We have a celebrity in our house!

 

This is what prospective students get in the mail from Hamline University School of Law.

We really haven't had much going on lately, but here are some of the enjoyable highlights.

I got a new Cricut cartridge!  I'm excited because it's religious and since Cricut is a Provo Craft item it has some very useful images like temples, baptism, missionaries, etc.  And, it has some religious phrases.  I've already begun our Christmas cards and am SO excited for them.

Our "garden" is growing like a champion even after a traumatic transplant for one of the zucchinis. They both are flowering and we have a couple of little tomatoes on the massive tomato bush.  We can't wait for them to be ripe so we can enjoy them.  Everyday Ben goes out to inspect them and make sure they are doing okay, and I get an update every night when I come home from work. 

Ben enjoyed Father's Day and enjoyed the present from the Sing-a-ma-jigs.  He'll be a great dad when we have our own children. 

I finally got pictures hung on our walls!  They had been sitting neatly in our living room for months, and I finally got them all filled and hung, thanks to Ben's help. We have one left to put up but once it is hung, our walls will be complete.

The catalytic converter went out on my car a couple weeks ago.  I was not happy, but since we don't really have the funds to buy a new car right now, we paid the money to get it fixed.  In the meantime, I was looking for cars to replace Jimmy and came across a really great deal on a 2006 Jetta.  It was a scam, but the person wasn't very good at scamming.  Or maybe we aren't very easily scammed.  Anyway, Jimmy is still around and we (probably me more than Ben) are looking for a great deal on another car.

Ben's first summer class is over and the final is completed!  Only two more to go, and Ben is auditing one of them so it will be pretty easy.  He did great in his classes this past semester despite the hospital visits and competition in Denver.  He is very excited to be almost done, and so am I!

Work is work and my co-workers are getting on my nerves.  Well, not all of them, but some of them.  One of them came back after leaving for another job for a couple of months, and I'm happy she is back.  She actually worked and did her job and is nice and we get along great, so I'm happy she's back.

We don't do much on the exciting end of things.  It's been a little gray and rainy and cool so all of our plans to go to the pool or beach have been cancelled.  Tonight we get to watch Lauren while Emily and Preston celebrate their anniversary, and it will be fun to finally have Ben there too!  He has missed the last several times I've watched Lauren becuase he's been camping or out of town or doing something, so it will be fun to have him there once Lauren goes to bed.  And, we need to be going because we told them we'd be there between 4 and 5.  I better make sure Ben is ready.

My latest project

I completely owe this project to my sister-in-law Becky.  She said she wanted to make some months ago, I thought silently in my head, "Sounds like too much work to me."  I was wrong they were super easy!

Our closet has been a mess since we moved in almost a year ago.  We keep most of our clothes on the shelf above the hanging clothes and it was hard to keep them organized and neat looking.

So, I made some!  I found some cheap fabric at the fabric store that was moving.  I made sure to get some that was masculine enough for Ben but still would look good in our bedroom.  And, decided to line the baskets with separate fabric-some for him, some for me.

They hold lots of clothes, even if they are Ben sized, and they make it pretty easy to find what you are looking for.

They look pretty good up there on that shelf, but I still need to make at least one more for each of us.  And, with the completely bare shelf on top that means I can find stuff to fill it up with!  Can you say shopping trip?

Thank you, Becky, for bringing more order into our lives and closet.  We appreciate it greatly (and you gave me a good reason to go through Ben's clothes with him and make him throw some away!) 

For all you perfect seamstresses out there, don't look too closely at the pictures.  They are NOT perfect in any way, but I'm not that OCD and having some imperfect baskets sitting on the closet shelves won't drive me crazy.

Memrorial Day Weekend (part 2)

The second part of our weekend started with my cousin Jeff's wedding reception, but there are no pictures of that. We headed to Wausau to celebrate two birthdays.

Janet turned 21 and shared all her awesomeness with us.  She really enjoyed the birdie shirt I made.  We all agreed it isn't as horrible as the idea could be.

 

Janet continued to amaze us with her magnificent photo skills.  Who knew you could wear a boppy and balance little people animals on it all at the same time. Words can not capture the other picture, but it is happily added to the file of awkward Janet pictures :)

We also got to meet little Sadie Lynn!  She is such a sweetie!

And, then we just had fun with everyone.  Macey seemed a little out of it, but still had fun playing with us.

Looks like Lauren is ready for a little sister!

All the little girlies!

Memorial Day Weekend (part 1)

 Thanks to the long weekend, Ben and I finally had a Saturday with nothing we had to do.  We decided to take the bikes out and check out some of the trails around St. Paul starting at the Lilydale Regional Park where we first met almost two years ago!  We had awesome weather Saturday morning and were happy to take the time for the ride.

Part of our ride was along a railroad line that went under some of the major highways that we drive on all the time.  Ben enjoyed seeing the big bridges (but also said he hoped they wouldn't collapse on him).  Most of it also went along the Mississippi River.  We were lucky that most of it wasn't flooded with all the rain and snow melt from this year, but we did have to ride on the rode for a little part. 

 

Th only bad part of the ride is that the whole way out it was completely uphill, but that just meant the whole ride back was downhill!  And, I ran over a poor little turtle who was on the bike path.  Luckily, my front tire missed him and scared him so he pulled his legs and head and tail into his shell so when my back tire hit him he was safe.  Ben put him off the trail so no one else would hit him.

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