, or just pass on to you. Enjoy! :)

I made sure to include a person in this picture so you can get the perspective of just how large this crab is. Wow!

Can you see who's hiding in here? Nemo!

Check out the HUGE turtle on the ramp.

Every fish in his tank had this strange bump on the head. Maybe they kept running into each other?

Check out these fish! I think they were called "pencil fish", but now I can't remember and I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment. I'm just trying to get this post published!

The dolphins! Finally, right Micaela?!

Sorry it's so hard to see these. The lighting really made it tough. This pair kept swimming around together, which was pretty fun.

This little fella kept following me around with his eyes. It was pretty cute!

Awwww....... So cute!

I love the bright colors you can find in nature!

Do you see the little frog? He was pretty tiny!

Can you see the chameleon? He's hiding!

There's our trip to the Shedd Aquarium! Did you have as much fun as we did?

I also have three videos, but those don't seem to be processing for me tonight. I often seem to have problems with that. Hmmm.... Micaela, I'll just show you this weekend while you're here, and the rest of you? Well, you should just come visit and I'll show you, too! :)

The Art Institute of Chicago

2010-07-13T08:00:00.002-05:00

When we arrived in Chicago, one of the very first things we did was head to the Art Institute of Chicago. It was a beautiful building from the outside,
...and from the inside! There was the older-style museum, and they've recently added a modern wing. I'm guessing you can tell which is which.
I'm so glad I took this shot in black and white. I feel like it could be a picture in their advertisement!

Next you'll see just a few of the beautiful and interesting pieces they have at the museum. I'm guessing you'll recognize some of them.

Can you name any of the artists? I snapped a close-up picture of the description of each item, so I could let you know if you really want the information.

One unique thing they had was a miniature display. Here are two images of all these miniature little boxes you could look through and see rooms with HUGE amounts of detail! It's hard to tell from the pictures (and the reflections) just what was in each room and what size they really were, but they were really amazing!

A statue I was drawn to in the sculpture area.

There you have it! Now you can feel like you were at the Art Institute of Chicago with us!

What a guy...

2010-07-12T21:24:00.004-05:00

It was our first anniversary on Sunday, the 11th! If we are friends on Facebook, you might have seen that Brent and I went to Chicago for the weekend to celebrate. I took LOTS of pictures, so I have lots to share with you! As I'm sorting through things, however, I wanted to give you a little taste of how wonderful my husband is!

On Friday night when I got home, I found our table set, the candles already lit, and this cake sitting on the table! For our wedding, we had an appetizer and dessert buffet -which was exactly what we wanted! But, this meant we didn't have a wedding cake topper to eat on our first anniversary. I had actually set aside two each of the mini petit-fours for us to eat, but my thoughtful husband went one step beyond that, and ordered us a cake! He even picked out chocolate cake for me with chocolate filling for me (and had white frosting for him). Notice the red and yellow flowers? Look familiar?

What a guy....
Here's a side note: we have a container vegetable garden growing (successfully!) and here is our first tomato of the season. Doesn't it look yummy? We ate it during our anniversary dinner, and it was!!
My wonderful husband made my favorite meal to celebrate: steak, mashed potato's, veggies, and cake for dessert!
I'm a blessed woman!

One Year!

2010-07-11T06:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Anniversary to us! Brent and I have now been married for one whole year. Can you believe it? We're in Chicago while you read this, celebrating our first anniversary, but I got this post ready and set it to publish on the right day.

My cousin, Tim, is talented with a video camera and editing tools. He put together our wedding video, and we're so thankful for that! He made one video of all the "getting ready" stuff, which is what you'll see here. There are clips of us arriving to the church, getting ready, seeing one another for the first time that day, taking pictures, hanging out with friends. Just ignore the giddy girl with the strange head-bob. I'm not quite sure who she is!

Andrews Wedding Intro from timmyjimi on Vimeo.

We're not going to post a link for our actual wedding video, since it's pretty long from the start of walking down the aisle, to the AMAZING singing, to the praise and worship time and the message and the vows and the rings. You get it. If you ever want to see it, come visit, and we'll happily show you anytime! Well, I will. Brent might find something else to do since I think if you're a guy you can only watch a wedding video, even if it's your own, so many times.

The following is a video that's mostly of our reception. You'll see a few people talk to the camera. It starts with my cousin, Kristen and husband, Josh. They got married less than three months after us so you might remember my post about their amazing outdoor wedding. You'll also see my aunt and uncle, my dad, and then glimpses of many others. Maybe you? What I hope you can see from the video is just how much fun we were all having. We wanted our reception to feel like "game night at Kari and Brent's" (you know, in the middle of the afternoon) so we had actual games available to play, a wide variety of our favorite foods in the appetizer and dessert categories (can you guess which one of us favors which option?), and freedom to mingle all around the room. We specifically didn't want people to feel stuck in one chair the whole time, that if they had people to visit with, they could do that. That's what Brent and I did! My only regret is that as the bride, when I wanted to walk somewhere specific to talk with someone, I was usually stopped along the way. There were a few people I was really trying to reach across the room to spend some time with, and just wasn't able to. I guess sometimes it's okay to wear a normal dress and fit into the crowd. That time isn't on your wedding day! Anyway, enjoy the video!

Andrews Reception from timmyjimi on Vimeo.

Didn't Tim do a great job?! You can check out more of his talent by clicking on his blog link on the side.

We really had such a fun day, with absolutely everything turning out just how we wanted it to. If there were any issues or problems on that day, I never once knew about it (a great plug for having an INCREDIBLE wedding coordinator!). We laughed and cried (the good tears) and had fun and relaxed and I love being able to say that I remember so much about the day. It was just perfect!

Happy Anniversary, Brent! I'm excited to have at least 60 more of them with you!

Banana Muffins

2010-07-09T06:00:00.002-05:00

I was going to wait with this post until a later date, but because my step-daughter asked about them, I upped the timeline. We were on the phone with her while I was making these. This is for you, Micaela!
~~~~

I really love Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins.
I could eat them every single day.
I don't.
I could, but I don't.

My husband, on the other hand, likes banana bread.
Without chocolate chips.
Or in muffin form.

I thought I would be an extra-wonderful wife and make him banana bread, but decided that we could compromise and eat them in muffin form.
This might have been so I could add chocolate chips to half the batter.
But we're not sure about that last part.

After the muffins were made, and half of them were eaten quickly, the non-chocolate-chip
half sat on the counter for a while.
One of us doesn't eat banana muffins as fast as the other of us does.

One of us decided to save part of his half, and thought about the very useful Food Saver we bought with wedding gift cards.

It turns out that banana muffins have air in them.
They get a little compacted in the Food Saver.

The lesson here is that banana muffins should be eaten quickly.
And they should probably have chocolate chips in them.

Amazing Wedding Presents!

2010-07-07T22:42:00.000-05:00

[This got to be really long! You better grab a drink, kiss your kids goodbye, and settle in before you read it. Oh, and don't forget to make a sandwich or take a bathroom break first!]

I'm back to the world of blogging! I'm not sure if anyone's still out there, but if you are, thanks for sticking by me during this way-too-long-hiatus! The latest reason for that, is that I have been working away at something I've been wanting to complete for a long time. Well.... I'm happy to say that we mailed our wedding Thank You notes in the mail this week! Yes, your memory is correct, our first anniversary is on Sunday the 11th, and yes, I had every intention of getting these done within the first three months of marriage. There are many reasons why this didn't happen, and you can read some of them in a post I wrote in March, but the truth is, I wanted to be sure to really express my appreciation in the almost 200 notes to people who freely gave so generously to Brent and I as we began our marriage! We were overwhelmed with blessings!!

[One side note is that I'm still gathering the last few address updates, but if you didn't receive a thank you note and you sent a gift, it might be because there were a few gifts that we could not match to a card. For instance, there were attachments to our Kitchenaid mixer with no card. These things might have been attached to something else, but we didn't realize it until all the paper had been ripped and it was too late. If this applies to you, PLEASE let me know! Of course I want to thank you appropriately for the gift, but if you're thinking it's not necessary, please still let me know anyway!! I'm one of those people who hopes to always remember just exactly "who" gave us "what" for our wedding, so that in 20 years I can tell our kids "So-and-so gave us that for our wedding". Yup, I'll be that kind of mom someday!]

As we approach our first anniversary (I can't believe how fast that time has flown by!!) I wanted to catch up on some wedding-related blog posts I've planned, so then I can move on to go back and show you some of the other things we've been up to this year. I have great intentions about going back and posting about things in the past, and keeping more up-to-date in the future! :)

Brent and I opened our wedding presents in my parent's living room, with just my mom around, even before my dad came home from work, on the last afternoon of our honeymoon. We had cut our honeymoon short by one day as Brent got sick, and we had stopped at their house as a relaxing rest stop between our trip out west and arriving back home in Appleton again.

We were going to just open our presents alone at our house, but knew how much my mom would want to see those presents, and I've been thinking now how fun it would be to share with you some of the wonderful things we received. I'm risking the possibility that someone might feel slighted by my not taking a picture of their gift, so please know that I DON'T want that to happen at all! I have no intention of showing every AMAZING gift we received, just a few fun pictures of some things I thought you might want to see. You can pretend you were right there with us, ooing and aahing over everything!!

My mom knew about this gift and had us open it first. Wow!! My dear friends in Bethel's Stitch-a-Quilt made us this beautiful wall hanging!! I love knowing that they all stitched on this, thought about us, and prayed over us as they worked. What a blessing!
Family and friends in Washington gave us this lefse grill...
and other friends helped with the pin, sleeve, board, etc.

Brent and I had a lot of fun putting it to use!
My dear friend, Leona, from Team Cameroon 2008, served with my grandparents in Africa and gave us this treasured African chess set! I get a tear thinking about it! The cool story is that these types of figurines are ones that I grew up loving in our home, and have enjoyed having one or two pieces that have been passed down to me. Well, Brent is a great chess player (I'm not sure if there's a category for master chess player, but if there is, I bet he qualifies!) and he mentioned to me that he would really like a special chess set someday!
Look at that great detail! I love the wood grain, and the style of carving! Notice each piece is holding an appropriate tool so you know what it's position is!

I wish the lighting were better, but wanted you to see these great pieces! And yes, the king is missing his head, but it's nothing a little super-glue can't handle. It was a pretty clean guillotine cut.

If you know anything at all about me, you might know that I have a ridiculous love of dishes! It just can't be helped. I've tried. Well, not really, I mean, who would want to give up great dishes? For our wedding, it was fun to pick out a new set of everyday dishes, and we were so blessed by so many of you to end up with a new set of Fiestaware dishes, and these beautiful goblets! Here you see a table set for friends who came to visit in the fall, and you can see how well everything works together in our dining room. We also got silverware from Norway that I just love, beautiful water/lemonade/iced tea pitchers that we use all the time, great serving pieces, crystal bowls, and just about anything you could ever want when you invite your in-laws over for Thanksgiving dinner! Either that or just regular dinner with your husband when you decide to eat at the table, since my aunts in Billings always taught me that "every meal is more delicious when you eat on special dishes". I feel like we get to enjoy that every single night!!!
Here in our living room you can see some of the great plaques/pictures we got, along with some Willow Tree figurines. I just took this picture tonight, and you probably can't tell this from the picture, but I finally got around to organizing our bookshelves by categories that make sense. I don't know if they make sense to my librarian-husband, but they make sense to me!
(I messed up on the placement of photos, so this caption goes to the above picture. Sorry to be confusing!) In the above picture, you'll also see how lovely the "vintage" games look on our bookshelf. We were blessed to get lots of games, vintage and otherwise, which makes for a great selection on game night! Anyone want to come over and join us?!

Below you'll see some of the beautiful Italia candleholders that we use in a variety of ways for decorating. I guess this picture doesn't flatter them to their full ability, so I'll have to change that around and show you a different picture later. You can also see a photo frame that we received, and I want to take a moment from our wedding-present-tour to say how fun it's been to get pictures in our many frames and have them showcase some of our favorite photos! You blessed us with photo frames of all sizes and I love decorating with them on the walls, bookshelves, you name it!
I've always loved these Swedish crystal vases, and I thought this would be a nice way to give honor to my 1/16th Swedish heritage! I also wanted to show you "cello-guy", the cool cello statue that Brent has. You can just ignore the big water stain on the top of our piano, you can't really see it unless you're as tall as Brent, and besides, it was a free piano and I love it!
Back to our kitchen, we were blessed with all the little things that you need in a kitchen to be a good cook, or at least pretend. It's easier to pretend when you have all the stuff! I wanted to show you one of my favorite gadgets: the red spinning, yes spinning, utensil holder we bought with a Target gift card. Don't you just love it?! I sure do!
Here you can see one of my favorite corners of our house! It's in our dining room, right next to our sliding door out to the deck. Each of these things is something that I just love. I'll go clockwise starting on the right. The "yellow girl on the beach" is a print that my wonderful Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Jim gave to Brent and I when we were visiting them in California so they could meet Brent before Jim married us. I love the beach. I love yellow. I love beach hats. I love the style of this print. Then, just recently my mom gave us the red frame, made of old barn wood, which reminds me of a red-barn-wood-frame she and I saw in Red Lodge, MT when we went to visit our aunts in Billings when I was a nursing student and just didn't feel like I could survive one more minute and said to her on a long weekend "let's drive to Billings and see your aunts and go to the mountains". So we did! Ever since that trip I've wished I had purchased the frame but was too poor at the time and didn't think I needed it. Well, it turns out everyone should have a red-barn-wood-frame. It makes life better. Next you'll see a picture of two of my closest friends, taken during a week that I really needed them around. Good friendships are a treasure! Speaking of good friends, in the middle of the picture you'll see a beautiful bowl that Brent and I received as a wedding present, from one of my closest friends who had purchased it in the Middle East just for us right before our wedding. We were so honored she could be back from a mission trip in time to stand up front and support us at our wedding ceremony, and I feel so blessed that she was thinking of us while she was there, picking out something that suits us so well! The blue cake stand is near and dear to my heart. It's from my wonderful friends/family members Tim and Rachel who gave it to us at my bridal shower. Rachel has always been so thoughtful, and she gave this to us knowing she couldn't make it to the wedding. I have this unhealthy love of cobalt blue glass (it goes along with the unhealthy love of dishes) and this cake plate is just beautiful! It's cobalt blue crystal, with a gorgeous natural pattern and texture. Tim passed away last year and this world is worse off because of it. He gets to be with Jesus now, so he's way better because of it, but this world will miss him greatly! I think of Tim often. He was a great teacher of the Bible, a theologian at heart, and had a laugh that was pretty contagious. Anytime I'm in a theological discussion now, I find that it usually relates back to a conversation I had with Tim either at a family gathering, a Youth Ministries biblical studies class, or when I was at the LB seminary building -either auditing a class or trying to support my seminary-student-friends. Seeing this cake plate reminds me of him, even though I'm sure Rachel picked it out and he might not have even know of it's existence, but his name was still on the card. On top of the cake plate is a picture of Brent and I. It goes in this corner since it's one of my favorites (and has a red frame!). Finally, the red rose. It's a real rose that's been painted and shellacked. Or something else. It's trimmed in gold-leaf. It was a gift from Brent the night he proposed to me, to help throw me off for what was to come later in the evening. It worked! So there you have it... the reasons why this is my favorite corner of our home! And, the longest photo caption in the history of photo captions!

Now if only I could write all that about each and every gift, here on my blog, so the whole world could see just how much I love the clear cake stand that decorates the top of our hutch. Or the softness of our bamboo sheets and towels that I LOVE to use to curl up. Or the blessing of gift cards. Or the fun camping stuff we're excited to try out. Or the practical stuff like electrical cords. Or the other things that have no practical use but are beautiful and look great in our home!

Brent and I feel so blessed, humbled, overwhelmed, and honored by the way in which we were shown love and generosity. Thank you, thank you, and thank you again!

Happy Birthday, Brent!

2010-05-29T11:06:00.003-05:00

Happy Birthday to the love of my life!! I love you more than words can say, Sweetie, and I'm so grateful the Lord brought you into my life! I'm excited to celebrate a lifetime of birthdays with you and am looking forward to each one. I'm so glad you're mine forever!

I Have A New Job!!!!

2010-05-05T08:04:00.002-05:00

I have a new job!!! For those of you who missed my announcement on Facebook, I'm happy to let you know that two weeks ago I was offered a new job! That afternoon I submitted my resignation for my current position, so everything is official!

I'll be working as an RN Specialist at a clinic where there is a new model of doing healthcare. I will be especially focusing on preventing and treating chronic diseases. The clinic is a part of the same system I've been with for the last 16 months, so it's a nice easy transfer. I happen to be changing jobs over my birthday weekend, and I had already taken a day off (since Brent and I are going with our friends, Jim and Sara to FIDDLER ON THE ROOF!!!) so that means I'll have a four-day weekend before starting a new job! I'm so thankful that I don't have to try and switch my sleep schedule the same day I'm starting a new job!

I really think this will be a good fit for me job-wise, and I think I'll be a good fit with this department, but at the moment the thing I'm most excited about is the schedule change! Monday through Friday, 8am-5pm each day, no evenings, weekends or holidays sounds completely wonderful to me! This last year has been pretty hard on me in lots of ways, and it mostly stems from my random night shift schedule. I'm looking forward to that changing.

Here's a little more on the clinic, from our system's website:

What is the Affinity Medical Home?
The Affinity Medical Home is a new approach to primary
health care. Staff members work in highly coordinated health
teams to address patient care needs. In this model, patients
will continue to have a strong relationship with a Primary Care
Physician (PCP), but that relationship will be directly supported
by other team members.

Affinity is one of the first health care systems in the country to
implement this innovative care model. The goal is to optimize
access, and provide high quality, personalized care—addressing
the full range of health care concerns from wellness to disease
management, to acute care, in a highly coordinated, patient
centered, holistic manner.

Who’s on the medical home team?
Every medical home team is developed to fit the unique needs
of its community. Patient-centered teams will typically consist of:

• One or more physicians partnered with one or more
Nurse Practitioners or Physician Assistants

• One or more Nurse Specialists who will coordinate disease
management—overseeing patient registries, providing patient
education and wellness coaching, and partnering with providers
to execute disease management visits

• Behavioral health resource person, such as a social worker or
counselor, to assist with care coordination and behavioral health

• Patient service representatives

• Health Care Associates such as LPNs, MAs and CMAs

The physician will supervise and lead the activities of the medical
home. The team member who sees the patient will be determined
by the need of the patient, facilitated by dynamic communication
between team members—assuring each patient is given high
quality, compassionate care. All teams have access to Affinity’s
network of specialists and our three hospitals for comprehensive
medical care.

Will providers visit patient homes?
No, patient care will take place in the clinic.We want patients
to feel safe and “at home” when they receive care from us.

How is this different than what a patient may experience now?
Patients will notice a difference as soon as they walk into our
clinics. The physician will rely on the help of the other team
members to assist with collecting information, so the patient
and care provider’s time is most effectively utilized.
Team members will make sure all patients have a clear
understanding of their diagnosis and care plans.We realize
health problems also affect a patient’s personal life and
emotional well-being.We will give patients access to a team
member who can help navigate community resources as
needed and listen to their concerns.

Thanks for all your prayers for me and Brent. I'll be sure to let you know how it's all going!

Electron Boy

2010-05-04T17:19:00.005-05:00

I know I'm a sap, but this is the kind of story that really gets me. HOW COOL!!! (Click on 'enlarge' under the picture and see even more of his awesome day.)

"Local boy with cancer turns into Superhero for the day" from the Seattle Times

By Katherine Long

Seattle Times Eastside reporter

DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES

The Make-A-Wish Foundation made 13-year-old Erik Martin's dream of becoming a superhero come true.

Thursday was shaping up to be just another school day for 13-year-old Erik Martin, but then something extraordinary happened: Spider-Man called.

Spider-Man happens to be one of the few people who knows that Erik, too, has a secret identity — he's Electron Boy, a superhero who fights the powers of evil with light.

And Spider-Man needed Erik's help.

Erik, who is living with liver cancer, has always wanted to be a superhero. On Thursday, the regional chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation granted him that wish with an elaborate event that involved hundreds of volunteers in Bellevue and Seattle.

The local chapter, which serves four states, grants more than 300 wishes every year to children with life-threatening medical conditions, but only a few of them involve so many participants.

Pulling off a wish like this one required a big story, and a lot of heart. And so, with a note of panic in his voice, Spider-Man explained the dilemma: "Dr. Dark" and "Blackout Boy" had imprisoned the Seattle Sounders in a locker room at Qwest Field. Only Electron Boy could free them.

Erik got into his red-and-blue superhero costume, and called on the powers of Moonshine Maid, who owns a DeLorean sports car. For good measure, more than 20 motorcycle officers from the Bellevue Police Department and King County and Snohomish sheriff's offices escorted Electron Boy to Seattle.

"They shut down 405 — they shut down I-90," marveled Moonshine Maid, aka Misty Peterson. "I thought it would just be me, in the car."

At Qwest Field, Electron Boy was directed by frantic fans to the Sounders locker room, where the entire team was shouting for help behind jammed doors. With a little help from Lightning Lad, the alter ego of local actor Rob Burgess, Erik opened the door with his lightning rod. The Sounders cheered.

"Thank you, Electron Boy," said defender Taylor Graham.

"You saved us!" exclaimed forward Nate Jaqua.

"Good job, big man," said defender Tyrone Marshall. And forward Steve Zakuani mutely bowed his thanks.

Electron Boy seemed a little dazed by his powers. Out on Qwest Field, the Sounders gave Erik a hero's congratulations, posed for pictures and gave him a jersey and autographed ball.

Everyone was startled when, overhead, the Jumbotron crackled to life.

"Electron Boy, I am Dr. Dark and this is Blackout Boy," sneered an evil voice, as the villain — Edgar Hansen, and his sidekick Jake Anderson, both of Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" — taunted the young superhero. "We are here to take over Seattle and make it dark!"

On the Jumbotron, a video showed a Puget Sound Electric employee Jim Hutchinson trapped in the top of his bucket truck in front of PSE's Bellevue headquarters. Only Electron Boy could save him.

As Electron Boy's motorcade — the DeLorean, the 25 motorcycle officers and a white limo — rolled through downtown Bellevue, pedestrians stopped in their tracks and pulled out their cameras to take pictures. Clearly, somebody famous was in town. But who could it be?

"It's Electron Boy," Erik's older sister, Charlotte Foote, shouted out the window of the limousine.

More than 250 PSE employees gathered outside the company's headquarters and cheered as Electron Boy freed the trapped worker. "It was so loud, people in office buildings were looking out the window," said Make-A-Wish communications director Jeannette Tarcha.

But Dr. Dark and Blackout Boy were still at large. Electron Boy got a tip that the evil duo were at the Space Needle, where they had disabled the elevator and trapped people on the observation deck. Racing back to Seattle, Electron Boy stepped out of the DeLorean to a cheering crowd of dozens of admirers, and confronted his nemesis.

"How did you find us, Electron Boy?" Dr. Dark demanded.

Erik wordlessly leapt at Dr. Dark with his lightning rod, freezing the villain. Then he unlocked the elevator and freed the people trapped upstairs.

Bellevue police Officer Curtis McIvor snapped handcuffs on Dr. Dark and Blackout Boy, who couldn't resist some last words: "How can we thank you for saving our souls?"

A tiny smile played around Electron Boy's mouth. Just for good measure, he held his lightning sword to Blackout Boy's throat again. The crowd went wild. "Hip-hip, hooray!"

Seattle City Councilwoman Sally Bagshaw stepped forward with a key to the city and a proclamation that Thursday was Electron Boy Day. Afterward, Erik posed for the TV cameras, flexed his muscles and spent some time astride a Bellevue police motorcycle.

"He's over the moon," said Foote. "This is definitely beyond anything we thought it would be."

Watching her son run across the plaza in front of the Space Needle, mom Judy Martin said Erik goes to school when he's able, but is often too tired. "He hasn't had this much energy in a long time," she said. "They called it the power of the wish, and they're right."

Like any good superhero, Electron Boy kept his innermost thoughts to himself. But he did have one important thing to say:

"This is the best day of my life."

Katherine Long: 206-464-2219 or klong@seattletimes.com

Brent's A-Game

2010-04-11T07:40:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the NCAA March Madness Tournament this year, Brent owed me a great dinner! Although our brackets were busted by the University of Northern Iowa game over Kansas, I still came out ahead in overall points in our competition. (I had Duke playing in the final game and Brent had West Virginia -otherwise our brackets were really similar this year.) And, since UNI is where Brent got his Masters Degree, we were still excited for their win over Kansas early on!

Our prize was that whoever won got to choose a nice meal, either eating out or having the other person prepare something at home. I knew right away what my meal would be if I won: grilled steaks, garlic mashed potatoes, a yummy veggie, and a great dessert. Mmmm..... makes my mouth water all over again!

While Brent started in on the preparation, I snapped a few pictures of the daffodils that I picked from our plants right outside the front door.
They've been a lovely sign of spring, and a great way to be welcomed home. There are still lots of blossoms, even after I brought a few indoors.
Mmmm..... getting the steaks ready. They were great all on their own, and made just a little better by adding "Alpine Touch -Montana's Special Spices". It's a great little combination of spices that I've only seen sold in Montana and also western North Dakota. We were so glad we picked some up on our honeymoon last summer.
Yup... they were pretty big steaks.
I love my mashed potatoes best with the skins on.
Brent found a great recipe that had you add the garlic right to the pot of potatoes, boiling it all together.
See the garlic cloves mixed in?
After draining the water, you mash up the potatoes and garlic....
and add in a little bit of milk, butter, and Parmesan cheese for a nice flavor.
YUMMY!!
I threw out a few vegetable options so Brent could pick what he felt most comfortable with, and he went with lightly glazed carrots.
Melting the brown sugar and butter was a good idea, but adding in a little bit of lemon juice was the best part, to help the glaze still feel light -not too heavy or sweet.
They turned out well!
I snapped this quick picture to show you our new butter dish. It's a Butter Bell, and has been a wonderful addition to our kitchen. The butter stays fresh, and isn't too hard or too soft. It's just right. I'd recommend one if you're in the market for a new butter dish!
Brent did a great job of bringing his A-game. The meal looked and tasted wonderful. (And yes, we made room for potatoes and carrots on our plates!)
My wonderful chef. By the way, he hasn't always enjoyed grilling, but wow, he's getting good! You should come visit us and see for yourselves!
Okay. So just ignore the lack of make-up and instead look at the very satisfied face enjoying that yummy steak, cooked to perfection.
After our dinner, we took a walk to the public boat launch a few lots down from our place. I needed to get the food digesting, but also just wanted to watch the sunset from there. It was a peaceful night and a beautiful sunset.
I finally remembered to take this picture of the sign right at the entrance to the dock. It's funny to me that living in Minnesota for so long around lakes where people swim and fish and really just enjoy the water, here in Appleton that doesn't really happen. The area is teeming with paper mills that have dumped waste into the water for 100+ years, so even though the city/state is working on cleaning it all up, I'm sure it'll take years to get it back to people-friendly water. We love living on a lake, but we'll never swim in it and won't choose to eat any fish caught in it. Here's why:
The signs (there are even more that I didn't take pictures of) warn about all sorts of diseases that can be spread through swimming, or also eating fish from our lake. This one that I zoomed in on shows that you shouldn't really eat any fish from our lake, but if you should choose to do so, you need to limit yourself to no more than one yellow perch per week, no more than one walleye, white perch, white bass, small mouth bass, or northern pike per month, and no carp at all.
So, you can see that this picture shows the best part of living on our lake: just looking at it. We are really thankful we get this awesome view!
We walked back to our home to enjoy dessert. Now, I love dessert. I think about it, plan it out, don't allow myself to have it very often, but then truly enjoy it when I do. I had thought long and hard about what to request for my victory dinner's dessert and just couldn't come up with the right thing. Brent isn't a big fan of chocolate, and well.... I am. I didn't want to request something too hard for him to make and I didn't want to request something that would leave too much chocolate in the house for me to go crazy on. I felt stuck. Then I realized that I requested the dinner for the right day. You see, the day before we helped plan a game night and I made the sweets to bring. I should've taken pictures of all that, but didn't remember in time. It was fun to make a variety of things that I knew others would enjoy and I ended up going a little overboard (who, me?). I brought my famous "Kari Bars", Club cracker bark, peanut clusters, chocolate/butterscotch/white chocolate chip cookies, and these chocolate-covered strawberries. Since we had a few things leftover, I told Brent he could skip making dessert and we could just enjoy what was left. It was a good decision!
I'm sure we'll have many little contests in life where the prize is a good dinner, but boy-oh-boy am I glad I won this one! Thanks for the wonderful meal, Sweetie!

Because He Lives!

2010-04-04T06:32:00.003-05:00

Happy Easter! What a glorious day it is, Jesus Christ lives!

There are so many wonderful hymns and songs about Easter that I enjoy, but as I was spending a little time on YouTube this morning listening to them, I found the one I wanted to share with you today.

"Because He Lives"

Written by the Gaithers, here are the lyrics:

God sent His son, they called Him, Jesus;
He came to love, heal and forgive;
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives!

Chorus
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!

How sweet to hold a newborn baby,
And feel the pride and joy he gives;
But greater still the calm assurance:
This child can face uncertain days because He Lives!

Chorus
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!

And then one day, I'll cross the river,
I'll fight life's final war with pain;
And then, as death gives way to vict'ry,
I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives!

Chorus
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!

Matthew 28
⁵The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.'"

Thank you, Jesus!

Birthday Boy

2010-03-20T20:42:00.014-05:00

**Thank you all so much for your love and support, and mostly for your prayers. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends!**

And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

Last weekend Brent and I trekked back to the Twin Cities for Little David's third birthday party. His birthday had been the week before so he was already used to saying "My free" which translates to "I'm three" in his language. His parents hosted a birthday party for family and a few friends at a local restaurant that had a party room. Here's a look at the festivities:

The kids played a round of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" and as you can see, they missed the mark by just a bit.
David saw that a couple tails were in the right spot, but he might have missed that there was some peeking going on by a few of the little guests!
David looking on at the prize won by his little girlfriend.
The kiddos got to make their own pizza that was then baked in a kitchen they were able to tour, and the adults enjoyed subs and other goodies.
After dinner the kids played a round of "Birthday Bingo".
The birthday boy playing his board.
Julie called out the game.
He was intent on playing it right!
He was also intent on helping put the three candles, and a number 3, on the birthday cake.
Singing "Happy Birthday" to the kid that got shy with all the attention.
Blowing out the candles. He did pretty well!
Smiling for the camera...
and giving a big cheesy grin when we asked him to keep doing it!
Here he is opening the present from "Tah-wee and Uncle Bent"...
Which came with a musical card that he giggled at.
First off, some Matchbox cars. He loves ANYTHING that has wheels and can go fast. We gave him a set of emergency vehicles that had police cars, an ambulance, and a helicopter. He liked it!
I know this picture is blurry, but I had to include it because the experience was just so funny! He opened the second box from us, which had a few things in it, but the thing on top was this cute shirt. He got this huge grin, made this animated face and looked all excited about it. It was a shirt! This kid has never in his life been excited about clothes before, and it wasn't even a shirt that had a picture on the front. It was a cute shirt that his Auntie Kari thought would look nice for Easter and hopefully last him through the summer. It really isn't something he would normally get excited about. I think he was just so caught up in all the birthday present excitement, that just opening the box cover was going to enlist such a response. It was pretty funny!
Under the shirt and shorts were some coloring books,
and a "crayon roll" that I picked up at a local craft fair. For all you crafter's out there, click on this picture to enlarge it. It's a great gift idea! Just a couple pieces of fabric stitched so that one crayon would fit in each slot, and I was thinking of it as a great quiet thing for them to bring to church. If I think of it again, I'll take a close-up picture of it next time I see them, so you can see a close-up version of a great idea.
Here's the only picture we could get of David and his little girlfriend from preschool, but by then neither one would pose for a picture.
Here's the birthday kid after most people had gone home, showing "Tah-wee and Uncle Brent" how his helicopter works. He liked it.
Showing the camera his new toy.
And finally heading home after a fun afternoon with a fun group of people.

Happy Birthday, Kiddo! We love you!!

Where I've Been...

2010-03-13T06:00:00.002-06:00

Many of you have asked, either here on my blog, on Facebook, or on the phone, where I've been. I haven't always known what to say, or how to answer the question, but I think I'm finally ready to write about it. In fact, I first started this post back in January, but things were changing daily for a while that I could never hit "publish post". Our situation keeps changing, but I decided to just fill you in so I can move forward with blogging, and then I can keep letting you know little bits and pieces here and there.

So where have I been? I'm finding myself on the back side of a severe depression. It's hard to write that, because I've never been here before, but I would say that the week after New Year's is when I finally hit bottom, realized what was going on, and have been working hard to come back up out of the pit of despair.

I won't share all the details, but the quick version is that we've had some of the "normal" first-year-of-marriage difficulties, we've had some that are probably more likely when the bride is older and set in her ways, we've had two lay-offs for Brent in a matter of months, and we've been completely committed to moving, then completely committed to staying here (and both of those decisions have happened a number of times, with action steps taken, then taken back again). There are a hundred pieces of information I could share with you about each of those areas, plus more, but will spare you all the details.

All of this has happened with me having a terrible work schedule. I'm working nights, which is a shift I enjoy, and have been able to handle physically in the past, but right now I'm working random shifts and my body doesn't know what to do. It's literally killing me. I have a heart issue that's gotten much worse, other things are pretty messed up, and I'm beyond exhausted all the time. Sometimes I feel fortunate to sleep for 6 hours or so, but most of the time, I'm taking 1-2 hour naps, or sleeping just 3-4 hours total, spread all throughout a 24 hour day. I've tried a wide variety of things to help this be better, but nothing has seemed to work right. It hasn't been easy, and has led to many of our conversations ending with "I think I'm just too tired to think straight or complete my sentences right now" or has led to me falling asleep at the drop of a hat, at sometimes inopportune times. The bottom line is, this has been an overriding hardship for us.

Finally, the other part to all of this is how I've been feeling about it all. There's the guilt involved with wanting to be the best wife possible and feeling guilty when I feel like I've failed. There's the sadness that all of this has happened during our first year of marriage when I (mistakenly) thought we'd be living in complete bliss. There's the loneliness of missing family and friends and getting my hopes up that we'll be moving back and then trying to be okay with staying.

The good things are: we serve a faithful God, who draws me back to Himself time and time again, and Brent is a rock, who has been very supportive through all my ups and downs. There's the desire to keep it all in perspective when I think of friends or family going through some really hard things. I am not facing cancer treatments, or caring for a child in NICU, or grieving a lost parent or a lost child. I have an amazing husband, a wonderful family, an incredible circle of friends that lift me up in prayer. I know those things are true. Part of the issue is that we've really had more than our fair share of struggles, and part of it is that Satan has dug in to where I seem to be most vulnerable.

So, I haven't been myself lately, and I want to ask your forgiveness for that. If you have called or written and I haven't called or written back, it's not that I haven't wanted to, it's that for the longest time I really just wasn't physically able to. Once that was over, it became my thought that I didn't want to burden anyone with all of this. After all... no one wants to talk to the sad girl. Now that seems to be over and it's just that I haven't caught back up again yet. Please know that I DO want to talk and I DO want to stay connected! In fact, I crave that!!!

I also need to put out a public apology for not having sent out our wedding thank you notes yet. I have no real excuse, except for all of what I just talked about. I'm working on them, and am fully embarrassed that they're not mailed yet. There was the original delay in getting our pictures back, and we used one for a photo card, but now it's just that I want to completely show our appreciation for the generosity people showed to us and I've let that overwhelm me. I promise, though, they will be sent out!

So there you have it... where I've been. Right here in Wisconsin, which is where we'll be calling home. By the way, in case you haven't heard, Brent did get called back to work and while we weren't certain how stable his job would end up being, it seems to be okay for now and we're thankful for that. Now we're working on taking some steps to have my job situation be a little more manageable.

If you've made it this far into my long post, I'd sure appreciate your prayers as I continue to heal. Each day seems to be a little better and I'm grateful for that.

My Valentine

2010-02-13T15:07:00.002-06:00

I love him!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

2010-01-24T12:22:00.007-06:00

Happy Birthday, Dad!! We wish we could be with you today, but know that Brent and I are thinking about you and hoping you have a great birthday!

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from this last year.

Hanging out with his favorite grandson. Just before walking me down the aisle (while I was trying to gather my composure).
The older I get the more I've become Daddy's Little Girl. Here's that big moment in a father's life -turning his girl over to someone else.
David loves hanging out with his Grandpa.

I love this picture.

I love my dad's grin in this picture from the State Fair this past year, riding high with his sweetheart.

We hope you have a great birthday, and we hope it gets to end with a Vikings win!!

Love, Kari and Brent

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2010-01-01T15:49:00.003-06:00

We had our first Christmas as husband and wife! Last year was a whirlwind between spending time with our families in Appleton and Burnsville (5 hrs apart from each other) and moving me from Mankato to pick up stuff in Burnsville and then on to Appleton. I think that week we drove hundreds of miles back and forth a few times!

Anyway, this year we were able to enjoy a wonderful first Christmas together! I was scheduled to work on Christmas Eve (our unit ended up being closed so I got to sleep instead) so we stayed in town and celebrated quietly just the two of us. Then, because of the huge storm moving across the Midwest we weren't sure if we were going to be able to spend any time at all with our families, but on Christmas morning we decided to risk it. I'm so glad we did! Brent looked at every radar screen possible and determined the best out of four routes, so we had wet and rainy roads, but only slippery just a bit, until we reached the WI-MN border and hit huge blizzard conditions in the Twin Cities. But, by then, we could just go slow and get to my parents house safely!

Just in time to play with this guy!! Here he is with a favorite buddy of his, Uncle "Bent"!

Chuck and Penny were in town to visit Sara and our family, and here we all are at Christmas dinner. Yummy!
While cleaning up, this little guy had fun being tossed up high in the air.
Check out the big grin -on both of their faces!
I love him so much! I could just squeeze those cheeks, hug him to death, and tickle his neck all day long! He's been saying so many new words lately, and is finally saying Ta-wee and Bent for Brent and I. He's known our names forever, just was stubborn enough to not repeat things we asked him to repeat. That's finally turning around!
A few more silly pictures!
Flipping upside-down.
Wrestling on the floor.
David definitely loves all of us, but Grandpa might be his favorite of all!
Penny, Chuck, and Sara were wonderful additions to our family celebration. We're so glad they could join us! We missed Heidi who is teaching overseas, but I guess before Brent and I got to town they all got to talk with her on Skype. We've grown up with this amazing family feeling more like sisters and aunt/uncle versus cousins, so it was very fitting to have them there!
David posing in front of the tree and presents. He even helped Grandma decorate the tree this year.
We had a busy night opening all these presents!
We've always taken the traditional picture in front of the fireplace, so here is our first annual Andrews family photo!
The Olson family
All of us
Chuck and Penny
David helped Grandpa pass out presents, and loved his job! I took a video, but I've still never been successful at getting videos to load on Blogger and it takes forever to do it on vimeo and transfer it over. Maybe I'll figure it out another time....
We still like being called the newlyweds!
Later that night, or maybe it was the next, Grandma watched The Polar Express with David. He had seen it before, and loved most of it.
It was pretty cute to watch them.
On Sunday morning, Brent and I drove to La Crosse, where Brent's parents now live, to celebrate Christmas with them and his sister and her family. We didn't get many group pictures, but here is this year's Christmas tree. His parents are just getting settled in, but it was so fun to see the progress they're making on that.
One of the big jokes of the night, was that for our gift exchange (we drew names) I had asked for a fat skimmer. I was thinking of something that I could use to get the fat off the top of soups, stews, etc when I'm cooking. Well, my mother-in-law had my name, and searched all over and found this thing called "The Fat Mop"! We had many laughs over it, but I'm really excited to use it soon!
We drove back to Appleton Monday morning in time for me to work a shift at 2:45pm that day, and then had a few days here at home before going to pick up Micaela on Thursday for the weekend. Our final Christmas celebration was last night and I love this picture of how proud Brent looks, watching Micaela! One of the things we gave her was a game for her Nintendo DS called Brain Age, and it's got all these games dealing with intelligence. She's extremely smart, so it was fun to see her master this!
We went to our friend, Andy's, home for a New Year's Eve celebration last night, and today is a fun low-key day at home spent watching movies, updating blogs, applying for jobs, and updating on Ancestry.com [Candis: Brent's back on and loving it!] We also ate a delicious brunch where Micaela got the "You Are Special Today" plate. You see, she's pretty amazing all the time, but we were celebrating her huge accomplishment of becoming the first freshman ever at her school to make "Chorale". It's the elite singing group usually reserved for upperclassmen. Yeah, that's how talented she is! This afternoon, she and I made the wonderful pretzel-kiss-M&M treat seen here. I guess we ate a bunch already! They were yummy!
Tomorrow we're going to another holiday party in the evening and then we'll be taking Micaela back on Sunday. Overall, it's a wonderful time of the year!

Christmas Decorations

2009-12-29T22:30:00.003-06:00

I sent Brent around the house with the camera to snap a few pictures of our Christmas decorations. Here's what he came up with!

We have more decorations up (a tree, stockings, other knick-knacks, and even mistletoe!) but these are the cute picture to share with you.

Clueless, but not despairing...

2009-12-20T15:41:00.000-06:00

A change is coming in our life. The reality is, though, we're not sure just exactly what that change will be.

Brent found out on Wednesday (finalized on Friday), that his boss has to lay off all his employees. He's been working for a small appraisal firm, and cash flow just isn't what it should be. We're not sure just what this will mean for us, but you can be sure we'll let you know when we know more!

You might feel like you've read this post before, but that's just because the same thing happened to us back in April. But, this time we don't have to worry about planning a wedding, we're not supposed to close on a house in 10 days, and we don't have to find housing for us separately -since WE'RE MARRIED NOW! I said in our post the last time this happened that there are 1000 questions to be answered and we were at #50. This time around, we feel like there are a few less questions but we're still on the early side of coming up with answers. Do we move? Do we stay? What line of work will Brent chose to work in? The good thing is, though, we don't feel in despair. We're a little clueless about the answers to the questions, but we know they'll come.

We had no idea at the beginning of the year that Brent, who was in a stable field for 13 years, would face this twice in seven months. But, I keep trying to keep it in perspective. Sure, it's a hard to start out a marriage facing a job loss, twice. But I know people who are going through cancer treatments, I have a cousin with a daughter fighting for her life in NICU, and we really are doing okay. We've made some smart decisions financially to get us through a bit of time and I have a co-worker going on maternity leave within the next few weeks so I'll be able to pick up 1-2 shifts per week, for probably two or three months. And, Brent said he can take over a bit of the laundry and cooking so what else is there? :)

Life is an adventure, right? This wasn't in our plan, but we know that the Lord knows what's in store. Please pray with us for wisdom and patience as we seek His will in our future. Please also pray for Brent's boss and wife as they are good friends of ours and we know how much they're hurting right now.

A Thousand Times, YES!

2009-12-08T02:47:00.002-06:00

One year ago today, I was asked the best question of my life, and the answer was a resounding YES!!!!

It's amazing to think how much has changed in a year's time, and yet how it's flown by all at the same time.

What a great year!

Turkey, Turkey, Lots of Turkey

2009-11-29T23:32:00.000-06:00

Hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner was a success! Brent's parents came to stay with us on Wednesday night, then his sister and her family also joined us for a big Thanksgiving Dinner. I did the turkey and some of the sides, and Dee and Amy chipped in as well. When they guys were helping clean everything up, we realized that we were probably putting away 50% of what we made, so we literally had twice as much as needed. Oh well, I LOVE leftover turkey dinner with all the fixins'!

That was good, too, because that night I went to work the overnight shift, and brought with me ROUND TWO of Thanksgiving dinner in my compartmentalized Tupperware container. Yummy!

I got home at 7:30am and at 8:00 on the dot we were on our way to the Twin Cities to see my side of the family. I was able to sleep really well the whole way there (thanks once again to the air mattress in the back!) and as soon as I walked in the door my mom took one look at me and sent me to bed for another hour. Since I had been awake since 5:30am the day before, I complied readily!

While I was sleeping, my wonderful husband was helping my wonderful parents on ROUND THREE of Thanksgiving dinner. I woke up, got ready for the day, and was just finished as this fun family walked in the door!

That was one example of a potential Christmas card picture, but with a 2.5 year old, the pictures can be interesting! It had been almost two months since Brent and I last saw him, so of course he's grown and changed and become even smarter and funnier!

While we waited for ROUND THREE to finish up, David got to play with his favorite Uncle Brent. They really like each other! David loves puzzles, so he was excited to show this one to Brent.

He also loves all trucks, bulldozers, etc, so was having fun showing off this front-end-loader and all of the things it could carry.

After a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner (round three) we settled in for some fun, and the smallest of the group changed into his jammies. Here he is showing me his fishing pole puzzle. He's pretty proud of himself!

And finally before they had to leave, I got to read him some bedtime stories. "Where's Spot", "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" and "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?" are three of his favorites. It was fun to hear him say more words, and also think he's saying more words. (There could be a 2 minute monologue of mumble jumble that he's sure we understand. We don't.)

I sure love the kid, and miss him bunches and bunches!

On Saturday, I slept in fairly late and woke up to ROUND FOUR of turkey dinner (for a late brunch for me) then Brent and I were able to do a little bit of shopping (mostly wandering). Then I met up with my best friend, Aimee, after she was done playing a piano gig at a local Macy's. We shopped and ate Italian (NOT turkey!) and talked and talked and talked. It was wonderful! She dropped me off at my parents, came in for a bit to chat, then it was bedtime for all...

After church this morning, Brent and I went back to my parents while they finished up some stuff, and he finished my Italian food leftovers while I partook (is that a word?) of ROUND FIVE of turkey dinner. As you can tell, I really love turkey dinner! We watched the start of the Vikings game, then headed back here to Wisconsin.

Where, I'm happy to report, all those leftovers await me in the fridge!

Les Miserables, La Crosse, and Swine Flu

2009-11-12T10:52:00.001-06:00

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

2009-11-11T21:15:00.008-06:00

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

2009-11-03T03:54:00.003-06:00

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

2009-10-19T07:23:00.000-05:00

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!

2009-10-07T00:45:00.001-05:00

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

2009-10-02T05:30:00.004-05:00

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

2009-09-14T18:45:00.000-05:00

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!

2009-09-12T23:55:00.001-05:00

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

2009-09-02T20:26:00.008-05:00

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!!

2009-08-31T08:33:00.004-05:00

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!

Super Thursday

2009-08-15T06:57:00.007-05:00

For my first "official" blog post of married life there is much news to share. As of this last Thursday, August 13th, I have resigned from the Hilbert School District as Director of Library Media Services. As many of you are aware, I have been going through a somewhat tumultuous off-season. First I was going to be dropped to 50% time, so I went and found part-time employment after our honeymoon. Less than a week after starting I received a call from my Superintendent telling me they had located some funds and that he was going to recommend my time be increased. Jumping to the end, I found out last Wednesday that he was going to recommend at this coming Monday night board meeting that I be reinstated to a shared position between Hilbert and a neighboring school district who had cut all of their Media Specialist positions at the end of last year. After many years of being a media specialist I can assure you that when you are made to serve two "masters", especially in education, very little good comes of it.

As we, along with many of you, have been praying for this situation, our recent prayers have been that God would give us clear direction and make the choice obvious. I really think that was accomplished. Paralleling the school storyline, my part-time job had been going very well. I really enjoy what I am doing and the office in which I work. I currently work for Appraisal Group One of Oshkosh, WI. This company is not just your run-of-the-mill appraisal firm.

At AGO, they provide specialized appraisal services including eminent domain valuation, which is essentially fighting for the personal landowner's rights against large utility companies or the Dept. of Transportation (whose intent is to either take or use land to run pipelines, power lines, wind turbines, etc. without truly valuing the impact on people's property value). Additionally, their skill in expert testimony has led to identifying this in-depth style of appraisal to be referred to as "forensic" appraisal. A forensic appraiser then is a recognized expert witness who gives testimony in court as to the value of a property.

So, I begin my new journey as an appraiser trainee. The owner of the company has made a commitment to put me on the full-time fast track of licensing. What a blessing and opportunity. We will have to live frugally these next few years until I reach all my levels of licensing, but God is always faithful and as we diligently trust upon Him, He is faithful in ALL things.

I realize there will be many sacrifices along this path to come, and some have already begun to happen. I am grateful for such a supportive and loving wife in Kari. I can't begin to express how calming and stabilizing her support through all this has been. Additionally, it should be noted that she has had to sacrifice her RAV4 for the cause. This was an incredible gesture on her part as that car represented a lot of different experiences and feelings for her these past few years. She has given that sporty woman-on-the-go persona over and we now have joined the mini-van brigade! :| (Although I must say she will always be a "sporty" woman-on-the-go in my eyes. :))

Please continue to pray for us, and thank you for your continued encouragement. We greatly appreciate it.

Brent

Our Big Day

2009-08-12T23:26:00.002-05:00

Here's a glimpse into the super fun event that was Our Big Day! These are some of the pictures taken on my camera. I have more from my mom and brother-in-law, but those will have to wait for now.

I was blessed with a really wonderful personal bridal shower on Thursday evening and here are the fun friends that were able to join in the celebration. One of the best parts of it all? The planners specifically didn't plan any of the typical "bridal shower games" because they knew that what I would most especially like was time to just visit with all these fun friends that I don't get to see very often! It was a wonderful way to start off the wedding weekend!
Fun Fergus Friends, back together again! Carrie, Christine, me, and Laura.

It was so fun to have Christine and Carrie help me all throughout the wedding day as my personal attendants. We realized that the three of us have now gone full circle in blessing one another in this way on our wedding days. Here they are steaming my dress that had traveled all the way from Appleton to Fergus.

Brent and I chose to have StromStudio take our professional wedding photographs. We had a great time with Eric and Susanne all day and truly had a fun time during the photo session. First we went out to a few places for pictures of just Brent and I, and Carrie and Christine came along to help and also snap a few shots from my camera. It was so fun! I'm looking forward to seeing the professional shots and will share those with you once we get them.

(Here's the one picture all day that shows that yes, I did wear flip flops the entire day and was totally comfortable in them and SO thankful that I wasn't wearing flimsy high-heels since no one could see my shoes anyway! My skirt was blessedly big enough!!)

My handsome groom

Our wedding party joined us for some group shots. I am so happy with how the pictures look, seeing the fun red dresses that my bridesmaids wore, along with the fun, bright, and cheery flowers. Brent had three groomsmen, and then we each asked our brother-in-laws to be ushers along with my cousins Sara and Tami (the women in black dresses). Brent's nephew was our ring-bearer and my goddaughter was our flower girl.

Me and my girls

I love my ring! Brent gave me a beautiful diamond and I love how it stands out and sparkles. It's already been a month (how is that possible????) and I keep finding myself staring at it often! I'm also really happy with how our flowers turned out. I knew I wanted yellow roses and red gerbera daisies so I had those in my bouquet along with red roses and also a few calla lilies and some fun berries. The bridesmaids had yellow and red roses with the berries. I'm hoping to show you a better picture once I get my hands on one.

I was also really happy with how the sanctuary looked. There was a funeral at church on Friday morning and a piano concert on Friday evening so we weren't able to decorate until late on Friday night. It honestly wasn't stressful for me because I knew just what I wanted to do and that I wanted to keep it all fairly simple. I had found some really fun yellow pots and planted geraniums in them and added a few candles. I'll find a better close-up picture and show you later (or I think you can check the link to Candis' blog and see some pictures there).

What post could be complete without a picture of this guy? David was our honorary ring-bearer and from the very beginning, I knew that all I wanted was for him to be in a family picture. I had been a wedding coordinator long enough to know that there's no way you can count on a two-year-old to do something. So, I completely went into the day knowing that it didn't matter one way or another if he walked down the aisle or not, was in any other pictures or not, or really had any involvement whatsoever. He was in the family picture, he was not in any other picture, I think he walked down the aisle and then went directly to the nursery. After the ceremony we all went back to a side room to wait until the guests were ushered out and here's the shot I couldn't resist taking! What a hilarious cutie-pie!! He loves that puppy, and it appears he loves watching Veggie Tales as well!

And finally, a sweet smile to finish the post. I love this amazing girl! She's such a sweetheart, and it was so fun to have her involved on Our Big Day. I love when she answers the phone when I call, or wraps her arms around me in a hug, but especially when she gives me this shy, sweet grin!

There you have it, a glimpse into Our Big Day. I'm looking forward to seeing our professional pictures, or any other fun pictures that you might have to share with us. (feel free to email or send them!)

Wedding Sneak-Peak

2009-08-11T22:19:00.002-05:00

Here are just a few wedding pictures to preview! We haven't gotten our professional pictures back yet, so while we're waiting, I've been going through some of the pictures I've gotten from my mom or brother-in-law, etc. I am working on a few posts of all sorts of fun details, but as you can imagine, there are quite a few pictures to sort through!

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a few of the pictures that others snapped on my own camera. I see I uploaded them in reverse order and need to shut down my computer so I can get to work, but here's a little preview of what our BEAUTIFUL wedding day looked like!

More to come later!

And a Post-script: will you pray for us? It's been pretty busy since we've returned from our honeymoon and there are many things going on which require some decision-making. Will you pray for wisdom? I'll share more as I'm able, but Brent and I would appreciate the Lord's guidance and we've been asking Him for wisdom. Thank you for joining us in that request!

The Upside of the Day

2009-08-08T21:35:00.003-05:00

Brent and I decided to come to the Twin Cities this weekend. Here's how it went:
The upside of the day was at the end of it, when we went to ColdStone Creamery with my parents and Little David and his dad (Julie was working). It seems as though Grandpa thought that all little boys should learn about puddles. I think he caught on okay!

We're Back!

2009-07-24T19:08:00.004-05:00

We're back at the Lakehouse! We arrived back today after finishing our wonderful honeymoon.

Just where did we go? Well, if you've been following my blog for any length of time, you've heard me talk about my favorite place in the country. I've gotten to visit or live all over the place, and love all sorts of scenery, but I do have one favorite place. My wonderful husband (well, fiance at the time back in February) made arrangements for us to go there, and a few other beautiful spots as well.

As I'm sure you can guess, I have many pictures, but here are just a few for you to use as hints until I get the others all organized. Some of you might recognize a location instantly and others might need to do a little research!

I can't wait to read your guesses, and remember, there's more than one location!!

(And, if you're on Facebook, our photographers posted some lovely wedding preview shots. I can hardly wait to see the rest!)

Where's Waldo?

2009-07-16T22:34:00.001-05:00

I mean, "Where's Kari and Brent?"

On our honeymoon, of course! As some of you know, we decided not to tell anyone where we were going on our honeymoon until we got back (but yes, we did let our parents know). Since then, we decided that it might be fun to give a few hints and then read what the comments are. Some of you might not have any idea, and others might guess right away!

Here are just a couple of hints, so first of all guess what each picture is, and then see if you can guess where we are now!

At one point I thought I might blog a bit more, but let's be honest.... it's our honeymoon! See ya later!

[and of course I'll be posting pictures sometime of our wedding -which turned out to be a beautiful, fun and perfect day!]

The Wedding Day

2009-07-11T06:30:00.001-05:00

It's here! It's finally here! A day I've been waiting for... for a really long time! I am so excited to become Brent's wife in just a few hours!

I thought I'd just post quick to ask you to pray. Please pray for us as we begin our married life. Please pray for all the details of the day. Please pray that I remember all of what happens, because I've been told it will go by quickly and I'd like to remember everything! Most of all, please pray the Lord's blessing on the start of this new adventure together.

Toes and Fruit and Fireworks

2009-07-07T21:52:00.008-05:00

This is my last night in Appleton for a few days, and I'm happy to report that everything is pretty much done for the wedding! There are just a few little notes I'd like to write to people, but all the other "stuff" is done and even packed into the car! My eyelids are ready to close, so I'm praying for a good night's sleep tonight so that I can be refreshed when we leave here in the morning.

Brent is spending the evening with some buddies, at what is my guess of a pretty tame bachelor's party! We've had his daughter, M, with us since Sunday, so tonight she and I grabbed some dinner, did some shopping and picture taking...

and got our toes looking cute for the wedding! Fergus Falls, here comes some fun feet! :)

We've had a great few days together, and it's been wonderful to have this time here in Appleton before the true busy-ness of the week starts. It's been so nice to have the projects all finished up, and M helped finish the last one! If you're at our wedding, you can thank her for the wonderful ribbon-tying she did on our programs!

Backtracking a few days, I had to work the night of July 3rd, so when I woke up on the Fourth, Brent had come over to work on a few things. We talked about eating something and settled in on an omelet and also some fruit. I tackled the omelet and asked Brent to do the fruit. When I turned around, here's what I saw!

I knew I was marrying a wonderful man, but really? This is too much. How can I be so lucky? Here's a picture of table set for that meal, and after I snapped the shot I realized I needed to dig out a couple of our red Fiestaware pieces we've started to receive, so I did just that and we've enjoyed eating on them! And they fit in so perfectly with our red dining room! More pictures to come later, once we actually have some time to unpack a few boxes...

Later on our Fourth of July celebration happened at our pastor's house with his family and a few other friends. Their son, B, hosted a magnificent fireworks show, that I've heard is an annual tradition. What fun! GREAT JOB, B!!

We trust you each had a wonderful day celebrating our country, and remembering those that have fought to keep our freedoms!

Full of Blessings in Fergus Falls

2009-07-06T23:26:00.000-05:00

[The pictures for this post were uploaded shortly after the fun day, but there is so much I've been wanting to say, it's taken a while to finish. At this point, though, I thought I would just publish the post and trust that you know the huge level of thankfulness I wish to convey!]

I was blessed with a beautiful bridal shower in Fergus Falls! It was such a lovely day, filled with fun people, delicious food, thoughtful gifts, and lots of blessings. I have been so blessed to call Bethel my home church, and while I haven't lived in Fergus for two years now, it will always feel like that. It's been so fun to start attending our Lutheran Brethren church in Appleton, and I know we will continue to grow in the fun friendships we've started there, but it was also so fun to be back in Fergus and feel so loved and missed.

THANK YOU to each of you who were able to come to the shower, THANK YOU to those of you who sent gifts, THANK YOU to the wonderful friends who helped host it. I felt so incredibly blessed and returned to Brent on cloud nine!

These dear little friends helped distribute all the gifts.
Here are the wonderful friends who helped organize everything.
O and A also helped greet people or offer punch.
My mom was able to be there, and a wonderful added bonus is that our annual national church convention was going on, so there were other fun family and friends in town for the day. At first I started getting nervous that it would be too big of a conflict, but it ended up being a wonderful bonus to have so many out of town friends there! As some people have said, I'm a "national" woman, and it was so fun to have this become a "national" shower! Here you see a familiar face to this blog, especially from my time living in Seattle in 2007, my mom's cousin June! It was so fun to have her there for my shower and she's able to come back for the wedding as well!
Some of my dear Fergus friends who were able to come.
Opening a lovely gift. Brent and I feel SOOOO blessed as we look around our house now!
My friend, Mandy, and her dear little guy (who has the best hair!).
Christine helped with organizing everything, and she asked me a few multiple-choice questions so that I could answer them and introduce a little about Brent to everyone there. I'm not at home at the moment to tell you what some of the questions were, but I will say that Brent laughed loudly at a few of them when I shared them with him later on!
Candis gave a little history of specific wedding traditions and then tied in a spiritual aspect to them. This was especially fun thinking back on ALL the MANY wedding conversations we've had together over the years! On a side note, I am so incredibly blessed that she agreed to be our wedding coordinator, since I really have been talking about weddings with her for years! I know that any one of a hundred things that could surprise us on our wedding day will go just fine, as Candis will handle it exactly how I would want!
One of my dearest friends and bridesmaids, Jenn, and her girls helped stock our cupboards by reading a fun poem that included many things like "pledging" our love to each other, having a "fantastic" "life" filled with "joy" and so on and so on, and gave commercial items of the same name for us to enjoy! Rumor has it that her husband, Ryan, who I have known since I was 15, especially liked helping write the poem! :)
WHAT A FUN SURPRISE! My team-leader from my trip to Africa last fall happened to be in town for the church convention and was able to stop by the shower! Trisch shares my love for Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and has loved following my love story with my very own Mr. Darcy. She has prayed for us, asked how things are going, and is even able to make a trip out for the wedding! It was the first time I had seen her since Brent and I have been engaged and it brought tears to my eyes seeing the tears in her eyes when she saw me filled with joy. She's an amazing woman that I am so blessed to call my friend!
My mom's cousin, Ginny, (in the pink) and some of her dear friends who are some of my dear friends as well!
Some of the beautiful red and yellow decorations (yes, I've been hinting at our wedding colors by the background theme on my blog!). The yellow pot is even A's flower girl "basket"!
OH MY WORD! My dear friend, Carrie, who was so disappointed to have to miss the wedding but so excited to be in town for my shower, made me a beautiful gift! She is a fellow quilter, who has made more wonderful gifts for people than maybe anyone else I know. She also is a kindred spirit with my love of fabrics, and also with dishes! She completely understands my love of a 1950's style kitchen as well! Well, she faithfully follows this blog so when she read about The Lakehouse, she knew just what to do. She quilted this wonderful picnic blanket, complete with waterproof backing so it can sit on the grass. Then she filled a picnic basket with wonderful vintage tableware so that Brent and I can enjoy a picnic out on our dock or lawn! How incredibly thoughtful! I LOVE this gift!
[I need to say here, that one of the wonderful, amazing things about this shower is that there were so many wonderful gifts like Carrie's! People have been so incredibly generous, it's been quite overwhelming! And shower's at Bethel are so fun because a bride knows she'll get many lovely things from her gift registries, and she'll also get many lovely gifts that have been picked out or made just for her! I love knowing that Sally was praying for me and Brent as she crocheted a gorgeous doily, and Brent's already enjoyed the homemade jam/jelly that Vonnie is known to bless a bride with and there are just so many other lovely gifts I'm actually sitting her with tears in my eyes thinking of the HUGE blessing you all are to me!]

Here we are as the shower is winding down, and you can see that June helped me prepare for the wedding rehearsal by making a "ribbon bouquet" to carry that night.
Her husband, Joel, is one of my favorite people and he even stopped by to say hi. Thanks for your bravery, Joel... coming to a ladies shower! :)
After the guests left, my mom and I were able to enjoy some time with Jenn and Barb while we cleaned up and ate dinner as well. It took a bit of time to pack all the gifts up because there were so many we were blessed with!
As you can see, this is a post full of blessings! I know I was told that my final gift of the day is that I don't need to write thank you notes for each individual gift, but THANK YOU again and again for the wonderful shower of blessings I received!

Father's Day at The Lakehouse

2009-06-30T04:59:00.000-05:00

We invited Brent's family to the Lakehouse for Father's Day. They came a bit early so they could enjoy some time on the dock fishing.

Here are the men out helping the kids (Brent's nephew and niece) or throwing in their own lines, while Brent's mom, sister and I spent time on the deck watching them.
Wade is great about always baiting the hook for the kids.
Showing Jericha how to cast.
Wade caught himself a Northern Pike that was a pretty good size! He kept it swimming around in the basket for a while, but then let the fish go. That was the first fish caught at the Lakehouse, so I'd say he had a pretty good Father's Day!
Jericha quickly became an expert at casting.
Jeremiah -learning the art of just sitting there, waiting.
And finally, here you see that Jericha wasn't able to catch any fish, just seaweed. In fact, you can see by the corner post that she was growing a little pile of all the seaweed she kept catching! :)
After a good fishing experience, we enjoyed our grilled brats/dogs and a wide assortment of other goodies. I'd say it was a good Father's Day for those involved, and fun to be with family!

I want to be sure to say thanks to my dad for being such an amazing example of what a great husband and father should be. They often say that women marry someone like their dad, and while I didn't go searching that out, it's amazing to see all the great similarities that Brent shares with my dad! ~~ Also, a quick thank you to Randy. Thanks for raising such a wonderful man of God -who turned into exactly the man I needed to marry someday!

Moving to Wisconsin

2009-06-23T05:37:00.001-05:00

It's hard to have a post and not have a picture of this little guy, so why even bother?
He's was "helping" us on moving day in Burnsville. We seem to be having a LOT of those lately -moving days. But, we're almost done and will be done for a while now! Last weekend I went to Fergus for a bridal shower (that's another post I'm working on) while Brent stayed in the Twin Cities and took charge loading all my stuff that's been in storage for TWO years into a U-Haul truck to move to Wisconsin. I got back just in time to help with one or two things from my parents house, where Little David and his family stopped by. Actually, they came the day before to help Brent and my dad load all the other stuff as well. Somehow my mom and I are the only ones that missed out on the real fun. The truth is, I was pretty insistent that all the loading happen while I could help, not because I wanted to control the situation, but because I felt bad that everyone else would be doing "my" work for me. Seeing as I'm marrying the most wonderful man in the world, he was just as insistent right back that he's now responsible for my stuff and would be just fine even if he had to do it all himself. Because I have a great family, they all pitched in so he didn't have to do it alone. I'm pretty blessed!

This little guy also had fun trying out the "new" trike that Grandma found for him.
Here's what I saw the whole way back to Appleton. I've been living here since January, but now, finally, all my stuff is here as well!
He did such a great job packing that not a single thing shifted during the entire trip back, and I was pretty surprised that ALL my stuff fit into the 17' truck and even had extra space! (I was pretty sure a 24' truck would just barely fit!)
My prince, sitting in our new living room, carefully mapping out how the new shelves we bought would fit against a certain wall. I'm happy to say I don't have to live in all those boxes anymore! We've done a good job of unpacking some or moving others to the basement for now.
My "RockStar" of a fiance, enjoying his "RockStar" of a drink provided from a fun poem/skit at the bridal shower (more to come later).
I am so excited that in 18 days he'll be mine forever! I'm looking forward to so many things about being married, but lately it's that I can hardly wait to LIVE in the same place finally! He won't have to come visit me in the Lakehouse, but he can be here all the time! Only 18 more days to go!

One Month...

2009-06-11T07:59:00.003-05:00

We're really only a month away now! Yippee!!!!!! I have loved this engagement stage, and all the wedding planning, dreaming, and fun stuff that's gone along with it, but I am so ready for this next month to go by quickly!

If anyone in Fergus is able to save me a copy or two of last Saturday's Lifestyle section from The Daily Journal, that would be lovely! It's not online yet, and I've been excited to see it!

Bridal Showers

2009-06-06T18:49:00.007-05:00

It's a lazy Saturday here in Appleton! I worked last night, slept part of today, waited for the INTERNET GUY to come and install the beloved internet, and have been doing stuff online since then! Brent's out of town for the weekend at a friend's place near Madison, doing a whole boardgame tournament weekend. I guess he won last night during his first game ever of Settler's of Cataan, but today lost during some six-hour battleship-type boardgame. He was between games earlier when he called and was looking forward to whatever was next. It'll be fun to hear him recap the weekend when he gets back tomorrow, and I think this was a nice way for him to unwind after his last week of school with the students -he just goes back for a couple days next week to wrap things up. Then I get to enjoy the benefits of him working for a school district = summer's off!!! :)

So, I'm here at The Lakehouse, watching the rain outside, listening to The Sound of Music on the TV in the background (not one of Brent's favorites, but definitely one of mine!) and taking the time to upload some pictures to Facebook and updating this blog! I'm so excited to have internet again, and while these next 34 days will continue to be busy leading up to the wedding, I'm looking forward to life settling into more of a routine, including blogging more regularly again!

Last Saturday I had the enjoyment of attending my first Bridal Shower! The ladies from Ebenezer Church, plus my maid of honor, Aimee, threw a lovely bridal shower for me. I felt so incredibly blessed! My mom and sister were, of course, at the shower as well so here you see Julie and I enjoyed the delicious food that was prepared.
These lovely ladies have known me my whole life and blessed me with organizing all this (plus one more who had a work conflict). Joan, the second from the left, said "you're just like one of our own daughters" when she called me about the shower. THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all the work you put into this wonderful shower!
I had a cousin who was able to come and luckily she was willing to snap a few pictures for me!
Here are some of the ladies who attended the shower. Many of these women were friends with my Grandma, and just like the baby shower held for Julie when David was born, I became overwhelmed thinking about how wonderful it would've been to have her there. We were in the Fireside Room at church, the very place where I sat each Sunday after church with my Grandma, drinking water out of a coffee cup, listening to her talk to these friends, sharing stories with them. I miss her and wish she could be a part of all this celebrating! (It would be her birthday tomorrow, June 7th.)
My mom gave Brent and I a Christmas Book, one where we can write about our celebration each year, which becomes a fun way to recap the year. I love looking through my mom's version of this same book.
Enjoying the coffee and fellowship!
It was fun to start getting some of the things we've registered for, including these great library versions of classic board games. Brent the Librarian loves the look of these, and we both love playing board games!
Passing around the gifts for all to see.
Fun to have "help" from little friends!
Then, later in the day on Saturday, Brent and I were both invited over to have dinner at David and Julie's place. It was fun to relax with them, have Julie try on her bridesmaid's dress for me, but mostly to play with this little guy! I just LOVE this face!!
He's such a goof-ball -always up to something. Or at least, he always looks like it!
Part of dinner was some pasta with alfredo sauce, and it was HILARIOUS to watch him eat this! The best picture is on Brent's phone, where the pasta is hanging from his mouth down to his shirt! Then, it was so great to watch him slurp it up, and push the last little bit into his mouth with his hands.
He was pretty proud of himself, and only maybe slightly realized how much we were all laughing at him!

It was a wonderful weekend back in the Twin Cities! Thanks again for the shower, the dinner, and the relaxing time together!!

This coming Saturday, June 13th, will be another shower, back in Fergus Falls. Some wonderful friends there are throwing that for me and I'm so looking forward to it! It will be an open house from 3:00-5:30pm with a short program at 4pm, and will be held down at the LB Seminary building. I am so looking forward to being back in Fergus, seeing all of you friends there, and I know there might even be some "extra" people in town for the CLBA annual convention. If you're one of those people, I'd love to see you as well! Come on down!

Happy Birthday, Brent!

2009-05-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

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!

The Lakehouse

2009-05-26T04:25:00.003-05:00

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!

Door County

2009-05-18T12:19:00.005-05:00

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!