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! 

Weekend in St. Louis

A few weekends ago, Trent and I took a little mini vacation to St. Louis. We left in the morning on Saturday and by Sunday night we were back home in our own beds. 

We stayed at at the Magnolia hotel downtown, it was newly renovated and opened just a few months ago. It was a nice place to stay. It was definitely an older building that they repainted and "dressed up" to make it look more modern. 

Right after we got there, we hung out for a while and then headed down to happy hour at the hotel bar. They have a managers reception, so we enjoyed a few free drinks before heading out for the evening.

Our first stop was the Gateway Arch. We wanted to go up inside of it, but, by the time we got there, it was closed, so we didn't get to experience that together. 

We made up for not being able to go up inside the top of the arch by taking a helicopter tour that took off from the base of the arch instead! Neither one of us had ever been in a helicopter before, so it was pretty cool to experience that together. It was like our own personal Bachelorette experience!

We didn't have quite as many options for tour routes because there was a Cardinals game going on nearby and that made the air space around the stadium restricted. So we took the Anheuser-Bucsh Tour that went down the river and over the Brewery then it crossed the river and back to where we started while giving us a great view of the St. Louis skyline.

It went by really fast, but it was so much fun. Here's the video I took while we were up in the air. I sped it up so the shakiness is really accentuated... So if you get sick easily, you might not want to watch this!! I wasn't really paying attention to what I was videoing because I was just holding it up while I was looking around, so don't expect too much from it :) It's nice a nice video to have, though!

After our helicopter tour, we tried to get some pictures of us with the arch in the background, but the random person who took our picture wasn't the greatest photographer... so this is what we've got to work with...

Thanks to Aunt Doreen, we did get one with the arch, though!! :) I love this one!

And we got this one we took ourselves... 

After we were done at the arch, we walked to a restaurant called Sauce on the Side. They serve a wide variety of different calzones and they were pretty great! I'm very glad that we found that place. After supper, we swung by a Bella's Frozen Yogurt for some dessert and then headed back to the hotel to watch some football before bed.

Sunday morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed to the Edward Jones Dome for the Rams vs Cowboys game. We had tickets in the front row, 5 yard line. They weren't the best seats for seeing all the action on the whole field, but, for my first NFL game, it was definitely a great experience to be that close to the field and see all that was going on along the sidelines. Next game I think we'll shoot for 50 yard line and a few rows higher ;)

There were a few good plays that happened right in front of us which was really cool, and it was a really good game that ended up being pretty close. It was just a really fun time!

My videos from the game.

After the game, we were right back on the road and headed towards home. It was a really fast trip, but we packed a lot of fun stuff into the 36 hours we were gone. It really makes me look forward to the next trip that we will take! Hopefully it's a tad bit longer, though :)

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!!

Our Trip to Wisconsin for Lee and Sara's Wedding

Trent and I left last Wednesday and headed to Wisconsin to be there for our friends, Lee and Sara's, wedding. We had other friends come from all over and gather in Stevens Point in the days leading up to the main event, so it was great to be able to all hang out for several days.

We arrived on Wednesday evening and got together with a few people for supper and some ice cream. Then, on Thursday, Trent and I ventured out to visit the Dells of the Eau Claire Park to see what nature has developed in the Eau Claire River over many years. Trent (and Mattie too) had been there already before when they lived in Wisconsin, so I was happy to witness it for the first time too.

After our little excursion, we met up with people again and went to see the movie 22 Jump Street (quite funny) and then I went to Zumba and supper with the bride to be, Sara, and her Matron of Honor, Suzie, while the guys went out in the evening to celebrate Lee's bachelorhood one last time with supper and some drinks. 

Then came Friday, when the real celebrations started! In the evening, everyone gathered for the wedding rehearsal in Lee and Sara's backyard and then for some pizza and drinks at Mikey's.

Luke and Trent showed up wearing very similar outfits. We're not 100% convinced that they didn't plan it :)

And then came Saturday... the wedding day!

Trent was a groomsman in the wedding and he looked pretty good doing his thing! It was a beautiful wedding in a beautiful setting and everything went great!

The evolution of me a kiss for Trent!

The handsome groomsmen

After the ceremony, everyone celebrated with supper and dancing. We had a great meal, but Trent and Dustin felt the need to follow up supper with chicken strips and fries! All the more reason to dance off all that food, though, I guess!

We danced into the night, right up until midnight, which meant it was Trent's birthday! The bride and groom gave him a special piece of cheesecake to celebrate his special day, too!

On Sunday, we headed out in the morning back towards home. On the way, we stopped by Trent's parents' house to see his family and also to celebrate his birthday with them! We had an awesome supper and it was great to have a home cooked meal for the first time in quite a few days!

For dessert, Trent had requested Lemon Meringue Pie, and it was delicious! It was the perfect way to end our trip!