Party for some, work for others

Today was Kristin's graduation party. I went up to the cities with my parents and Ryan and Abby this morning and hung out there all day. Kudos to my sister and those who helped her, it was a smooth running party with plenty to do! Plus good food, can't go wrong with that. And you couldn't have asked for a more perfect day weather wise.

So I spent the day hanging with my family and giving Kristin advice I'm sure she will follow :)

Scott spent the day at home being very productive. He completely cleaned out the shed, built shelves and repacked everything into new storage containers. He showed me when I got home and it blew me away!!

He did such a good job at it! I wish I had before pictures but then again I'm glad I don't even have to see the shed that way again! Above are the shelves he built.

Revised Camping

After the Bissen Bash, we got together with our friends Nate and Suzanne and their two little girls plus my niece and nephew came by to hang out. We went to Chester Woods and unfortunately although we planned on camping, the campground was full when we got there. So instead we found a little picnic area and set up our food and chairs around the fire pit there. We enjoyed playing baseball with the kids and hanging out. Suzanne and I (along with all four kids) went down to the beach after dinner. Didn't have a camera there because I know I would've gotten sand on it, but it was a good time. Mikayla and Ryan kept making themselves dirty from the sand and then cleaning off in the lake. They must've done that about 20 times! Scott got some great pictures of the kids.

Mikayla


Elyana


Abby


Ryan as a catcher


Although I don't like this pic of me, it pretty much sums up what I go through for my nephew!

Bissen Bash

Every year (for the last 5 generations) our neighbor's (Theresa) family throws a party called the Bissen Bash. They get together at a wonderful house on the Mississippi River in Winona (actually Homer to be exact, which really isn't a technical town anyway). Saturday we went and it was a great time. We sat around enjoying spectacular views and great food while getting to know our neighbor and her son better. Gus enjoyed himself very much too! Thanks for a great time, we'll be back next year!

View from the road


Gus' view...ahhh the life!


View from river


River view


Barge

Gus

Below is a link to a video of our obedient pug. Keep your expectations low and you will be impressed :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JlSokNkHg

Homemade Frozen Dinners

Happy belated Father's Day to all Dads out there! For Father's Day this year we went over to my parents and grilled out. I was telling my Mom it was more like Mother's Day because my Dad ended up working outside and my Mom and I cooked 6 different entrees to freeze in individual portions. We each ended up with 20 little meals!! We made:



Mini Meatloaves

Jambalaya

Spinach with Angel Hair pasta

Lasagna

Garden Vegetable soup

Grilled Citrus Chicken



Now we have lots of tasty meals to choose from for lunch or dinner! It was a fun time and not too much work either. Hopefully we will do this again and again.

Baby Bird Rescue

When we were at my parents I heard a chirping sound in the garage. There had been some baby birds in a nest in between the garage stalls outside on a wreath for the past few days so I figured it was a bird from the nest. I couldn't see the little guy so I opened the garage door hoping he would fly out eventually. A few minutes later we went back out and I heard him chirping again. So we looked through the stuff in that area for a while and finally saw him sitting on the ground. Poor little guy, he probably doesn't even know how to fly yet. So anyway we (well I guess it was just Scott) ended up getting him out. Scott used a dustpan but eventually gave up on that and let the bird sit on his finger. Now he's free!!

CareFest 2007

This weekend for our "festival" we did CareFest. We did this last year too. CareFest is a day where Christians from many different churches around the area are assigned to several different locations in Rochester to volunteer. Most volunteers are painting in the public schools but others do landscaping work and cleaning too. This year we were at Longfellow (the only year round school in Roch). We spent the day painting, getting to know members of our church and inhaling deadly fumes :) It was a good time and we got a lot done!

Before CareFest...ready to go!


Giving high school advice to "Yoda" (a guy who literally talks exactly like Napoleon Dynamite!)


The verse on the back of our shirts


Doing trim work


Scott annoyed that I'm taking his picture :)

Kristin's Graduation

I'm just randomly putting things on here that we've done in the last month. It won't normally be like this.

Our niece, Kristin, graduated just a week or so ago. Yay Kristin!! Congratulations! We spent the day there and then went out to dinner at the Olive Garden. We continued our tradition of reading Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss around the table (done at all HS graduations in the fam so far). Kristin will be attending St. Cloud this fall.

KOA Camping

We camped this past weekend in Jordan, MN. We were originally gonna go to the Strawberry Festival in Winona but figured out it sounded pretty low key so decided to go to the cities instead. The campsite was decent with an indoor pool and they even had Shrek 2 playing that night for kids. This was our first time using our new camping bin :) Ours friends Eric and Leah use a camping bin when they camp and we decided it would be helpful to have one also. In our bin you ask? I will put a list in case you want to make one (and so we can remember what's in it):

Paper plates/bowls
Plastic silverware
Coffee mugs
Coffee
Cooking Pot
Pot Holders
Lighter
Fire sticks
Pam
Tongs
Spatula
Hot Cocoa
Wipes
Table Cloth w/ clamps
Flashlight/Lamp
Sunscreen
Bug Spray
Citronella Candle
Hand Sanitizer
First Aid kit
Salt/Pepper
Paper Towels
Plastic Bags
Oatmeal
Air Mattress

I think that's it :) Here are some pics:

The site


Relaxing


Getting dinner ready (I apparently use my foot)


Our yummy hobos!

Elba Fire Tower

While filming some virtual tours in the area, I drove by this little place and decided to climb the tower. I was feeling adventurous that day (plus I had a cheeseburger and fries kids meal earlier and wanted to burn the calories). Here are some pics of my little adventure.

It was a long way up, I think over 2,000 steps.

The tower

View

View

Don't look down!

On my way down

Engraved stairs

Summer of Festivals - Rhubarb Festival, Lanesboro

This was such a nice little festival. When we showed up we saw Garrison Keillor and a few video cameras following him around. The Rhubarb Sisters sang some very cheesy rhubarb songs, there were rhubarb olympics, rhubarb contests and just rhubarb everything.

The best part was the rhubarb tasting. We got to sample 30 different unique rhubarb dishes!! It was so tasty, but very filling. I think we ended up choosing the pickled rhubarb as our favorite, mainly because it was the most unique and centered around the rhubarb. Other dishes just put some rhubarb in it but you couldn't really taste it. I also bought a tomato plant, very excited for fresh tomatoes. Also, both of these pictures got into our local paper!!

The worst part? We parked on the wrong side of the highway and got a parking ticket! The ticket was supposedly for $127!!!! I guess instead of raising our taxes Pawlenty decided to add "little" fees to our parking tickets. Anyway, we weren't very happy about that, especially since you'd think they'd clearly mark not to park there (there were several cars there before we parked) especially since there was a festival going on. Anyway, I ended up calling the office and the lady told me the ticket was only $24, maybe the bill hasn't gone through yet not sure. But that was much better :)

We bought some rhubarb cake and garlic bread for our get together with our friends Eric and Leah later that night. Good times :)

Summer of Festivals - Whalan Stand Still Parade

Scott and I are making this the Summer of Festivals. Actually that's kind of what started my idea for a blog, I wanted to blog each festival. We want to focus on going to festivals that are related to food (Scott's idea). The first one we went to was actually the Whalan Stand Still Parade, not related to food but there was still food there of course. Anyway, I made a blog on our website for this and I don't really feel like doing it again so here's the link:

http://209.23.153.221/newelder/blog.htm

Next I will post our time at the Rhubarb Festival in Lanesboro.

My First Post!

Well, I've decided to follow the crowd and begin a blog. I just think it's so neat to record your life and be able to capture the memories. Wow, sounds cliche. Seriously though, I read 4 blogs right now and although you think reading about people's every day lives may get boring (and especially those writing them think they're not interesting) they always are interesting to read. Our photographer Robin has a blog and it reminds me a lot of Summer's. They both include lots of pictures and that's what I hope to do. I love looking at pictures and I think they capture so much more than what we can say (more cliches...how original am I?) Plus we're photographers so we really have no excuse not to take pictures. My sister, Laura, and her friend Dodi are the other two blogs I read. They are moms and talk a lot about their busy lives as moms so needless to say they don't have many pictures :) Their lives are very different than mine so very interesting to read.

Anyway, thanks to those who have inspired me to blog (even to those who didn't know they inspired me...Summer and Dodi). Now the next question is, who do I send this link to?? Maybe I'll write a couple more then send it.

Happy Hump Day!