Okoboji and Garth Brooks!!!

Oh I have so much fun stuff to catch up on!!! I'd love to skip right to the cute puppy pictures, but in an effort to keep things in chronological order, I'm going to start back a little over three weeks ago to our last night in Okoboji and the Garth Brooks concert!

I had been up in Okoboji with my mom and Grandma for a few days and then Dan and "the kids" joined us on Friday night so we could all take off on Saturday morning for the Garth concert. When they got there, my mom and Grandma had food ready for them (of course) and then we played a few games. We played our new dice game, Tenzi, and then wrapped up the night with a game of Dominos. 

The best part of the night was when Dan ran out to the car to get the Garth CD for us to listen to, and we just happened to place all of the doubles right next to him so he would pick them. He fell right into our trap! He realized what happened on about the fifth domino. Alex caught it on camera and you can watch it here:

We all woke up on Saturday morning to a few inches of snow outside, which made our drive north a little more interesting.

Luckily we had a lot of extra time to make our way up to Minneapolis. There was an accident somewhere along the line and we ended up at pretty much a stand still for an hour and a half. That left a lot of extra time for games in the car!

We played Heads Up for a while during the traffic jam. When it was Dani's turn, she was doing the category where she just had to try to get us to guess the words by just making whatever sound that item makes. We were mean to her and we all were just not guessing anything, so she would be making noises and we just sat there staring at her and laughing. By the end, she figured out what we were doing and thought we were pretty annoying I think, but it made for a good laugh!

You can watch the video here:

Eventually we did arrive at our hotel with plenty of time to shower and some of us even had time to nap for a while since we knew it would be a late night! Jared and Kenzie joined us and then all eight of us headed out for a quick bite to eat and then to the concert!!

The birthday girl! It was nice of Garth to come to the area on her birthday! :)

We arrived downtown around 10:00 and got into line outside of the Target Center. I want to say it took about twenty or thirty minutes to get inside. It was cold outside, but thankfully not too bad! It definitely could have been worse!

We got to our seats by about 10:30 (when the concert was supposed to start) and then just waited for the rest of the thousands of people to join us!

Garth came out on stage promptly at 11:30 and played for about two and a half hours non-stop (except for the few songs that Trisha Yearwood sang alone). He was pretty amazing! Our seats weren't the best, and it was still amazing! I can't even imagine what it would have been like had our seats been just like 5 rows down. A.MAZING!

We sang along to every one of his songs along with the 20,000 other people in the building! It is just such a cool thing to experience! Garth is just crazy and all over the place. He sounded great and had  a great energy and he really didn't make it feel like it was 2 in the morning when he was getting towards the end of the show! :)

I have quite a few videos from the night, but not many that I'm willing to share! My voice is overwhelming in most of them and it is NOT pretty!! Here's the few that I am willing to share though! :)

Here's all eight of us that went! It was such a blast from the time we all met up to the time we got home! I love spending time with family and I'm so happy that we can have such fun and make memories together!

.Rumor has it that Garth is coming to Omaha at some point (he'd better not be lying) and I think we're all ready to do it again!!

Sunday morning we went out for breakfast before we headed out of town and my mom got to experience one of the perks of being 55 just one day into her 55th year! The SENIOR DISCOUNT!! A great ending to our time in Minnesota! 

The Band Perry Concert and Our Roommate!

A little less than a month ago, Jocelyn and I got to go to The Band Perry concert at Stir Cove. Trent's boss hooked us up with some tickets and a hotel room for the night and we definitely had a blast!

The weather and music were great and, as always, we just had a great time together! 

The opener for The Band Perry was Ben Rue. We had never heard of him before that night, but we had fun trying to figure out things about him. We found out that he was born the same year as I was and, much to Jocelyn's disappointment, he has a girlfriend... We also discovered that he doesn't have a Wikipedia page, but there IS one for Reuben Sandwich... close, but not quite... We also got to meet him and take our picture with him, so if he becomes famous we can start flashing this picture around!

As expected, The Band Perry was super entertaining (we also saw them in October when they opened for Rascal Flatts). I love them and their songs and I'm so glad we got to go to the concert!

This concert, though, was just one of many fun times we've had over the past few months. Jocelyn moved in with us mid-March for her last internship for PT school and then ended up staying with us after graduation for the month of June, too. (And now she lives in Omaha! Woot!) We loved having Joce live with us (who wouldn't want to have one of their best friends living in their house with them for a while?!?) and we definitely had many fun times and adventures while she was here! I had someone to get up early in the morning with me to work out (even if that only lasted like a week and a half), Trent had someone to watch Orange is the New Black With, and we all got to go out during March Madness to watch games and eat some good food! 

And that's just the beginning...

Joce and I got to go to the ZZ Ward concert together!

We got to be there to celebrate Jocelyn's birthday with her!

My best friend just happens to be great friends with one of Jocelyn's friends and classmates who was living in Omaha at the same time, so we all got to meet up a few times, like this occasion when we went on a walk together!

We all went to Nebraska Furniture Mart together and then get hot dogs at UNO during a fundraiser they were having.

We got to celebrate Jocelyn's last day of her internship with her! 

(With what else but shots of Templeton Rye! haha)

We all got to go to the College World Series together!

It was so nice to have someone else with us to take our picture when necessary!

Joce and I got to go to the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Lauren's birthday with her! 

I had someone to be silly with me (and get on Trent's nerves, I'm sure), which included recording this awesome video to send to Kellsey on her birthday.

I had someone to stay up late with me on a Sunday night and paint "my room"! And THEN she even finished it the next day while I was at work - talk about awesomeness!!

Having Jocelyn around gave Trent someone else to pick on so I didn't have to be the one being made fun of all the time :) 

Nice hair :)

We got to be there for Joce's experience of getting Lasik, which meant that we got to have her potential last meal with her and watch the potential last TV show with her and go to Orange Leaf with her before she possibly became blind! Luckily it all turned out, but I'm glad that we did all that just in case ;)

We got to go experience "Omaha's Best Burger" at Dinker's Bar together.

We got to have family supper's together most nights during the week.

 And, now that she lives in Omaha for real, we get to continue having family suppers!

And Mattie had another buddy to hang out with and during the month of June, they got to be together all day every day!

She really misses Joce and loves it when she comes over to visit!

It was definitely a great few months having Joce as a roommate, dogsitter, house cleaner, dishwasher emptier, and just all around fun-haver! I'm looking forward to all the great times we will get to have together in the months to come!

Introducing Dr. Jocelyn!!!

Last weekend, we got to be there to celebrate Jocelyn's graduation from DMU as a Doctor of Physical Therapy! It seems like not too long ago we were celebrating her graduation from undergrad and she was talking about starting PT school in Des Moines, and now she's done already and going to be starting her job in the real world and make some money!!!

I'm so happy that Trent and I got to be a small part of her journey as she lived with us for the past 8 weeks during her final internship, while she talked about graduating and finding a job, and I'm glad we got to be some of the first people to hear that she was offered and accepted her job!! And we are SOO happy that she's going to be staying and working in Omaha now! Score for us!
(Mission "keep Joce in Omaha" accomplished!!)

On Saturday morning, we showed up to Hy Vee Hall in Downtown Des Moines to watch her walk across the stage and get hooded as Dr. Jocelyn Marie Kock! Sitting through the 2 and a half hour ceremony was totally worth it to be a part of that specialness! 

Joce's official name announcement card!

Joce and I before the ceremony

Joce preparing to walk across the stage

Getting hooded!

Woot woot!!

 After the ceremony, we had a little photo sesh, of course!

We're so proud!! :D

With her parents

With her grandparents and parents

Grandma and Grandpa Kock were proud, too!!

Joce and my mom

Another picture. Even though I kind of look scared in this one!

After the ceremony, all of her family met up to celebrate with some lunch and presents and hanging out (and by hanging out, I mean watching "Miracle" on the big screen in her apartment building's theater room).

Joce lookin' good with her cake!

The cake maker and the graduate!

This guy! :)

Everyone relaxing and hanging out

Grandma made the cake extra special this time with two colored layers!

Introducing Dr. Josel!

Too much fun!! :)

Congrats to Jocelyn! We can't wait to see what the next chapter of your life brings!

And just for fun, here's my corny compilation of the videos I got from the day. My phone stopped recording RIGHT after she got hooded, so I decided to do what I could with what I had :) (Sorry if you get sick from all the shaking!)