Our weekend in a nutshell... a really big nutshell.

So, my dad was home from Iraq for 2 weeks, which was great! Chris and I wanted to spend as much time with him as we could, so this is what our lives looked like from last Tuesday to today:

Tuesday night: drive to Council Bluffs to visit
Wednesday morning (early): Drive back to DSM for work
Thursday night: Drive to Council bluffs
Saturday afternoon: Drive back to DSM
Monday morning/early afternoon: Drive to Omaha to visit the Victors, then to CB to visit the Rinaldi's
This morning: Drive back to DSM for work
(for a more detailed look at our weekend, skip to the bottom part in square brackets)

That's a lot of driving... but it was worth it :) And after all that you'd think, "Man, they probably won't want to drive at all for a month!" But... we're actually driving to Kentucky on Thursday night to visit our friend Brent, from college.

We are pretty excited about our little mini vacation this weekend to Kentucky. We've only been there once, for Brent's wedding, and we didn't get to spend much time there. Brent said there are some waterfalls near where they live, so we are planning on checking those out. Not sure what else we'll do, but I'm sure it will be fun! Plus, we really enjoy road tripping together, and we're renting a car so we don't have to worry about the miles building up on our own :)

Other things of note: We're keeping busy with youth events and road trips this summer. Between June 5 and August 7, we have virtually no free weekends. I take that back, I get back from a mission trip July 24 and we have nothing scheduled for that weekend. Unfortunately, the youth events I have planned depend on youth signing up for them, and I haven't had anyone sign up yet :( Hopefully that starts to happen soon so I can get some plans finalized.

Chris is still hard at work doing his two-jobs-for-the-price-of-one. Sometimes he gets pretty stressed, but I think he deals with it pretty well. We're just thankful he has a job. Went to lunch with one of my high schoolers (except she graduated so now she's not a high schooler!) and the waitress divulged that she was being laid off from her night job. No one is immune, and we are so grateful to have the jobs we do.

Welp, thanks for reading. Keep in touch and stuff.




[The last post talked a bit about the first two days (Thursday and Friday). Saturday morning we went with my parents to have breakfast at my favorite cafe ever (Mia Latte in downtown Omaha). We arrived to a sign which read "Closed until further notice." Sad!! I loved that place. There food was delicious, they had a billion kinds of tea, and the people were really nice. :( Stupid economy. Anyway, we skipped the breakfast thing since it was actually about 11:00 by that point and headed down to the Old Market for the Farmer's Market. Omaha's is really good, and there is always a ton of people there. We bought a couple pastries for "brunch," and then mosied on through the different tents of produce. After the market we went to a Mediterranean and an Indian food market shop thing (two separate stores, same strip mall), to get some stuff for my next book club meeting. We're reading "The Bookseller of Kabul." It's pretty interesting. Next we went to have a delicious lunch and then we headed home. My parents came out to DSM too, to visit my aunt.

That evening we went to a dance recital in which one of my 8th graders was performing, and it was pretty fun. Lots of neat dances. We left there around 9 and headed to my aunts for a bit of visiting before bed. Sunday was church/work as usual, followed by 3 grad parties. Then we went to my aunt's again and walked with her, my cousins and my parents around Saylorville Lake. Got in the pool after that (Chris did, I did not), and roasted hot dogs for dinner. Then we left my aunt's for youth group, after which we returned to my aunts for a bit more visiting. Monday morning my parents took us to breakfast/lunch at the Machine Shed (mmmm), and then we all headed back toward Omaha, at which point Chris and I went to his dad's for a little cookout. We were happy to see his family, as we hadn't in a while, and were happily surprised to find his grandpa there when we pulled up.

Later that evening we went to Chris's grandparents' house to retreive a disc his granpa had made for us. The disc contains some pictures and info for a family tree which Chris has been wondering about for a while. We haven't gotten to look at it yet, but we are excited to. We've already learned some interesting things about his family... Turns out, Chris's great grandpa invented the first road sander (truck that throws sand in winter)!

Spent last night at my parents, said goodbye to my dad who is heading back to Iraq tomorrow, and then went to bed. Headed home early this morning and now here we are...]

Another Update... Whoo!

And here we are, with a little time on our hands, so we thought we'd give you an update :)


A couple weekends ago we went to Cedar Falls for Shelby's graduation. It was pretty fun. We got to see the newly renovated Village Inn, which freaked us all out, and Chris and I skipped out on commencement to go visit another good friend we have in CF. We enjoy hanging out with Shelby and her bf Steve, and it was nice to see Shelby's family. Also, there was Brooklyn, Steve's basset hound, and she's really sweet :)


Early the following week my dad got home for R&R, so we have been spending as much time as we can with him and it's been really nice. It felt like Christmas yesterday when we were at my grandparents, because both my dad's siblings were there with their families and nearly the only time that happens is during Christmas (everyone is always so busy!). There were plenty of card games and snacks to be had, and my dad brought home several souvenirs for us all to choose from.
----------------------------------------------------

So, we started that post and then went to bed... and now it's Friday. I don't even remember what day we started that other one. Anyway...

I went with my parents to see Star Trek and that movie was awesome! Then last night Chris and I came to visit my parents and he and I went to see it since he hadnt seen it yet. Still an awesome movie. Now we are just hanging out at my parents house after helping them with some yard work (ok, Chris helped. I did some of my own stuff for work).

Not a lot has been happening in our own lives; not anything new, at least. Several of our friends have had exciting changes, or will have. Congrats to Jessz, Brittany and Elle on their engagements! We're really excited for our friends to experience married life, as we enjoy it greatly :). Also, Christy, Aimee, and Valerie are all very close to having babies. How exciting for them to be starting their families! Congrats to them as well :)

We have been really busy these last couple weekends, and it looks like our summer will be a whirlwind of busy weekends. It should all be pretty fun, though. I (Stephanie) have joined/co-started a book club and it's going well so far :).

Alright. I feel as though I'm draggin on and am really distracted at the moment so I will leave you with this: Kites rise highest against the wind.

My Planner

Welp, it's been a while... let's see if I can figure out what's happened since the last post (really, I lose track of time and don't remember what happened when... oops).

Gimeny!  What the heck has happened since April?  Ok, this is sad.  I literally had to go get my planner to figure this out...  Ok, here we go:

April 25:  My planner says "ISU."  This is in reference to Awaken's last performance of the season, which took place on the campus of Iowa State.  It was awesome, there were tons of people there, and in that tons of people was my youth group from Pella.  I loved seeing them all again and was glad they got to experience Awaken.  

April 26:  The next day, my planner tells me, was First Communion for both my cousin and Chris's.  Chris's cousin and her parents live in Minnesota, so right after Awaken (at 11:30pm), Chris headed north... or he was supposed to... I called him about half an hour after he left telling him to turn around.  He had left with my purse in his backseat, and in my purse were my keys.  In the end he didn't end up getting to MN until 3:30.  It was nice for him to be at the Communion, though, because it was his God daughter receiving it.  I got to see my mom at my cousin's First Communion, as well as all my other family members on my dad's side, so that was awesome too.

 

May 1:  Happy May Day!  This day says "Katie's B-day Party," but it was also the day I went to Pella to visit my friends.  I ended up staying there until around 10:30 because I wanted to see my friend in her last college theater performance.  It was really fun.  Chris went to Katie's party in Ames to represent the Starrs.  I was sad to miss that, but I can only be one place at a time. 

May 2:  "Jeannie's Bridal (lingerie) Shower"!  I got to visit with some friends again in Ames.  Before the shower, Chris met with a bunch of our guy friends from the Ames area and played a couple games of football.  He loved that.  His shoulder is healing well and he has pretty much no pain in it anymore.

May 4: "To Mom's."  After work Chris and I headed to my mom's house in Council Bluffs.  She is actually in California right now visiting her sister, but as her Mother's Day gift we decided to clean up her house a little bit.  It was pretty fun, and we always enjoy a nice road trip.

May 5: "Staff mtg Awaken."  Happy Cinco De Mayo!  We went to Ames again for our final staff meeting for Awaken.  It was nice to see all those folks again, and after taking care of some business we played a pretty fun game. :)

Now we're up to date, and here are some things that will be happening soon.  

May 8: "Tulip Time!"

May 9: "Shelby's Grad Party"

Yep... so now that our lives are centered around a silly little planner, we seem to keep pretty busy.  But at least the business is organized... I guess... Haha.  

SUMMARY: I'm not doing one this time... sorry folks.  ;)