Adam & Shandi's Wedding!!!

I just love weddings! So, luckily for me, a wedding just happened to be the main purpose of our visit to Colorado two weekends ago :) Getting to see my family in the mix was just a fabulous bonus!

That Wednesday, Bryce, Thelma, Austin and I loaded up our Escape and the pop-up, and headed west! Very covered wagon, don't you think, lol!


The trip itself was highly enjoyable because as much as I love my husband, it's fun to have some new faces along for a drive to which we have become frighteningly accustomed! Thelma (my mother-in-law) and I settled ourselves in the back seat and read and laughed and talked our way accross the country. Bryce (my father-in-law) and Austin occupied the front seats and enjoyed conversation and the luxury of the sattelite radio - which at any given time found its way between Christian, country, oldies, Beatles, and family-friendly comedy throughout the drive.

We stopped on Wednesday night at the Camp A Way campground in Lincoln, Nebraska.


This picture was taken the next morning, because it was pretty dark by the time we stopped!

We rose with the sunshine, well, not exactly with the sunshine, but not super late, either. Cleaned up at the VERY nice facilities, packed her all up and headed out again.


Homer & Sandra
We dropped the parents and the camper at Homer and Sandra's house in Akron, and as soon as we were settled and freshened up a bit we were on the road again to Denver to meet up with my family - but that's a whole other post in and of itself, so stay tuned, lol!

. . . but, back to the main topic (and title) of this post.
We got back into Akron pretty early in the day on Friday, and that day was spent in preparation for the rehearsal dinner and reception at the reception hall. (The hall was awesome, it had a neat little room on the back where we could have the rehearsal dinner tables set up for the smaller party on Friday evening, and not have to tear it down in the midst of the reception hall decor!)

Saturday, Austin went dirtbike-riding/semitruck-washing with the guys in the wedding party, and I spent the morning at the house chatting with the fam over cinnamon rolls and coffee :) Hoss came back in time to get cleaned up and head to the church for photos!



. . . but pics of us weren't really the point . . .

the beautiful bride

the groom and his parents

beautiful ladies . . . loved the bicep corsages :)


the whole wedding party

the happy couple

Hosser thought that the pics took a loooong time :)


waiting for the ceremony to start


exchanging of vows and rings


the kiss!

It was an absolutely beautiful wedding!!! Austin's Uncle Homer, the father of the groom, performed the ceremony!

It has taken me about three weeks to get all of these pics edited and this post composed, so this is where we're going to end for now :) maybe reception pics to follow at some point, but who knows :)

Thanks for reading!

~ My Husband Rocks! ~ Family :)

Better late than never, right? My world has been frought with technical difficulties lately, so I apologize for my tardiness - I'm hoping for a new computer in the relatively near future :)


Click here to read about why I started MHR Fridays!

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Austin never ceases to amaze me. As noted in my previous post, we had a whirlwind adventure to Colorado last weekend. The drive to Akron, where his cousin's wedding was, is an even ten hours. Austin drove the entire way there. Once we reached Akron, and his aunt & uncle's home, he set up our pop-up and got it ready to go, unhooked the Escape and drove the additional two hours into Denver - at just about rush-hour - so that we could see my family as well!

That evening, we ended up spending upwards of four hours sitting in the Cheesecake Factory, enjoying my family! It is difficult for me to put into words how much it means to me to have the people who mean the most to me in this world - especially the two men who have had the biggest impact upon my life - laughing and joking and just basically loving each other and taking advantage of the time we get to spend together! Not only did we all have a fantastic time together, but what really did it for me was that it was never even a question in Hoss's mind about whether or not we would go the literal extra miles to get to spend even an evening with my parents and my sisters. He wanted to see them. (This totally reminds me of that scene in The Break Up where Jennifer Aniston says "I want you to want to do the dishes." lol) I know that may seem kind of silly, but it absolutely meant the world to me!

He's pretty awesome :)

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As always, on Fridays Union 28 will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you Union 28!

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday, and a wonderful weekend!

Quick Update! :)

Hello everyone!!!

Yes, I am alive . . . and kicking! Imagine that! Austin and I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Colorado where we saw both his and my extended families (well, part of them at least)!

We left Wednesday night just as soon as we could get our butts in gear and get out the door after work, and pick up his parents (who went with us) at their house! We stopped in Lincoln at the CampAway campsite (which was very nice, and would have been cool to stay longer), then Thursday morning headed out to truck right along to Akron. Once there we set up our little pop-up buddy in Homer & Sandra's driveway, then Hoss and I flew out the door again heading to Denver.

We got into Denver around 4:15 in the afternoon (just as the Rockies game was ending, I know, we have impeccable timing), found a parking space that did not require our firstborn as collateral, and met up with my parents for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory :) mmmmm . . . Tom & Pam, and Steve & Bethany joined us for the first part of dinner, but they had to leave around six to go meet Pam's family at their house who were coming in for Steve's graduation. We enjoyed the enormous appetizer sampler while they ate their meal. After they left we waited around for Kindra & Arin (sp?) to get there, and when they arrived we ate the dinner portion of our meal with them. All in all a total of 4 1/2 hours (or somewhere thereabouts) was spent in that little table - I think that has to be some kind of record.

Steve & Bethany graciously put us up in their guest room on Thursday evening, so we did not have to drive back to Akron late, and the next morning, rested and refreshed, we headed back east for wedding setup.

Austin's cousin got married on Saturday in Akron, and a great time was had by all! :) Friday was spent setting up the reception hall, then at the rehearsal - followed by a yummy barbecue rehearsal dinner (my favorite kind :) - although our pizza version was very fun, and delicious as well . . . ) Saturday morning the boys went dirtbike riding and washed up the semi truck that was the bride and groom's getaway vehicle. The wedding was beautiful, with Austin's uncle Homer officiating, and we had a blast at the reception.

We took off bright and early Sunday morning in order to get back at a decent time last night because today was my first day at my new job!!!

Which is totally awesome!

I know I've left out a lot of detail, and there are no pictures (even though we took almost 200 this weekend) - I'm blogging via my ancient desktop which is very slow and laborious, and which will not accept our high-capacity SD card from the camera, so I am unable to upload any pics :S - such is life, I guess!

Hope you're all doing well!

Wordful Wednesday: mud puddle and awesome campfire

If you remember, in this post I described the situation that led to the picture above:

"The place we ended up camping for the rest of the weekend belonged to some friends who were also camping out, and who just happened to have several horses and mules and donkeys, so we all got to go riding! The last time Hoss & I went riding was on our honeymoon in September, and it's an activity that we both really enjoy, so it was a nice surprise addition to our already fun weekend! The donkey that I was riding was older and not too keen on getting his feet wet, so he sidestepped each puddle, which wasn't that big of a deal except that it had been very rainy the week before, so there were puddles that took up the entire width of the trail. One of these trail-wide puddles was on a portion of the trail that was surrounded by trees. In his attempt to sidestep this particular puddle, he had to cross under some branches that were tall enough for him to get under, but not tall enough for the both of us to get under. Long story short, I ended up in the puddle!"

Another fun feature of that camping trip was the rainbow campfire:

This phenomenon occurs when you throw strings of colored Christmas lights onto the fire. I know that this is probably really environmentally terrible, but it looks really cool! All in all, a fun weekend with some great friends!

Wordful Wednesdays is hosted by Angie:

Thanks for reading!

Pop-up Adventures

Happy Monday everybody! Hope y'all had a great weekend! Our weekend was spent on our first official camping trip in our brand new (to us) pop-up camper!

We had a grand old time :)

We purchased the camper last weekend from friends of a friend (who happen to work for the same company as I do), and they gave us a great deal on it.

For a pop-up it is very roomy and comfortable.

We had hoped to pull it out and camp last Saturday evening (the night we took it home), but we did not really have time to get it out to a campground, so we popped it up where it sat in our driveway, and proceeded to spend the entire night out there - even though it poured harder than I can remember it raining in several weeks! It was definitely a true test of storm-worthiness, and the little pop-up passed with flying colors!

In the morning, to complete our mini "camping" trip, we carted out breakfast and ate at our cute little dinette :)

The title to this vehicle is also the very first title that has both of our married names on it :) which is pretty cool!

Thanks for reading!

What a week!

It sure has been a crazy one!

To begin with, we went camping with our friends Tyler & Emma over the holiday weekend. The first night we stayed by a little pond on land which we thought belonged to the grandfather of the friend with whom we were camping. (Did you get all that?) However, on Saturday morning the farmer who actually owned the land asked us to either pack up or pay him $25/night to stay there. Needless to say we decided to camp elsewhere for the remainder of the weekend, lol!

Austin & Tyler cooking breakfast

Being asked to leave was actually the best thing that could have happened to our camping trip because the spot where we ended up camping for the rest of the weekend belonged to some friends who were also camping out, and who just happened to have several horses and mules and donkeys, so we all got to go riding! The last time Hoss & I went riding was on our honeymoon in September, and it's an activity that we both really enjoy, so it was a nice surprise addition to our already fun weekend! The donkey that I was riding was older and not too keen on getting his feet wet, so he sidestepped each puddle, which wasn't that big of a deal except that it had been very rainy the week before, so there were puddles that took up the entire width of the trail. One of these trail-wide puddles was on a portion of the trail that was surrounded by trees. In his attempt to sidestep this particular puddle, he had to cross under some branches that were tall enough for him to get under, but not tall enough for the both of us to get under. Long story short, I ended up in the puddle!

Emma relaxing by the campfire

We decided not to stay Sunday night because the weather turned very hot and extremely humid rather quickly on Sunday afternoon. Which was fortunate because Sunday night and early Monday morning there was some very severe weather with heavy rain, high winds, and even tornadoes in some areas!

We enjoyed a lazy Memorial Day at home, and thanks to the holiday it was a 4-day work week at the office. Although it seems like the shorter work weeks are just that much more packed full of activity to make up for the missing day :)

Tuesday evenings we run a rural shopper route (for those of you unfamiliar with a "Shopper" it's very similar to the classified section of the daily papers except it's only delivered once a week, and it is also filled with ads and coupons from the local businesses). We deliver about 900 papers on approximately 200 miles of country roads. The first couple of times that we ran the route I wondered what we had gotten ourselves into, but we seem to have developed a good pattern and are getting the hang of it. This last Tuesday marked the 7th time we have run it, and it's actually become rather enjoyable - especially as the weather gets nicer to - to drive around and watch the sunset and talk or listen to the radio.

Wednesday evening we drove to Des Moines for dinner out and a concert, and Thursday we went to a surprise party to celebrate the 25th anniversary of some close family friends.

Austin & I at the concert in Des Moines

Then . . . Friday afternoon, Austin went to the dog run and found our dog Drea laying on her side. He called her name a couple of times and she didn't move, she was gone. She had lost a lot of weight over the last month or so, but when we took her to the vet he said that she just had worms, gave her a pill and sent us on our way. Less than two weeks later . . . We still have our other dog, her sister, Diddy, but we're all pretty sad about it. The dogs were sisters, from the same litter and Diddy will be 3 in September. We dropped her off at the vet again this morning for the last time and said our goodbyes.

This pic is of me with Diddy and Drea the day we got them from the pound
(Drea is the tan one)

Drea

So, needless to say, it's been a very eventful week with a lot of ups and downs.


Thank you for reading.

"It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest."

~ Greek Proverb ~