Unfortunately I did not take enough pictures over our 4th of July vacation in Bismarck to document ALL the phone we had : ( We did have a wonderful looong weekend though! We got to see lots of family, and many we rarely get to see, golf, play slapnuts, jet ski, eat, eat, eat....good stuff!

This weekend I am looking forward to hanging out with the Kautzman cousins in the city for Brittany's Bachelorette party!!!! We will have to party hardy, b/c Britt and Chris fly in Saturday night and leave Sunday morning! I will try my best to get some good pics!

Here's a pic of our new shutters - exciting I know!

Camping, Round 2

Minneopa State Park

A couple of weekends ago, we went camping about an hour south of our home with a couple of our good friends. Besides the constant rain/drizzle, we had a pretty good time. The best part was the little bit of hiking we were able to do, near a waterfall. I'm pretty sure it is the first waterfall I have ever seen. We managed to squeeze in small Brats grilling, s'more toasting, and a little slap nuts between rainfalls.

We are pretty busy the next couple of months, so who knows if we will get another camping trip in or not. If we do hopefully we will have some better weather!

Another GREAT movie I recommend: The Other Boleyn Girl. I found out at the end that it was based on a true story. A interesting piece of history!

New favorite pizza: Papa Murphy's Herb Medittarean Delite - YUM!

Other random updates: the new sliding patio door is officially in and complete! New digital thermostat is installed and working efficiently (its flush with the wall so it looks sweet) Shutters are painted, looks much better than before. I mowed the lawn for the first time. It was a good thing Blaine was around, b/c it stopped like 6 times, and I can't get it to restart. The neighbor chick who was mowing her lawn at the same time and totally kicked my butt - dang. We bought a new mower, much needed. Now I can take her anyday! Today is the first day of July - crazy. Today is also like Friday, b/c we have the rest of the week off and heading to the Biz for some fourth of July fun!

Stay tuned for pics of our lovely (rainy) camping trip last weekend!!!!

Across the Universe

I highly recommend the movie Across the Universe for any Beatles fan. The singers (all Beatles songs!) are just unbelievably awesome. The movie is a little "trippy" at parts, but each song fits into the story so well. Watch it! See some of my favorite clips below!

Let it Be

Blackbird

I Want You

Strawberry Fields

All You Need is Love

Ok, so I pretty much posted the whole movie!

Getting in touch with nature...

Camping: Afton State Park


The unique aspect of this camping experience is that the campground is about a mile hike from where you can park. This was more work than we expected, and left us hot, thirsty, and eventually very sore (at least I am).

Deja's first time camping. We think she loved it. She was such a good girl the entire time.

Interesting.

Sweet view of the St.Croix river.


Down by the beach. Deja had a blast trying to chase waves.

We ended the night with a bonfire - hotdogs and s'mores. YUM. Well actually the night ended when we heard an siren telling us a sever thunderstorm was on its way. Less than a minute later it was downpouring and the wind was gusting over 60mph. No time to walk a mile back to the car, but our tent held its own and we survived. We were too exhausted to do more hiking in the morning so we packed up and headed home. We hope to return again soon!

Blaine and I enjoyed a nice weekend with family.

Friday:

Sylvia's big debut - we love the pretty little peanut!

Crazy Kautzman's

(sadly had to climb through the window to access the deck - new door should be here anyday I hope)

Saturday:

BBQ and Blues Fest - downtown

(Nice weather and good music!)

Alexis' Open House

More Kautzman fun!

Sunday:
No pictures, but it was a successful day of Ikea, Dick's, grilling, and National Treasure 2.

We hope to have more visitors again soon - always a good time!!

Breaking Stuff..

Ok so today I am working from home/taking a half day of vacation.


So the lawn desperately needs to be mowed. I attempted on Wednesday (Blaine was at the Twins game) to try it out myself. After struggling to get it out from the shed under the deck, I couldn't even get it to start. So I gave up. Well, then Thursday we got a nice storm, giving no chance to mow again. I might try to tackle it again today, but its kinda raining off and on.


Also, by the way things have gone so far today, I am a little scared to do anything else. First of all, part of our fence in the back yard fell down. Nice.




Secondly, while vacuuming a rug (I should have just shook it) the vacuum just quit. Great. At least I was able to get the upstairs completely vacuumed. Our poor guests.

I also sucked up part of my shirt ribbon and totally ruined it. hahaha.

Hopefully, the rest of the cleaning will be more successful!


Here are some pics of our recent updates:

The Upstairs Bathroom - We painted a taupe color (huge improvement over the spotted pee yellow)





Blaine took out the old nasty plastic light cover and put in a new one. It surprisingly looks really good, and adds a little modern flair. It will work until we can afford to put in new flooring and get rid of the mauve counter tops and tiling in the tub!



We painted the front door purple (eggplantish)!!! I am also surprised at how much I LOVE it! Blaine also painted the storm door trimming silver (the gold wasn't going with our nice door handle)
We ran out of time to finish everything we planned. But as soon as we get another free weekend we plan on painting the shutters. Right now they are the same color as the house, which makes no sense. Why even have shutter then? There are lots of little projects to do around the house this summer - can't wait!!

Have a great weekend!

Oh Monday...

Monday was......interesting.

I am still not feeling all that well, but when to work anyway. So here's the fun part: after blowing my nose, I all of sudden felt it running. I thought to myself "wow, where did that come from". So I look down, blood everywhere - GROSS. On my new shirt, on my workpapers, on the table. YIKES. Fortunately, the bathroom wasn't too far, and I only passed by one person on the way. I was able to get it to stop, and get it out of my shirt. However, my workpaper doesn't look so pretty. Whoever has to review that is going to know how much blood, sweat and tears I put into it - literally. hahaha. I just felt bad for the girl I was working with in the conference room - she witnessed it all. FUN.

So I made it through the workday. When I got home Blaine was frantically cleaning the house. Also interesting. Turns out he found out through Matt, a guy at work who is looking for a temporary place to live. So we thought we'd let him check out, meet the guy, scope out the situation.

Well, I had to run Deja to her vet appointment. What a GOOD little girl. I was very impressed. So many other dogs, it was super busy, and she was quiet and good. She said hi to everyone sitting in the waiting area, sniffed everything, and then hung out quietly by me as we waited forever. She was good with the vet too. They had the darndest time finding her butt to take her temp. Had to call in reinforcements - too much hair. She didn't like that so much, and I felt bad as I witnessed the whole debacle. They took her out of the room to take her blood, but I still heard the big squeal. Poor thing. She did not want to be away from me at all after that. Everything looks good though! Just need to bring in a stool sample. They offered to pull it out of her, but gave Deja a break, and said we would wait for it to naturally come out. I hope Blaine will handle that part. haha. They suggested teeth cleaning, which we knew she needed. I just didn't know how much it would cost - YIKES again.

When I got home S. was checking the place out. Seemed like a decent guy. Apparently he spends most of his weekends at his cabin, and is active in softball and volleyball. Clean, doesn't party, looking for a house, check, check, check.

I was not really apt to the idea of letting a stranger move in below us and share the comfort of our home, which we have enjoyed by ourselves for quite a few months. But who can resist the extra income? I guess not us.

So that was our Monday in a nutshell!

This is my attempt at using my new camera to record. Only Deja wouldn't do her trick. oh well, watch it anyway.

The end of May

Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes (via emails, texts, facebook, phone-calls..)!



Blaine and I had a great long memorial weekend in Bismarck and Jamestown. It was great just spending time with family. (and much needed after a crazy busy, stressful week of work in SD). I am so glad to be back home and back to working in the office!



My birthday was great. I told Blaine I did not want to go out to eat. Shocking I know. But spend a couple of weeks out of town, and you will understand the feeling. Instead I requested some yummy steaks from the grill, and Blaine definitely provided. I think they were the best he has ever grilled before. Rachel and Matt joined us, and afterwards we all went to ColdStone for a little dessert.



I volunteered to be a mentor for my firm's Summer Leadership Program. This program is for college students who are too young to intern, but want to get a feel for the choices out three. All the big four do a similar program. Its a pretty sweet deal. The students interview to get into the program, and once in, at the end usually they all get offers for a full time position when they are done with school or an internship. So the event for SLP on Friday was a high ropes course at a camp out west of the cities. It was awesome!! We were challenge to encourage each other to push our selves to do something we normally wouldn't. I made it to the top of the 40 foot rock climbing wall and rang the bell! What an exhilarating feeling. The second part of the day for our group was spent up 30 feet in the year, walking across ropes and beams from tree to tree - crazy!! At the end we all got to zip-line down - so much fun!



Today I am sore from my Friday experience. I also seem to have caught a cold at about 8pm last night. Weird. I don't know where it came from, but it sucks. I had a lot I wanted to get done around the house today, but I just feel like total crap. Blaine had something similar earlier in the week, so I guess that is where it came from.



Tonight the plan is to head downtown to watch the Twins kick some Yankee butt!! Right now I would much rather stay home, but I don't want to be the party pooper. I do feel a little better so that's good.



Keep your eyes open for some pics to come - Blaine got me a new camera!!!!!!!

Stuck in SD

Not much to say this week - I am in SD for a year-end audit. We work, go out for lunch, work, go out for dinner, go back to our hotel rooms, and get do it all over again. FUN! We have even been so lame, that both last night and tonight we just went to Applebees since it is across from our hotel. Not that there is anything much more appealing than that, sadly. I managed to run 5k this morning, but I squashed the benefits by getting an oreo shake at dinner tonight...boooo...

Blaine is back home keeping track of the dog and the house. Apparently we need a new deck door, the baseboard was rotting out pretty badly. He found one for a good deal on Craigslist, but I'm not sure if I will like the way it looks. We'll see. His excitement for the night, as unfortunately he shared the details with me, was watching birds mating in our backyard. SICK. I guess it looked like the guy stole the girl from another guy, what drama! hahaha

We had a great weekend! Pat and Janelle joined us for a nice relaxing weekend, with a good ol' Twins' game in the mix! Go Twins!

3 more days : )

Night!