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Monday, June 30, 2008

Friday, June 27, 2008

Journey to the Mother State

I thought I would quick let you know how our trip back to the mother state of Michigan went. Here are some of the highlights. Pictures to come later.

Thursday, June 12:
  • Drove to MI after I got out of work at 4:30pm. We were lucky, because an hour after we passed through IA parts of I-80 were closed due to flooding.

Friday, June 13
  • Went shopping with my mom.
  • Went to my cousin's wedding. It was a ton of fun. They had Jones soda with their picture on it for favors and instead of a guest book they had a photo booth.

Saturday, June 14

  • Had breakfast with Erin and Melanie. So, good to see some of the mellons.
  • Joel and I drove up to Big Star Lake (my favorite place in the world). I'll tell you why in another post someday.
  • Got the sailboat and the speed boat into the water.
  • Relaxed and had fun with family--my sister's family was the only one not there this weekend.
  • Went to Jone's Ice Cream Shop in Baldwin, MI. So good!

Sunday, June 15

  • Relaxed at the cottage all day.
  • My younger brother and his girlfriend, and my older brother's family left.

Monday, June 16

  • Relaxed at the cottage all day.
  • My parents' friends arrived at the cottage.

Tuesday, June 17

  • Relaxed at the cottage.

Wednesday, June 18

  • Went up to Traverse City due to cold weather at the cottage. While there we went to the Pie Company, the Fudge Shop and Mission Point.
  • Sailed the sailboat to the boat launch and took it out.

Thursday, June 19

  • Left the cottage and headed back to Holland.
  • Played mini-golf with Stephanie B. and met her boyfriend Scott when he joined us for ice cream.

Friday, June 20

  • Hung out in Holland with family and friends.

Saturday, June 21

  • Hung out in Holland with family and friends.
  • Hit up some favorite spots (especially favorite now that we don't live there): Russ, JP's Coffee, and downtown.
  • Went to see the sunset at the beach with friends. It was extraordinary. I had never seen a sunset and clouds like it and I have seen a lot of sunsets there. There was a storm rolling through and we saw lightning and tons of different colors all over the sky.
  • Had a campfire at Joel's parents' house.
  • (We did miss Clint and Brandie's wedding this day because it was in IA. We were bummed about that.)

Sunday, June 22 (Joel's birthday!)

  • Went to Joel's old church and saw lots of old friends.
  • Celebrated Joel's 26th birthday (Happy Birthday Hon!) with a steak dinner at his parents' house. He had wanted to go to the beach, but it was rainy.
  • Walked the stairs up and down to go to Laketown Beach--there is a large dune to climb before you get to the beach.
  • Joel brought me to the airport and I flew back to Des Moines. The adventure of the airport is in a post below.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Camping Pictures Part 2


More pictures from our hike


Joel and Renee biking and then the aftermath of the tornado warning.


Joel and I having fun with the camera.


Our funny hotel room, the only time we "roasted" s'mores, and the wildlife we saw.
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Camping Pictures Part 1


Tent Fiasco


Joel's first pictures of the mill


My flat tire, and then the mill again


Pictures from our hike

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Airport Pick-up

I know I still need to post pictures from camping and about our week in Michigan. (Hopefully, the pictures will be on here tonight.) But, I needed to tell you a short story about my flight home to IA.

I flew from Grand Rapids, MI to Milwaukee on Sunday evening. When I got to Milwaukee, I learned that my flight was delayed by two hours, which meant instead of getting in at 11pm, I would arrive around 1 am. I proceeded to call Mo, who was suppose to pick me up. I did not want her to have to pick me up so late, since I knew she had to work at 9 am. (I did too, but why have 2 people really miserable the next day due to lack of sleep.) So, I first called AM to see if she was in town. She is a teacher and off for the summer, therefore she could sleep in. However, she was in Northwest IA. She then told me that I should call Rick and Monique, since Rick can make his own schedule and sleep in as well the next morning. That's what I did. Rick was very kind and agreed to pick me up. I called him when we were boarding the plane (midnight). He told me that he'd get there around 1 am and drive around until I came out, since you can't park outside anymore. I asked what his car looked like. He stated it was a tan Saturn. I asked for any other distinguishing features and he was like nope and it will be 1 in the morning, so you should be able to find me easily. I walk out of the airport and see a tan Saturn so I walk up to it. Remember that it is dark and late. I couldn't see the person in the car very well, but I knew it was a male and had short dark hair like Rick, so I waved and opened the back car door to put my bag in. To my surprise this man was not Rick. I just said "Sorry wrong car" and closed the door. Rick pulled up right after this. Needless to say it was funny.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Camping Comedy

Boy, am I glad that Joel and I have a sense of humor. We really needed one this last weekend. This is going to be long, but entertaining I promise--it is about a very memorable camping experience. I will put numbers in parentheses with all the "funny" things that happened I am sorry, but I don't have pictures on this computer, so I will post pictures from the weekend later.

It all started on Friday night...
Joel and I headed out of Des Moines after I got done with work to go camping. We arrived at our destination Muscatine, IA (30 miles south of Davenport). We were camping at Fairport State Park located on the Mississippi River. Upon our arrival we put our tent up and then realized we didn't have any wood. Joel went into town looking for wood. He had to go to 3 stores before he had any luck--he knew the small town of Muscatine after that. Meanwhile, I was at camp waiting for our friends Josh and Renee. They came while Joel was gone. After realizing that their bike rack caused two dents in their trunk (1), they set up their tent. Joel came back to camp with some wood and started to try a fire (2). The wood was too green and just wouldn't start. Our camping neighbors were nice enough to give us some tiki oil and some dry wood, so we did eventually get a pretty nice fire. As we were sitting around the fire (remember it is now dark out), the rangers come by and start reading a rule verbatim from their clipboard. I guess that we were only allowed one "camping unit" per site unless we had minor children and it was a very small size. So, they told us we needed to either all sleep in one tent or register and pay for another site (3). Due to the principal and how they told us, we did not want to pay for another site. (The campers next to us had a lot more square footage than 2 tents!) Josh and Renee took their tent down and moved in to ours. Fortunately, we have a good size tent, but no air mattresses were allowed, so we slept on the hard ground.

Then there was Saturday...
Joel, Josh and Renee are big coffee drinkers, so Joel gets his camping stove out and proceeds to the process of making coffee in his percolator. However, after an hour and a half of waiting for it to percolate, Joel determines his gas tank is not working (4). We get the fire going and then cook a nice breakfast over the fire. That actually worked out very well. After breakfast, we plan to go to another state park that is about 6 miles away. We had taken our bikes, so we could bike there. We determine it would be best if only three of us bike. This way we have the car and the cooler with our picnic lunch. So, Josh, Renee and I set off on our bikes and Joel takes the car. About a mile out, the tire on my bike pops (5). Joel has already left and is waiting for us at the other park. Our first option is for Josh to bike back to our site and try to call Joel. He does this, but Joel doesn't have reception. Our second option was for Josh to bike the 6 miles and meet up with Joel. So, he does this. Renee and I were standing on the side of the road just waiting for our ride. Joel and Josh come back and we load the bike onto our rack and go to the other campground for our picnic. Once there we walk around and look at a cool old mill and have a nice picnic lunch. (By the way the weather was absolutely perfect for these events). We then drive a little further to where there are some hiking trails. We now have 2 bikes on top of the car and Josh bikes to the hiking trails. We then go for a beautiful hike and saw some awesome rock formations and waded in a small creek. We are done with our hike. Joel and Renee decide they want to bike back to our campsite, because they haven't had a chance to bike yet today. Josh and I get in the car and actually decide to park where we picnicked. This way we can make sure Joel and Renee are okay and take pictures of them flying by. They pass us and then turn around before we can head anyway. They had just heard thunder (6). All of us do not want anyone biking in a thunderstorm, so Josh and I were going to go back to the campsite and unload the bike with the flat tire and then come back to pick Joel and Renee up. Josh and I drive back and see really dark ominous clouds and I think we both saw a funnel cloud. About the same spot my tire blew out it starts pouring rain. It is so hard that I can hardly see the front of my hood. I was so scared, but there was no shoulder, so I kept going very slowly and we did make it back to camp. We decide that there is no way we won't get wet, so we just stepped out of the car and both were drenched in a matter of seconds. (It was like we had gone swimming) We take the bike down. We also have noticed that the one tent we had up is now half flat and filling with water (7). Josh stays at camp and I go back to pick Joel and Renee up. Fortunately, the rain has let up and it is a lot safer to drive. I get back to the picnic area and see the bikes under the pavilion but no one else is around. I get out of the car and start walking to the old school house. I find 12 people and 3 dogs in the men's bathroom in the basement of the school house--Joel and Renee included. Come to find out about a minute after Josh and I left the ranger came by and told them there was a tornado warning and they needed to seek shelter (8). I had just driven through a tornado warning!! The bad weather passed and I took Joel and Renee and their bikes back to camp. Everything was soaked except for our camping chairs, which our neighbors rescued by setting under Josh and Renee's down tent. We proceed to pack everything up and determine a hotel might be in order for the night. However, before we can get a hotel, Josh and Renee realize that they need a new bike rack, because theirs isn't working properly (9). They go into town and try to find something, but end up having to call Dunham's Sports up in Davenport. Josh drops Renee off back at the campsite. We load 2 of the four bikes unto our car and Joel and Renee go into town and find a hotel. While Josh drives 30 miles to Davenport for a bike rack and I watch the other two bikes at the campsite. While I was there by myself I was able to dry out the tent, air mattress, our tarp, and the sleeping bag for the most part. Joel comes back to pick me up and we load everything that was with me into the car and go to the Holiday Inn. That night we sat in a hot tub, played Pirateer, and laughed about everything we had gone through on that camping trip. Renee and I pretended to roast marshmallows over a lamp in the hotel room. Yea, we didn't get to have any smore's this camping trip...sadness.

To Close the Weekend off--Sunday:
Sunday morning we all woke up refreshed and to a little more rain. We packed everything up and played a few more games of Pirateer before heading our separate ways. Now, what I am about to tell you did not happen on the camping trip, but it fits with the type of weekend we were having. Joel and I got home and unloaded everything. We took a nap and then went over to our friends' house for homemade pizza and games. Rick went downstairs to get us drinks and he found about 3 inches of standing water in their basement (10). We did still eat the homemade pizza (which was super good!), but we did not play any games, unless you call using a dry/wet vac and scooping water into buckets a game. :) After getting the water level down by a lot we had strawberry ice cream and fresh strawberries.

All in all it was a good weekend. :)

(By the way it is my 25th Birthday today! I love celebrating birthdays and hope that I always do. I would say that this trip around the sun was a pretty good one with lots of changes.)

Thursday, June 5, 2008

A Funny Story about a Shake

I figured while I am in the closet I can post about this weekend. My parents came out with my younger brother, Jeff. It was good to see them. We didn't show my parents a lot of new things, but it was the fun to show my brother around. They came in late on Friday night. On Saturday, we went out for breakfast, showed them the Farmer's Market, and then headed back to Neal Smith Wildlife Refugee (this time the weather permitted us to walk outside more), showed Jeff DMU, went out to dinner, and then watched the hockey game. Sunday, we went to church, had a nice meal here and relaxed. We did head out to Raccoon River Park, but besides that it was a fairly low key day. Monday morning we headed out to breakfast and then they left and I went to work.

Now, you may say there is nothing funny about the weekend, but let me tell you a little story about what happened when we went out to eat at Drake Diner on Saturday night. We had all gotten some pretty good meals, but we knew to save room for their shakes/malts. Joel and I ordered a strawberry chocolate shake to spilt. Joel poured our shakes and we started to enjoy them. I got to the bottom of my cup and saw something that looked a little out of place. It didn't look like a chunk of strawberry because it wasn't red. I wondered if it was an ice cube, but that isn't a typical sight for a shake either. Here is what I found:

If you can't tell that is a bolt. Yes, there was a bolt in my shake. So, we got our waitress' attention. Don't worry we were all laughing and making jokes about it, so we weren't upset. But, we thought they should know what I had found. So, we told her about the bolt and gave it back to her. She came back to our table a few minutes later. First, she told us that our shake was free. Second, she told us that when she brought the bolt back to the kitchen, the guys were like "hey that is the piece we need to fix the machine." We got quite a good laugh out of this. Then we joked about how my dad could get rid of all the spare bolts, screws and nails in his workshop plus get free food. Haha. Joel's joke for the day is: "All in all we got screwed." Haha.


There you have it my funny story that happened to me. By the way, if you are worried. The tornado warning has passed and we are safe. There are a few more storms that are south of us, so hopefully nothing happens with those. But, we have the radar on the Internet, the weather radio from Debbi and the TV on to warn us about anything else. Here is a picture of me blogging from the closet. (Hey, blogging is keeping my mind off the storms, so I am not as nervous.)

A Safe Place?

Joel and I are coming from you live from the closet under our stairs. There is a tornado warning and this time it looks like it is right over us on the radar. We thought about driving to AM's but it sounds like it is coming too fast. We didn't want to be on the road if a tornado actually touches down. We had to empty the closet. Poor Joel, he just had gotten organized. This was our game closet but all the games have been evacuated. So, we can't even play cards. Fortunately the Internet is still working, so we are entertaining ourselves that way. Youtube here we come.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

One Happy Husband

My husband is very happy tonight! The Wings just won the Stanley Cup!!! (I am happy too, but Joel is more so. :))

Go Wings!!!

Resolution 6 Month Review

I will post later about the picture that Joel posted below, but Amanda you are right, the buffalo are behind the fence. :) My parents and brother came out this past weekend, so I will tell you about their visit later (stay tuned for a funny story). However, since we are now in the sixth month of the year, I thought it was time to review how I have done on my new year's resolutions so far. I put them on this blog as a way to hold myself accountable to them, so I figure it is only fair to share with people how I am doing on them.

1. Financial Resolution
a) Make a budget and stick to it. Joel and I created a budget on excel, but haven't done a great job updating it and following it. We aren't awful with finances, but we haven't taken the time to update the budget each month and with each purchase we make.
b) Save money to invest with. We have not invested any of our money, however we are thinking that this may be a good thing to do with part of the economic stimulus we received. We need to do a lot more research into this though before we decide anything. Now, that Joel is on summer vacation this would be a good time to research investing. I did start an IRA through work, so we are saving for retirement already.
c) Save money to put toward a house I was fortunate to get a raise in April. We decided since we have lived off my starting income for 6 months we can do it a bit longer. So, we have put the difference between my starting salary and raise into savings. It isn't much, but every penny counts.

2. Personal Health Resolution:
a) Schedule time to go and exercise My friend/neighbor Debbi and I would get up twice a week to walk at our clubhouse exercise room. Since, Debbi is gone and plans on moving in July, Joel told me he will wake up with me this summer and walk. Debbi and I got into a real routine, which was great! I hope Joel likes this enough to keep it up during the school year...but we'll see. I also try to walk the skywalk with my friend Aupreille at least once a week over our lunch breaks. I don't have enough motivation to exercise by myself very often, so if I have an accountability partner, like Debbi, Aupreille, or Joel, there is a much better chance that I do this. I have tried to do sit-ups, push-ups and jumping jacks each day.
b) Eat healthier I decided to join weight watchers after typing my resolution list. It has been well worth it. I am now watching what I eat (recording it actually) and the portions. I have also been making myself by the healthier options at the grocery store even if it may increase our food budget at times.
c) A and B should help me lose a few pounds. After seeing pictures of myself this fall I really wanted to lose some weight. I wasn't happy with how I looked and I knew I wasn't at a healthy weight for my age and height. With the help of weight watchers (learning how to eat and get more active) and the support of family and friends I have lost a total of 32 pounds!!! I am so happy about this. I feel much healthier and much more comfortable with my body. I am at the point where I want to maintain my weight. If I lose a few more pounds, I wouldn't be opposed, but I am feeling great with where my weight is now. I find that I have much more energy now!