More Minnesota Adventures

After Matty and Jessica's beautiful wedding, Phil, Adam, and I headed back to Minnesota to spend some time with our family. We started off in the cities with my parents, and then headed down to Albert Lea to visit Grandma and Grandpa Swenson. Here's what we did while up in the cities:

While Matty and Jess were off enjoying Mexico on their honeymoon, we went over to there house and enjoyed the Vikings game in HD on their big TV. (PS, the Vikings won!)

Phil got to go fishing with my dad and he caught this big bass. 19 inches - not bad!

Adam got to play with Hunter. These boys are growing so fast! They had great fun chasing each other around the house.

Another highlight for Adam was his first trip to the zoo! My mom and I took him to the Minnesota Zoo and he loved it. The monkeys were his favorite - he laughed at them as they jumped and swung around the branches. He also loved Discovery Bay. Grandma Ann showed him the dolphins.

Here he is reaching in to touch the sting rays. Good workout for Mama!

Funny thing was - he was also very excited about washing his hands and getting to stick them under the dryer. Whatever works!

He also loved watching the tide pool when the water rushed in. He stood here for a while, but luckily for the starfish at the bottom, he couldn't reach quite that far.

He also loved the fish in the Tropics exhibit.

I'll leave you with this image...someone had a rough night last night. (Note the tongue sticking out.)

Stay tuned for more Minnesota adventures!

Matty Gets Married!

Matty is married! We traveled to Madison for Matty and Jess's wedding on September 18th. It was such a beautiful wedding - very elegant. It's so fun to be at weddings when the bride and groom are so in love and so right for each other. I'm so glad my brother had a wedding like that and I was honored to stand up for them on their day. These are just a few pics that people have posted on Facebook. I will post more when I get the real deal.

Matt and Jess Leibrock! Jess was seriously the most beautiful bride I have ever seen.

Adam was a GREAT traveler in the car. We stopped every few hours to let him eat and crawl around in the grass. He spent a lot of the trip asleep with Sophie.

Adam did so great we made it to Madison in one day! So, the next morning we had some free time before all the rehearsal excitement started. We visited the capitol - here are Adam and Phil up on the observation level. You can see the lake a little bit behind them.

Soon-to-be sisters! Grace, Jess, and I had some pre-wedding pampering. This picture was taken for Matty - his trademark "thumbs up!"

Here's me getting my hair done on the big day.

Jess and all her girls. It was so fun to get to know this bunch - really great girls.

Sisters! Grace looked so grown up. I was thinking about how she was a young girl in my wedding, and now a young lady in Matty's. It was very special to be in our brother's wedding together.

Cousins! We had a ton of fun.

Some of the previously mentioned fun. Matty and Jess had a photo booth at their reception - such a good idea! Claire, Shawna, McKenzie and I hopped in for some good times.

This is Adam with Jessica's dad, Tom. Tom had a little fun with Matty and my dad at the reception. He gave them cheeseheads in front of everyone (Their family is a Packer family. I know, gross.) So, Phil and I had to set things right by dressing Adam in his Vikings jersey at the gift opening the next morning.

The Leibrocks (both by blood and by marriage). I also want to take this opportunity to thank my amazing husband. With all my wedding obligations, I wasn't able to spend a whole lot of time with him and Adam. Phil was his usual awesome dad self and helped me so much by taking care of Adam so I could focus on Matty and Jess. Adam did great, but was a little overwhelmed by all the craziness and new people. I was happy to be back with my boys after the wedding!

The fam with my Aunt Linda and Uncle George. They have always been so supportive and drove up from Tennessee to attend the wedding.

Again, I will post more pictures a little later.

Congratulations, Matty and Jess! We love you so much and were so glad to be a part of your beautiful day!

Happy 29 Years to My Husband!

Phil had his birthday on September 15! We had a few friends over to celebrate the 29th anniversary of his birth.

Here is the birthday boy with the special cake I made him.

I usually make him a cheesecake for his b-day, but decided this year I would try something different. THANK YOU to my friend Amanda for helping me use fondant for the first time. (PS, for all you golfers out there, YES I realize that there is no 29th hole. Work with me, ok? It's his 29th birthday.)

Blowing out his candle.

Happy birthday, Phil! I love celebrating YOU!

Go Vikings!

Adam watched his first regular season Vikings game on Sunday! Our family, being the hardcore Vikings fans that we are, put on our jerseys and cheered our team to a win against the Cleveland Browns. We got our jerseys with a gift certificate to NFL.com that we obtained when we bought our TV. It's so fun because the jerseys were free, but we still look hard core!

Adam says, "Touchdown!"

Our anniversary (8-13-05). Pretty clever, huh? I know.

How cute is this fan?

New Label in Town

Grandma Peg brought a special treat for Adam when she was visiting over Labor Day - homemade applesauce! She made a separate batch just for him with much less sugar in it. I might have sampled a bit of it...it is good stuff!

So cute with his own label and everything.

We weren't really sure if he liked it...what do you think?

Wait, don't take the picture yet! I need to wipe my face!

Ok, I'm good.

Thanks, Grandma Peg! Best applesauce ever!

My Thoughts on New Plates

I recently registered my car in the state of Ohio. This changed caused me to reflect on each set of plates I have had on my car. My first plates were Minnesota plates. I don't know whether it was because I was newly married, or had just moved across the country, or what, but surrendering my MN plates was a strangely emotional experience for me. I probably could have gotten away with keeping at least one, but I was naive and held back my tears as I handed over my beautiful MN plates (they really are the best ones.) PS, this picture is NOT my actual old license plate. That one would have about a hundred dead mosquitos plastered to it - which added character, by the way. Please observe a moment of reverent silence as you look at the following image...

I now realize that, being military, I could have kept my MN plates all along! However, I didn't know this at the time and one of my first stops - post honeymoon - was the DMV to get my new CA plates. I never had the sentimental attachment to the CA plates, but it made me feel cool when out-of-state peeps would see them and say, "oooo you're from CA. That must be sweet!" Phil assured me, however, that I would always be a MN girl at heart.

Here is my car sporting her new Ohio plates. We got these because it is ridiculously expensive to have your car registered in CA, so this saves us a bundle. Although I was not attached to my CA plates (they are rather plain looking) I was sad to surrender them. Not only are OH plates rather dull, no one EVER says, "ooooo you're from Ohio!"

So, with each new plate it seems I have been demoted a little bit. But it does make me wonder how my collection of plates will grow and which plates my car will sport in the future.

Our Trip to Wegerzyn

Grandma and Grandpa Swenson were visiting over Labor Day weekend, so we took them to Wegerzyn Gardens, one of the parks near our house. It was a beautiful day - the gardens are beautiful and so peaceful. We saw many different plants and flowers and some of the biggest bees I've ever seen! Don't worry, no bee stings! Seeing all the interesting plants had Phil and me discussing our future landscaping plans.

At the entrance. There are some cute little orange flowers in the very front that you can't really see, but I really liked the detail they added.

Check out the spikes on the leaves of this plant! Phil is letting me know that this plant is NOT a good candidate to use for toilet paper when out in the woods. Thanks Phil!

This is cool. For their protection, these guys fold up when you touch them.

This is the exact same branch as in the photo above, but it has been touched so all the leaves are folded in. COOL!

My favorite part of the day! I love watching Adam learn about and enjoy his environment. He loved the fountain in the children's discovery garden.

So close...

yet so far away.

More Weekend Fun - Cox Arboretum and a Yummy Drink

Making the most of our family time on the weekends, we went over to Cox Arboretum to have a little nature walk and check out their butterfly garden. It was beautiful! I think if we would have gone earlier in the season, we would have seen a greater variety of butterflies, but it we still saw some beautiful monarchs and some really cool caterpillars. One of the caterpillars we saw was just hatched and was TINY! I tried to get a picture, but my camera couldn't even focus on it - seriously, smaller than a grain of rice! Here are some critters that I did manage to capture...

How cool is this guy? The black eyes on top are fake! He's trying to look big and scary to his predators. His actual head is sticking out below the green part of his body. Sneaky, huh?

When we got home, Phil made me this yummy drink. Lots of peaches and berries with champagne and some other stuff (??) in it.

I was loving it!

John Bryan State Park

We've been enjoying some cooler weather, here in Ohio. We took a little trip (can you call it a trip if you only drive 25 minutes?) to Yellow Springs, Ohio to visit John Bryan State Park. The town of Yellow Springs is kind of neat and unique by itself. We stopped in town for some lunch (Adam had his first french fries and lemonade) and then headed to the park for some adventuring.

Adam and Daddy all ready for our hike. Adam loved the backpack - and it gave Daddy a good workout!

We had a great hike. There was a river off to the right and we saw lots of different mushrooms, berries, and plants. Adam kept reaching out to the side trying to grab the leaves.

We asked a guy to take our picture, and soon discovered that he was an actual photographer. He carefully got us posed on this narrow bridge so that you could see us and the river. Unfortunately, I don't feel like his care and skill are accurately represented by our point-and-shoot camera.