Giggle-Fest

Since we've been under construction the past year or so, our living conditions have been less than ideal for the kids to have a friend or two over for a play date, much less for a full blown slumber party. So... after a year of "I promise when this is over you can do ______ (insert kid's wish here), I was more than happy to follow through on a few. The first and biggest was for Allison to have a group of friends over for a birthday/slumber party.

It all began Thursday after school. We decided to take advantage of no school on Friday and the 3 day weekend to recover! I offered to pick them up, but for some reason riding the bus is SOOOO much cooler when you have friends!

They played in the barn, chased the horses, rode the 4-wheeler, watched movies, played air hockey, painted pumkins, finger knitted, and much more. I didn't know those little bodies could pack so much energy!

We ended the second day with a Perfect Princess Tea Party at the historic Keystone Hotel. The girls had a wonderful time and the moms got to enjoy some down time with some pretty tasty food and a nice cup of tea!

Complete with tea and goodies, story time, craft, presents, and princess cake. What more could this group ask for?!?!

Happy Birthday to my little princess! We love you!!!

Summer Daze

As much as we complain about the hot days of summer, I'm always a little sad when the nights start to cool off. It's a tell-tale sign that fall is nearing and the beautiful colors that filled the flower beds won't be with us much longer. Enjoy it while it lasts. As my kids say, the trees will soon be "naked" again and we'll be wishing for those hot days! So today, I'm thankful for these:

Knockout Shrub Roses

Regrowth on Salvia Cardonna

Red and White Verbena

Purple Cone Flowers

Black Eyed Susans

Silky Gold Asclepias

Purple Morning Glories

Have a great day and don't forget to stop and admire your flowers!!!

It's ALMOST over!

Some of you are probably wondering what happened to the "big" remodel we were doing. Well... we are STILL doing it! Slowly but surely, we are plugging away. It was a year ago this month that we were so excited to see the first concrete poured for the foundation of the addition. Now we are so excited to see them finally go away! It seems like they are getting down to the final details, but it is still agonzingly slow. I thought I might share the exterior before and after. It is 99% done and we can't be happier with the results! It won't be long and you will be coming over for a BBQ on that new porch of ours... unless of course it's snowing by the time we get it all done!

Before the addition and landscape...

The new addition to the west of the original structure...

Notice the old little windows in the front of the house before...

And the gorgeous new window that took their place! The views are beautiful (inside and out!)

Goodbye pine tree and more little windows...

Say hello to a room with a view!

Now you just have to come see it in person... so come on over!

Where is everybody?

I just noticed it's been nearly 2 months since my last post. Like you, I find myself wondering what I've been doing or where I've been lately that has kept me away. As I scanned my recent photo files for potential blog material, I discovered why I've been away. So here's a snapshot of our life the past two months...

Going Fishing...

Road Trip to Indiana / Swimming at the lake...

Playing with Cousins...

Playing Softball for Six Weeks...

Wheat Harvest...

Riding Horses with Friends...

Taking Roping Lessons...

Checking the Cows...

Nate's Birthday...

Swimming Lessons...

The 4-H Fair - cookies, posters, and showing a rabbit...

Quick trip to the Salina Zoo & Museum...

Meeting our cousin's first baby...

So what have you been you been up to?!?!

Warrior Dash Race Recap

What do you get when you drive 2,030 miles round trip and pay a $50 registration fee? The "craziest freakin' day of your life"! Or at least that's what the race website claims. I don't know if it will go down as the craziest because I've had a few crazy trips in my past, but it will certainly be a most memorable one. It seemed like a good idea when we registered in December last year, but it didn't occur to me on that cold day that it would be REALLY hot and REALLY humid in Chicago in June, not to mention at a 1:30 start time. Lesson learned. It certainly could have been worse though so I guess we were lucky.

This is not your average race by any stretch of the imagination. It involves a 5k run, along with 12 obstacles you must tackle, and boasts free beer and turkey legs for recovery. The waves of 500 runners started every 30 minutes all day long for two days straight and the rain that came just added to the already crazy course. The best part was hands down getting to run with my grad school buddy, Mindy, and some of her friends and family. Being the one who inspired me to start running in the first place, as well as the one who might have been responsible for a few of my other "craziest days" in life, it seemed rather fitting. As we plugged along the course, I couldn't help but think back to a time when the two of us traveled to Africa with some other friends. We had to hike out of a HUGE gorge (something like a mile pretty much straight up) along the banks of the Zambezie River and both of us were so out of shape that we could hardly make it out. I distinctly remember huffing and puffing up that hill wondering if we would ever get to the top. We even talked about that climb before the race and how we could probably run up it now. It just goes to show you anyone can get into shape, and anyone can be a runner if they have the will.

So back to this race of mine... It is definitely not a place to shoot for a PR, but it is a great race to just go out and have fun and be a kid again. Think climbing, crawling, jumping, running, etc.... and then throw in some mud. LOTS of MUD! It's ironic that as parents we spend much of our days yelling at the kids to get out of the mud or stop playing in the water, but on this day, there were 12,ooo+ perfectly grown adults having the time of their life doing just that. I learned that maybe a little mud is good for the soul. And I also learned that it washes off. Eventually!

Here are just a few of the obstacles we incurred.

The mud trench...

The tire crawl...
The cargo net climb...

The hay bale stack...

The fire pit jump...
The army crawl through mud and under barbed wire...

And our muddy victory celebration...



The shower afterward consisted of a tanker truck and a big dude with a fire hose who seemed to be taking great pleasure is spraying everyone down with ice cold water while we all screamed. At least it got the worst of it off. We saved the rest for the hotel. Kind of surprised they let us in the doors! Stay tuned for more after party pics.