Back Road Bash 2 and Grandma Kock's Birthday

The first weekend of September was a busy one filled with a day of country music at the Back Road Bash in Vail, celebrating a high school classmates wedding, and celebrating Grandma Kock's 78th birthday!

Trent and I arrived at the Bash with some birthday balloons for Grandma and stayed to help sell pizza for the majority of the afternoon. It was a perfect day for a country music concert!!

Later on in the afternoon, we left for a while to go celebrate a classmate of mine's wedding. I grew up doing a lot of things with Jenica. We went to school and church together and it was great to see her so happy and beautiful on her wedding day.

After celebrating for a while, we headed back to the Bash to round out the night. It was a very fun (but chilly) evening!

On Sunday, we all gathered at Grandma Kock's to celebrate her birthday. We took that opportunity to spoil her, so we didn't let her cook or get us anything or clean up after us or anything!

She even got to go first in line and actually sit down and eat her food first. I don't think we've ever seen her go through the line first OR actually sit down at the table to eat at the same time as everyone else!

Grandma has always been the one to make us cakes for our birthdays, so I took this opportunity to make her a cake for once! It wasn't anything fancy and I only destroyed a couple layers of cake in the process, but we did have cake to eat in the end! And Grandma thought it tasted pretty good, so that's all that really matters, right?!?! I guess I just need a few more lessons before I stand any chance at becoming the new cake baker!

We took the opportunity of all of us being there at the same time to take some family photos, too

And being the strange ducklings that we are, we took some group senior picture-ish photos using the props at Grandma and Grandpa's. Yes, we are cool! :)

We were so caught up in taking creative pictures, that we forgot to consider the safety of the one of us that is currently active in sports... whoops. Luckily no one was injured during our photo shoot!

The whole day (and weekend) was just a blast. We all just had fun hanging out together and celebrating Grandma's birthday. She has done SO MUCH for us all for our whole lives and she deserves so much more that we will ever be able to give her! She is one special special lady and I love her sooo much!!! I can't wait to celebrate many many more birthdays with her!!

Two Years

Two years ago today. 

It seems just like yesterday, but it seems like forever ago. 

When I think about that day and the days that followed, it is all so surreal. I still find it hard to believe that we went through all that and that it really happened.

Most days are filled with all the wonderful and happy memories we all have of him and I am very thankful for that. I am thankful that we know that he is in a much better place! A perfect place. He truly was a wonderful man!
We have so much to be thankful for and so much to look forward to. But today just brings up painful memories of a day that makes me so sad. Oh how I would love a hug from my daddy right now. I miss him so much.

I love all the other days, when the memories are good ones, but I'd like to just skip today.

Five on Friday - {09.19.2014}

ONE.

This past Tuesday was the second week of a Bible study that I started going to at Christ Community Church. It's a Beth Moore study on 1 and 2 Thessalonians. So far I love it. There are around 40-50 women in the study. We sit at the tables in groups of 8 or so and we sit with the same people each time. I am the youngest one at my table, as most of them have children my age and several grandchildren, but I love that. The women I am with have a lot of wisdom and insight and life experiences that I can learn from and the conversations we have during our time together are great. It is so great to have met all these new people and start growing my own church family here in Omaha. It is also so comforting to know that this group of women will be praying for each other throughout the week and that we are all in the Word and studying the same things each day.

TWO. 


Last weekend we celebrated Trent's grandma's birthday along with our brother-in-law, Russ's birthday. We all went out to eat at Zombie Burger to celebrate and watched the Iowa vs. Iowa State game together. We had lots of good food and conversation, and it was a great weekend!

THREE.

Trent and I got the girls some personalized jump ropes and gave them to them last weekend. Jenna is a tad to little yet to effectively use hers, but Taylor did awesome. I even taught her how to do the little double hop in between each bigger jump and she caught on super quick! Us big kids adults even got to give the jump roping a try! We didn't do so bad ourselves! :)

FOUR.

Mattie is adorable and I love her. That's all.

FIVE.

Trent and I are taking off for the weekend to go to St. Louis. We got tickets to the Rams vs. Cowboys game on Sunday, so we're going down for a tiny vacation. This will be the first NFL game that I have been to, so I'm really looking forward to it. 

Above is a picture of the arch that I took the last time Trent and I were in St. Louis together (with other people as well). That was before us being a WE was even a thought! Oh how things change! :)

Happy Friday!!

Iowa State Fair!

This year, my fair experience was fabulous! We got to go both Saturday and part of the day on Sunday there, which made it even greater than normal! :)

Saturday, Trent and I and his parents showed up soon after the fair opened and began looking around. We got some breakfast at the Methodist food stand, looked at some animals, walked past the Clydesdale's, and watched the beginning of a clogging performance. Then my mom and Jared and Kenzie arrived and we all took off through the fair together, beginning at the Green Egg tent.

Then we went to see some animals including, of course, the biggest bull and boar.

Then we went around and walked through the Agriculture Building, rode through Ye Old Mill, watched some of the Bill Riley Talent Show and walked through the Varied Industries Building. All essentials when you're at the fair!

Then, after a full day of fun, Trent and his parents headed home and the rest of us (plus Jocelyn who arrived at about that time) stayed so we could go to the Lady Antebellum concert that night. 

We did find time to eat some more food, ride the tram around, go through a few more buildings on the hill and take a ride on the sky glide before going in to the concert, though!

All 5 of us on the Sky Glide

Before we knew it, we were in our seats and ready for the concert. Both Billy Currington and Lady Antebellum were awesome (of course). We "rocked' out and sung our hearts out the whole concert. It was so much fun!! I'm so glad that we all got to go together!

Here's a few of the videos I took during the concert. Please please excuse the horrible singing that you can hear over the good singing! We were into it just a little bit!!

We all stayed in downtown Des Moines overnight then on Sunday morning I went to early church with a new and good friend, Megan, who was in town from Wisconsin and then to a later service to the church that Jocelyn called home when she lived in Des Moines. It was a great morning! 

All of our family that was in Des Moines met up at Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch and then it was time for my mom and I to head back to the fair! We were there early enough to go to the last few places that we had missed the day before like the DNR building and the upstairs part of the Agriculture building, we even had time to sit and watch a cooking demo in the Varied Industries building, and then it was time to head back into the grandstand for the Styx and Foreigner concert. This night we were in row #5!

The concert was tons of fun. I sang along to all the songs that I knew, but, of course, my mom sang along to every.single.one! Seeing everyone rocking out to every song and getting so into it really made me smile and laugh! And seeing my mom rocking out to the songs from her high school/college days was great. And I'll repeat what I said that night about the "old guys" from both groups - I wish I looked as good in skinny jeans as they do! :) You'll see what I mean in the pictures below! 

It was such a good time and great experience with my mom. I'm so happy that I got to go!

Here's my videos from this concert. Sorry that the bass is overbearing in a few of the videos!

She got a Foreigner guitar pick!

The Iowa State Fair was another success this year! I'm looking forward to next year already :)