Good Ol' WL

We took a drive back to West Liberty this past weekend and re-lived our younger years a little.  The Muscatine county fair was in town so of course we had to go check it out....we weren't surprised to see that not many things had changed but it was good to see all those familiar faces again and splurge on some yummy fair food!! 

We also had our 5-year class reunion on Saturday night!  There was only about 20 of us there but it was a really fun time...maybe a little bit too much fun?? No, never! =)   It was great to catch up with old friends and see where life has taken us over these last few years.

WLHS Class of 2005 --- 5 year Reunion
(minus about 75% of the class!)

On Sunday we had our first batch of engagement pictures taken! It was a beautiful, bright and sunny day!  The sky was the perfect blue with awesome fluffy white clouds.   We had a good time trying to be modles for the afternoon and we're looking forward to getting the pictures. :)  Big thanks to Scott & Shannon Hillyer at Images on Monroe!

These weeks seem to fly by night and drag by day.... countdown to the weekend = 3 days and counting!!

Whew - 2 Exciting Weeks!

Oh my gosh it's been almost 2 weeks already!  Where do I begin....

Well, Rockie is still adjusting and as she gets more comfortable she gets rowdier.  I have to remind myself that she's still a puppy even though she's big!  Overall we can't really complain because she's still nice and quiet and is a well-behaved dog when we're hanging out with her or have friends over but she does like to dig up our landscaping and chew on random things (while leaving her dog bone untouched...).  I guess we're all adjusting! haha!

Kurt turn 24 last week and he had "the best birthday ever"! (SUCCESS!)  We invited our friends over and threw a little party to celebrate the new house and Kurt's birthday all in one night.  It a lot of fun to show everyone around, grill out, break in our "party room" in the basement, make s'mores and hang out all night.  We're lucky to have such great friends!! 

24 candles! ...And YES of course we sang to him. :)

The girls kicked butt at Survivor Flippy Cup...undefeated!!!

Speaking of birthdays, we have to give a special shout-out to my awesome "little" brother! Matt turned 14 last week and I can hardly believe that he's growing up this fast.  I remember his 1st birthday when he tried to eat his cake by putting his whole face in to take a bite, SO CUTE.   Now he'll be getting his driver's permit, so watch out!! :)

Happy Birthday Matt!!! You're the BEST "little" brother I could ever ask for! :)

On the flip-side, this is busy time for both of us at work.  Kurt has been working some longer hours lately and I'm keeping busy recruiting, fund-raising and planning for the 2010 Memory Walk!  Our staff had an Office-Spaced theme "Team Recruitment Day" last week (think a minimum of 15 pieces of flair...).  We pulled out the big guns for this one, and it paid off!

Ashley, my co-worker, and I "Wearing our Flair" on Team Recruitment Day!

Last but not least there's been some recent excitement as well!  As the search for the perfect wedding dress continued my Mom and I decided we needed to take an afternoon to really hit the local bridal shops and focus on narrowing it down.  Shopping for your wedding dress is surprisingly hard because there are SO many beautiful dresses out there.  On Wednesday we hit the jackpot... There was a dress that both my Mom and I had torn out of a magazine (on separate occasions) and we were hoping to find it.  After a couple months of looking around we finally found it on the rack at a local bridal boutique yesterday.. The minute I put it on my Mom began crying!! It has every element of a bridal gown that I was hoping to find. It's simply PERFECT.... so we bought it.      WHEW, now the wait begins.  4-6 months until it's here in my size and then a couple more months of alterations.  But so worth it for the BIG DAY.  <3

....Sorry, no pictures for this one. You'll just have to wait until June 25, 2011.

Rock-star in the House!

We finally have our dog!!!  Rockie, our 10-month-old german shepard/blue healer mix, isn't much of a roadtrip dog but she managed to survive the drive from West Liberty to Waterloo this weekend.  We're excited to finally have her home since we couldn't have dogs in our old apartment!  So far she's been great -- she hasn't barked at all, she doesn't chew on anything and she hasn't had a single accident.  Rockie pretty much just follows us around and lays on the couch in the basement.  This is the first time she's been away from her mother so I'm worried that she's lonely... hopefully she continues to adjust and gets used to her new home.  She sure seems to like all the attention that we give her... especially the nightly walks!  Until now Rockie has been an outside-only farm dog, so we're trying to figure out the best living arrangement for her. She seems to like the current set-up... she gets to hang out in the unfinished basement at night and when we're at work.  She's gotten very comfortable on the couch down there... can you blame her??

Welcome home Rock-star!!

The Joys of Owning a Home

These past couple weeks have simply FLOWN by! It's hard to come to terms with the fact that it's already July...what happened to June this year?! It's like it never existed.

We are continuing to get settled into our house and we're loving it. Everyday it starts to look more and more like the home we want it to be. We've added a new rug, found places for some of our shelves and are slowing beginning to get decorations on the walls! It's a long process but I'm hoping we're done with the basic move-in projects in the next week or so! :) Then we can tackle some outdoor stuff...whew!

Other than that, we had a fun 4th of July weekend and got to spend some time at Holiday Lake with the Westra's! Kurt ventured to Des Moines and spent the day at the Good Guys Car Show while I soaked up some sun at the Lake but we were all ready to relax, grill out and enjoy the fireworks and bon fire by the end of the night. Of course, our long weekend was rudely interrupted by rain and we headed back home sooner than we had planned. Much to our surprise the rain didn't stop for an entire week and this was the result....

Waterloo had some intense flash flooding on Wednesday morning!  This picture was taken half a block from our house.   The streets were a disaster for about 4 hours, there was standing water in almost every intersection in our neighborhood (and other places, too!). 

This was our backyard! We had 3.5 inches of standing water to walk through that morning. 
It drained away once the rain slowed down around noon. It was very surreal.

Although we did get some water in the basement, we are absolutely considering ourselves amoung the "lucky" ones.  Our neighbors all had more damage than we did and we're thankful our basement isn't finished!  After a few hours of shop-vac action and soaking all our towels we had a dry basement.  Now it's time to bleach clean it all... Joy.

Of course, the rain stopped and the sun is shining again!  We're gearing up for a weekend back home and looking forward to spending time with our families and bringing our puppy, Rockie, back to the 'Loo!  TGIF.

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OH, just for kicks.... While at the Lake, Kurt got rocked with a water balloon (guess where?) courtesy of my cousin, Alex.  Lucky for us my Mom just happened to be snapping a picture at the exact moment of impact.... We all laughed, Kurt almost cried.   I said ALMOST.  ..... Enjoy!! =P 

Poor guy.
You  better watch your back, Alex. LOL!