Vacation!

Our first "real" date was a trip to the House on the Rock in Wisconsin and dinner in Galena. We both love to travel, and we started out spending a LOT of time in the car for a new couple. I am so glad that we share this passion. We have enjoyed some incredible trips in our 5 years together. One of our favorites was a trip to California in 2007. All I have to say is, "Remember when we went to California?" And we both instantly sigh with great joy as we remember all the fun we shared on that trip.

I know my husands love of trains is pretty unique (especially for someone his age), but even I admit that we found some awesome spots for train watching ( called "railfanninng" if you're serious about it).

We also spent time in San Francisco and visited the Ghirardelli Factory. Yeah. Enough said.

The "railfanning" portion of our trip...oh, who am I kidding - it was all about trains in California. My husband plans to model the Donner Mountains in his model railroad someday, and it was really exciting to be with him the first time he visited Donner Pass.

The scenery was incredible. I did not realize that I have a pretty strong fear of heights, and I vividly remember crying on the way up the mountain. I wanted to be with him for this experience, but I was quite certain we would not live to see another day as we climbed higher and higher (in the car; we didn't really climb it, thank God). But I survived, he survived, and we have some very cool memories as a result of it.

I could go on about our California trip for hours. I could also reminisce about our trip to Chicago just days before I found out I was pregnant...no wonder I was so tired!

We have been to Boston, Minneapolis, Springfield, St. Louis, Kansas City, and of course, Cancun! I love vacation with my husband. We have always talked about vacationing with our children as Matt has great memories of traveling with his family growing up. We have already taken a few short trips with Isabella. At her age, it is a combination of fun and stress with new surroundings and our uncertainty at how she will respond. But no matter what, it's an adventure. And we are in it together, my husband and me.

I love Target!

The title of my blog is not a surprise to anyone who knows me. But I was SO excited about my shopping trip to Target on Monday.

First of all, Isabella was such a stinker for a good portion of the car ride to and from Chicago, so I was a little nervous to take her to Cedar Falls. But she was fabulous; slept the whole way down, wonderful for almost the entire time at Target, and slept the whole way back as well. Yeah, baby Bella!

Second, everything in the picture above (except the blue and yellow dress on the left) was $1.00 each. Yes, ONE DOLLAR! The dress was only two dollars, too! I totally scored; it was hard not to buy every single one dollar onesie and top since I know so many baby girls now. But alas, my budget does not allow me to clothe all of them. The black & white little container is hot pink inside; PERFECT for her room!

I also got a few great deals at Kohl's over the weekend and was able to buy a couple things for Isabella at H&M (my first time there since she was born; actually, first time since I knew I was going to have a baby!). I have to blog about our awesome eating out experience, too, but I'll save that for next time.

Yeah, Target! I hate your return policies, but I cannot resist your clearance. Thanks for making my weekend.

Matt's birthday surprise

I kept a birthday secret for Matt this year. I kept it for a VERY long time. It was probably close to two months, and I am not good at deception, so this was quite a challenge. He turned 30 on Sunday, so I thought this year should be special. I found this B&B, and I knew he would like the room. They also have a home theater in the basement. We were the only guests that evening, so we had the place to ourselves! It was great; the theater seats were insanely comfortable, and we watched "Trans-Siberian" (too scary for me; I don't necessarily recommend it unless you like being afraid for your life). We followed up with parts of "The Transporter" since it's difficult to end the evening on a super scary note.

On Saturday, I took him to House on the Rock. He loves that place. I tolerate it, so I knew that he would appreciate the gift of going there and me going with him. I brought a book that I happened to check out at the library on Friday. It was great; I am SO glad that I thought to grab it and throw it in the camera bag. I read the whole thing! (It's about 100 pages long.) I moved from light source to light source devouring my new book as Matt took pictures of, well, everything. From every possible angle. I resisted the impulse to hurry him along. This was his birthday gift; I was determined to let him enjoy it. And he did enjoy it very much.

On Sunday, the day of his birthday, we had some friends over for snacks and games and hanging out. Wow, did they bring some incredible food. We need to have friends over more often. Banana bars with cream cheese frosting, homemade guacamole, spinach/cheese dip, smokies wrapped in bacon, brownies with ice cream and hot fudge...are you hungry yet? It was a wonderful way to celebrate Matt's birthday.

He took the camera to work, so I'll try to get it back and post a few B&B pictures and maybe a House on the Rock one. :-) Whew - I am so glad the secret's out!

Welcome Hannah Grace

I'm an aunt! Hannah Grace was born at 1:35 this morning. She was only five pounds, nine ounces! What a tiny, sweet baby. Melanie and I are going to road trip it down there this weekend. It's 8 hours each way, and we only have Friday night and Saturday to do it. It's totally worth it, though!! I can't wait to meet her!

Boys and Their Toys

Here it is! It's very nice. I love it. I drove it yesterday! I can't wait to take everyone for a ride in it.

Who brings a computer on vacation?

I am usually pretty unplugged on vacation. I just figured I would rather upload some pictures to Facebook than sit mindlessly in front of the TV while my husband took a nap this afternoon. So I'm on the computer in the Rocky Mountains. Have I mentioned it's gorgeous here? We're staying in Estes Park tonight and spending the rest of our weekend with Mandy (Matt's sister) in Denver. We have had a great time so far. I am so sad that I can't be with Melanie tomorrow. Her brother Craig loved spending time in Colorado, so I am thinking about her and him as we view the gorgeous backdrop throughout the area. If I can't be with her to remember her brother, then it's fitting that I'm here to remember him.

So I'm blogging on vacation. But this is probably all you will see (or hear) of me. Hopefully I'll have some good pictures to post when we return. For now, you can check my Facebook for some new and older ones. :-)

Oh, and before I go, here's my current favorite Psalm:

Psalm 130
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
O Israell, put your hope in the Lord, for wiht the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

Miss you all! We look forward to seeing you next week. And I love you lots, Mel.

Is Summer Here Yet?

When I get tired and stressed, I crave vacation. I want to get away. I want the feeling of being carefree. I am currently dreaming of some summer fun we have planned.

July 3-4 Galena (The Goldmoor - love it!)

July 11-14 Minneapolis (this and this and this)

July 19 Des Moines (my husband loves these)

August 28-September 1 Wisconsin Dells (not sure yet, but we would really like to go)

I can't stop thinking about HAVING FUN! Never mind the fact that our summer is also supposed to include re-siding and insulating part of our home, fixing the RV so we can get rid of it, finishing the half-finished bathroom...the list goes on.

OK, back to vacation. Last summer we went to California and had an amazing time...

Then we did Galena again; of course, it was awesome...

Thanksgiving was stressful with a flat tire on I-80, but still a great time...

There are so many more...Matt and I love traveling together. I can't wait to relax and see what this year's adventures will bring!

Whew!

Steve and I went over VBS stuff today. VBS begins three weeks from today, and the to do list we came up with is 3 and a half pages long. My head hurts. I need to go home and think about something else for a while! I have been dying for some time off lately, but I don't see that happening before VBS. The good thing is we are staying here for a night the week after VBS. Something to look forward to for sure! We stayed in the room below (the Turret Room) for my birthday. Fun!

Donuts Rule

I just want to say that Dunkin' Donuts is awesome. The Boston Kreme is my favorite. My husband introduced me on our Chicago trip last year, and we have been best friends ever since. You should try it sometime.

Purple Weekend

This was my purple weekend. I won this book at a conference.

And I won this bathroom by having the best husband in the entire world.

Before:

Three days and very little sleep later:

He picked out all the fixtures without input - we had talked a little bit about it, but in a future, this is what I might want someday, kind of way. He even asked me while I was gone how tall I am. He was trying to decide where to place the wall sconces so I could get the best light for doing my makeup. Does it get any better than that?

Think about a few days without your spouse - even though you miss him or her, you try to think of the things you can do with a little alone time: read a book (or a magazine if you're my husband), watch your favorite TV shows, watch a movie he or she wouldn't like, eat what you want, follow your own schedule, work on your hobbies...all the stuff you have very little time for during a normal week. He gave up all those things plus a lot of the basics like food and sleep so he could finish this bathroom for me.

Do you know what he said? He knew that I wanted a finished room in our house, and since he knew the basement bathroom couldn't be completed in 3 days, he decided to do this room so I would have one room that is completely done. How amazing is that? He totally put himself in my shoes and did what he thought would make me happy. Holy cow - I knew I married an awesome man, but this is so over the top and amazing. He works so hard at his job that he's often pretty beat when he gets home. For him to set aside so much time to complete this room for me is beyond what I could have dreamed. He finished it from top to bottom: ceiling tiles, baseboards and all the trim, fixtures, a new half wall to hide the plumbing, new electrical and plumbing, new laminate hardwood-look flooring (I absolutely love it), new wall color...there's probably even more I'm not thinking even thinking of right now. That makes ME tired! And thanks to my wonderful father-in-law, Vern, for pitching in on Saturday to get it all completed before I came home!

Thank you, baby. I feel like I won the lottery for the greatest, most loving and giving husband that can be found. You inspire me to keep thinking up new, fun surprises to show how much I love you.

I suppose I have to finish soon. I could write about this forever. Here is the very awesome wall sconce he picked out:


It is all even cooler in person, so please come over and see it soon!

And here is my wonderful baby at 3:57 a.m. on Saturday morning (it's hard to see the time in the picture):


I couldn't ask for a better husband. You were SO worth waiting for!

Oh, Sweet Bliss

Vacation is long over, but it sure is fun to reminisce! So I'll do my best in summarizing the 12 days that we were gone. We'll see how far I get in this first post.

We flew into San Francisco and had quite an ordeal just getting to the car rental place, but we finally picked up our white Nissan Xterra. We really liked it, but we returned it on Tuesday in exchange for a little cheaper vehicle. It was definitely necessary for the off-roading we did, though! Anyway, we drove across the Bay Bridge and I got to take a bunch of pictures of the Port of Oakland for my husband. Only a few turned out, but there were a LOT of containers being loaded onto and off the ships. We hit the traffic jam of the year...it was crazy for a LLLOOONNNGGG way out of Oakland. We stopped in Tracy for some In-N-Out Burger. Have you been there? It's crazy good. By the time we got back on the road, the traffic had thinned out.

We stayed in Modesto on night one. We loaded up that night with road trip food and a cooler for our drinks. We planned on being in the mountains for a few days and didn't know what kind of food or how often we'd be able to find anything.

On Saturday, we drove to Jamestown to see Railtown 1897. Lots of movies ("Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again," "Back to the Future III," etc.) and TV shows have used the park to tape their train scenes. We rode the train and then took a tour of the roundhouse. (This is us at Railtown.)

We also visited Matt's cabin from when they lived out there in Long Barn, CA. That was the beginning of our journey across Sonora Pass. We got some beautiful pictures (see the last post), but the driving was pretty insane. Nightfall came about halfway through the Pass, so we spent a lot of the drive in the dark, which is pretty crazy when you have no idea what the drop off right next to you is like. I am glad I was driving - I get more scared when riding then driving.

Anyway, after discovering I have acrophobia (unlike him), we made it to Judy's Tahoe cabin. We were SO tired, and we had quite an ordeal just getting a cheeseburger at McDonald's (I think they were closed but forgot to turn off the menu board, so they made the burgers for the starving travelers.) We had the alarm code and punched it in, but then we set it off trying to find our way around (it's quite a big place). We figured out she had switched the "arm" and "disarm" codes around in her note - possibly on purpose. She's quite the practical joker. We decided not to figure out the hot water heater until the morning, so I washed my face in the most freezing water I have ever used in my life. And we fell blissfully asleep.

This is already too long, so I will have to continue with day 3 and on at another time.

Vacation!

I have been a blogging slacker, but I desperately want to write some things down about our vacation. At the very least, I'll post a few pictures and hopefully get some stuff written soon. Above is a location we found while driving across Sonora Pass (a.k.a. Insane, Crazy, Winding Highway to get across California). It was a beautiful drive while it was still light, and this area was gorgeous. We were finally able to watch some of our video last night. That was so much fun!!

This is from our dinner at Lou's Pier 47 Restaurant in San Francisco. It was a fun restaurant, very cute, and one of the pictures that we were able to get of both of us! Anyway, I will try to post more soon. Whatever "soon" means. It probably means "after VBS."