Summer Catch Up

So I recently found an entire folder of pictures from this Summer that I never posted. They aren't incredibly exciting pictures, just random happenings from the summer. 

We had our first out of town potluck at Ryan & Ashley's over Memorial day. Kyle & Heather couldn't make it though! L to R: Ryan & Ashley, Us, and Brooke & Kory.

I surprised Daniel for his birthday with friends at Lin's Buffet. I was thankful that his friends were willing to come! But I wasn't super thrilled with the restaurant... Daniel had been wanting to go there since I knew him... so that's why I chose the place(GAG!). But thankfully, as we were leaving, he said it wasn't as good as he remembered... and that we probably don't need to go back there. Whew, I was glad to hear that. :)

In July we hosted our out of town potluck. On Saturday afternoon we went canoeing on the Mackinaw and then went back to our house for dinner and the evening. We had 2 couples stay at our house overnight, which we had never done before....so glad they were easy and didn't mind that we ALL had to share the one little bathroom that we have. :) We went to church together, but they left after that.

Kory & Brooke

Kyle & Heather

Ryan & Ashley

The same weekend that we hosted the potluck, we had Daniel's family over on Sunday for the afternoon/evening for July birthdays. This was right after Elisabeth was engaged, so we got to do invitations. :)

It was Michael 7th birthday! 

Newly Engaged

One summer evening we babysat for Robert & Mary. It was fun.. playing with the boys. We brought pizza and ice cream cones... which were a hit. I love the pictures I captured with the cones. I hope Mary was able to get the stains out of their clothes. :) 

Shiloh

Gabe

Asher

Precious picture of Asher & Uncle Daniel

On a week night, mom had June/July birthdays at her house. My pictures aren't incredibly good and are sort of similar, but here they are anyway. :)

Adam & Carter

The girls

Adam & his sisters

My siblings...love them all!

Dessert time!

Ok, I can officially feel caught up now from summer. :) We were so busy this summer, I could not keep up with posting everything. So glad life has calmed down a bit this fall!

Yay!!!

Sooo.... my best friend is engaged!!! Kendra got announced today to Aaron Funk! 

Oh how I am so excited and happy for them. It has been so neat to see God work in Kendra's life, and I have loved being there every step of the way. Maybe I should say WE have loved being there, Daniel and I really have been blessed by her as a friend (Daniel also gets to work with her..). Now we get to be blessed by both of them, and I know without a doubt we will be. I know they will be blessed by following God's will for their lives. 
Some things that are super great? She's not moving far away at all, we're going to be in the same stage of life, annddd... I know we're going to love being with them! They came over last night for a little bit, and it was already good. :) {By the way, I did not take this picture... I stole it off facebook, because Kendra did not allow me to take one last night!}
Love and prayers to you both, Kendra, as I've told you a thousand time over! :)

Aunt Again!

As suspected.....I'm going to be an aunt again! :) These t-shirts were a "present" at Bridget's party. So excited to have a baby  to hold  again when I'm with my family. If the baby is as cute as these two... I'm sure it will be deeply loved by this auntie (and the rest of the family, I'm sure! :)!

(and yes, they would not cooperate for a picture...)

After Bridget found out there was a baby in her mommy's tummy.... she asked me if I had one in mine too (she asks that question to me quite often, actually...) Nope, sorry little miss! :) Oh she keeps us smiling!

Congrats Hyde & Luke!

Bridget's 3!

Sunday night was Miss Bridget's 3rd birthday party. Oh how this little girl has grown up so much within the last year! She was quite thrilled about her party, talking about it for weeks. When we got there she opened the door for us and told us "welcome to my party!" Heidi had her favorite meal- pizza, chips, pink lemonade, and cupcakes. All which was her pick. :) Supper didn't last long, as she was quite anxious to open her gifts.

Her cheese for the camera cracks me up.

Every gift she opened was "AWESOME!" She is at the perfect age to enjoy a party like this! 

Bridget is SUCH a girly girl. She got a Cinderella dress from Uncle Adam & Luke, and I gave her the accessories.. a tiara, necklaces, bracelets, pink sparkly princess shoes, a wand... oh she was in her glory! Except the wand, I think she thought it would really work. She was saying "bippity boppity boo".. and trying to turn Heidi into a frog.  Sorry Bridget...it doesn't work like it did in the Cinderella movie. :)

She was so excited she couldn't stand still for a picture!

Cupcake time! 

Carter wanted everything of Bridget's... poor little buddy! Your birthday is in a couple of weeks!

He LOVES eating ice cream with "Papa" as he calls him!

My hubby and I... matching with our stripes. :)

Happy Birthday Miss Bridget... you have brought so much JOY to our family! You are the only 3 year old I know with SO much personality!

Weekend Post- No Pictures!

This weekend was a good one. Honestly, every weekend is, no matter what we do or what our plans are. I try not to wish my life away, but I (actually we both do) live for the weekends.... The weekends are what get me through the week at work. I don't really see Daniel much during the week, but the weekends I get to. I get behind with housework and laundry during the week, and weekends are a time to catch up. Plus weekends always involve family and friends.

Sadly, I don't have any pictures from the weekend so I decided to at least write about it. 

Friday night Daniel was working, so Jenna and I decided to hang out for once! It's terrible how little I've seen her! Jamie & Adam ended up joining us, so it was the 4 of us... just like old times, hanging out at the Schick's house. We went out to eat at La Fiesta, went bike riding(made a stop at Jake & Morgans like we used to..), and hung out and watched a movie. It truly felt like old times; I even stayed up past midnight! :) I always love hanging out there! 

Saturday was work, work, work. I cleaned, organized, and cooked all day because we had rotating potluck on Sunday night. I felt so accomplished when I went to bed. It was nice that we were both home all day, and didn't go anywhere!

Sunday we went to W-ton for church because my Uncle Rob & Aunt Lily served lunch. We went on an extremely empty Sunday, not even my parents were there. So I guess we'll be going again soon since the most important people weren't there to enjoy us. ;) 

Sunday evening we hosted our first rotating potluck. It went well I would say! We had a great group of people, and two of them I had never met before...so it was so good to get to know them. That is why I love rotating potluck...I think most of the people I can actually talk to in church are people I met at potluck. It was fun to use all of my china, goblets, and nice silverware for the first time. I loved making the table look pretty. My only problem was that I didn't have enough oven space and I was making potatoes and baked apples.... so I had to fill the pans to the brim, which made them cook slower. They had a tough time finding our house (surprise, surprise..), so they were all a little late. They apologized, but I was so thankful they were! I think the apples may have been a little crunchy the first time around. I'm not for sure... I didn't eat any. Anyway, I was so glad we decided to marinate and grill chicken, because I never would've been able to fit potatoes, apples, and meat in the oven. Lesson learned... have people bring the stuff that bakes, and I can do the stuff that is done ahead of time like salad and bread! 

So yes, I think I love hosting. LOVE it. I just wish I had more time and energy to do it. What I discovered this weekend is Daniel loves it too. He thought it was great using china and having a nice meal. :) So of course that makes it even more exciting to do it. I'm so glad we got a table that has leaves in it, and it's not a problem to have 10-12 people around the table. 

So that was my weekend... sorry it's a boring post with no pictures. As I was looking through my summer pictures, I found a lot I had never posted about.... so stay tuned... 

Gardening?!

So I've been meaning to blog about our little home in the country down the gravel lane for a while. We absolutely love it here. Especially Daniel... he sits out on the front porch all the time, especially while the sun is setting and watches the deer come out in the bean field right across from our house. 

I took this photo a couple weeks ago, I should put a new one up because now I have all my cute fall decorations out with mums, pumpkins, and gourds such. :) 

The front of the house...such a plain jane ranch. But perfect for us!

Our backyard

Another view of the backyard. 

 See the cute little cows in the background? We've had fun watching them! There were two little calves born this spring and it's been kind of fun to see them be born and grow. :) I wouldn't mind having cows near my backyard, but man I am sure thankful Daniel is not a farmer. :)

Did you see the weed patch in our yard? Yes... that was supposed to be my garden. This spring I got all inspired and was sure I wanted to have a garden with lots of fresh produce. It was full of weeds(AND trees!) to start with so we cleared it out this spring. But then my mom said I could just learn/observe with her garden and have some of her produce. I decided to do that, and just plant melons and easy stuff in my garden. Well... the summer flew by and got busier and busier and I am so glad we didn't try to have a garden. I barely had time to cook and do housework, none the less garden in the evenings! We got behind with the weeds, and the poor melons got choked and our produce was pretty much zero.

So this is what our garden looked like from a summer of not weeding...what a mess!

So yes, gardening was not for me this year. I am so embarrassed by our weed patch though... so last Saturday Daniel pulled out all of the trees that seem to quickly grow! Then he mowed the entire thing down and burned some of it. I'm not sure when we will have a garden... It's just not something I can do right now with working full time! I just have to accept I can't do everything. But I hope to have one someday in the future! :) 

Oh and I quickly found out, so many people have an over abundance of produce and I was able to receive a lot from them!! :) 

I hope to post pictures from the inside of our house soon, for those who haven't been here before!

Phew!

Phew! Is how I feel today...it was a busy weekend...just trying to recover from it tonight! :) Thursday night Kendra hung out with me. Friday after work Marisa L and I went out to eat at Monicals and hung out at our house since Daniel was at work. It's a great time to catch up with friends when Daniel's working!

Saturday morning, bright and early we ran the Pumpkin Festival 10K(6.2 miles). Poor Daniel only got 3 hours of sleep, but still did great with the run! We didn't run together...he's way faster than, so I let him go on his own. :) I ran by myself which I really didn't mind... I had my ipod and I was good! The race started a half an hour late because of an accident on the route. It was a beautiful morning though... We were actually freezing while we waited! The last 2 miles or so, Mark & Kristin F came up behind me..which was perfect. I kept up with them, and ran the last 2 miles faster than I probably would've if I was by myself. This was my second 10K and it went much better than the first! I was so glad there was some improvement.

So thankful Daniel motivates me so much to run!

These 2 stooges ran it together

 Saturday morning we didn't stay for the Pumpkin Parade...first year in a long time(maybe ever) that I missed it! We went home and relaxed a bit before I went to church to get stuff ready. We served lunch on Sunday with Les & Judy L.. So Saturday afternoon I went and picked stuff up and set tables. I also stopped at Elisabeth's for a bit to see her as a darling housewife. :)
Saturday night we went out to eat with my parents....then they came back to our house for dessert. Troy & Ellie were in town, so they stopped by to eat dessert and chat for awhile. It was nice.... we kind of kicked them out early so we could go to bed though. :)

Sunday went fine.... serving lunch was a little stressful but not too bad. I just have to get used to the way Roanoke does it. I definitely learned alot, and it was nice to serve with someone so I wasn't all on my own. But being in the kitchen from 7:30am-2pm is just exhausting.
Sunday night we went to Daniel's parents to celebrate August/September birthday's. It started out as a cookout until we got rained out.

Sweet little Asher turned 1

I love how so many people are piled on this foot rest.

The newlyweds :)

That's all the pictures I took...my battery died. It was a nice evening, and I can't believe I wasn't more tired. We left in good time though... We BOTH needed to go to bed since Daniel had been lacking sleep for the weekend!
So today has been a day of recovery... which meant a long day at work!

Labor Day

Labor Day was a much needed day.... we got to sleep in, go on a run, and make a delicious breakfast. I got a lot of stuff around the house done which is always a good feeling. Later in the afternoon, we went and shot trap with Fred, Jodi, & Letty. I was sort of planning on just watching.... but that's not what ended up happening. :) 

Brothers

I've never shot a gun before in my life... I was a little nervous. I was scared of the gun kicking back at my shoulder. I know, I'm kind of wimpy... But, I shot a semi-automatic, 20 gauge shotgun, and those don't kick as much. (See how much I learned?! :)

Me with a gun, a scary thought, I know...

Daniel was so patient as he taught me!

 The most exciting thing was I actually shot a clay! So next time I try, I should do better since I know how to load and aim. Oh, and by the way, the kick doesn't hurt bad at all.... my other arm was sore the next day from holding the heavy gun up for so long. :)

Jodi did awesome!

It was such a beautiful and relaxing evening outside. Miss Letty just sat on her chair the whole time and didn't mind the noise at all! We went back to Fred & Jodi's later in the evening and grilled hamburgers and played games. It was a fun evening.... Daniel might make me into a hunter yet! :) So excited I know how to shoot and load a gun now. :)