Dunes!

Sorry for the delay in posting! Last weekend was our trip to the Dunes with people from our church! We had a blast, despite the heat, humidity and bugs. I always somehow forget just how many bugs there are when you camp. And its not just at the campsite! The beach we go to has these lovely biting flies that are horrible! But, other than that, it was great. We had pretty good weather, the water was awesome, very refreshing! There was beach volleyball, water keep-a-way, devotions, singing, eating, and fellowshipping! I must say, I'm always ready to come home. This past weekend we didn't do a whole lot, but we are preparing ourselves for my sister Sarah coming home on the 11th! We can't wait to see her! And then the next weekend is when my other sister Rachel has to go back to school. We will miss her! We'll be sure to post some pics. But for now, here are some pictures from the Dunes. The one of the bird is actually a female bald eagle! One came up on the beach and the DNR came and was keeping everyone back, but I got some good pics before they came :)

Our weekend in the Windy City

This past weekend we celebrated our 5 YEAR anniversary by going to Chicago! Our actual anniversary is this Friday, July 27th, but we already had plans to go to the Dunes so we decided to go a weekend early. We had a great time and saw lots of fun things! We went to Navy Pier, Wrigley Field (more on that later), Sears Tower, and Shedd Aquarium. We also took a boat tour to see "architectural Chicago", had an awesome dinner, and saw the play Wicked, which was definitely the highlight for me!! The not so fun parts included having to WALK about 3 miles to see Wrigley Field when we found out (after getting on the El) that the train stop we needed was closed for construction! There was actually a Cubs game the day we were there that was just ending by the time we got to Wrigley. So, it was super busy and so we basically just stopped for 30 seconds to take a picture and then had to walk some more to catch the next train. Then, on the train ride back to the hotel, we got stuck on the El because of construction, which made us late for our dinner reservation! Also, Sunday, we had the hardest time finding a place to eat breakfast. We figured surely we could find a Starbucks somewhere but the one we found was closed on Sundays! So we went to this random little coffee shop that was NOT good. Then of course we passed about 50 Starbucks after that :) BUT, all in all we had a great time and just had fun having fun together! We had both forgotten how much we just enjoy each other's company. Another great part was that we got to see our good friends Phil & Anne on our way home. You'll see in one of the pictures that Anne & I wore almost the exact same outfit, we both thought that was pretty funny.

So You Think you Can Dance?

Ok, I know it is sad, but I have to make a post about how much I love the show So You Think You can Dance. Sarah, Rachel and I discovered it last summer by accident and now we are hooked! We even went so far as to try and buy tickets for the top 10 reunion last summer, but there weren't any shows close to Indy. For any of you poor people who have not heard of this show, its AWESOME! Its by the creators of American Idol, but so much better. The performance show is on Wednesday at 8 and then the result show is on Thursday at 9. Does anyone else out there watch it and have an opinion on which couple they like this year? My vote is currently with Sabre and Dominic! Love them! And if anyone watched it last week and heard the judges mention their routine reminded him of Ivan and Alison's routine last year, but didn't know what they meant, here, for your viewing pleasure, is Ivan and Alison's dance from last year! Oh-and its a good thing Rusty doesn't actually read this blog or actively participate in it at all, because if he did, he'd probably be really annoyed that I dedicated an entire blog post to this show!! :) I tried to post in the actual YouTube clip but it kept giving me an error message, so here is the link! http://youtube.com/watch?v=r-iI5OTPhaY&mode=related&search=

Happy (belated) 4th of July!

Happy belated 4th everybody! Hope you all had a good one. Ours was pretty low-key, probably because it was on a Wednesday! It was weird having a day off in the middle of the week, but I'll take it! And drving in to work Thursday and Friday was awesome since so many people just took Thursday and Friday off too! Our 4th was spent at our house mostly, playing some cards and grilling out. Later on we went to see Ratatouille. Anyone seen it that has an opinion on it? We weren't that impressed! We usually love the Disney Pixar movies but this one wasn't that funny. Was it just us? On Tuesday we had a guys/girls movie night with our small group! The girls went to see License to Wed with Jim from The Office, and the guys went to see Transformers, which they LOVED, to put it mildy. They loved it so much that Rusty and Brandon dragged me and Anya to see it last night :) We were really to ridicule them for their love of Transformers, but we had to admit, we loved it too!! The action scenes went on a little too long for us girls, but over all, it was pretty good.

Well, here's a few pics. There is one of when we had the youth group over (last Sunday), and the rest are of when we went to see fireworks on the 4th. We found a great little place to watch the fireworks at Conner Prairie without actually having to go to Conner Prairie! I will not reveal our secret spot though because I know if have SO many readers that next year, they will all come flocking and then it will be too busy!! :) :)

Wedding Weekend

This weekend was Rusty's little sisiter, Kelly's, wedding. We left early Saturday morning to head to southern KY. It is a LONG drive! Luckily I brought our portable DVD player and ending up watching lots of Friends :) We met up with his Dad, sister Melissa, grandma, sister Lori, and nephew and niece Matt and Jordan! We were quite the caravan! I hadn't seen Jordan (4 yrs old) since Christmas, but she somehow remembered me and wanted to sit with her "Aunt Babitha" the whole time. She is a cutie! There is a cute pic of her and me attached. We arrived in Scottsville, KY around 2 and got to the hotel to change. Around 3, the sky got very dark and it started to rain, then rain some more, then rain some more! It turned into one of the worst storms I have ever seen! The rain was actually horizontal! So, needless to say, the wedding (which was outdoors) got postponed until the rain stopped. We finally got on the road to get to the wedding (which we were assured was a 20 minute drive). About 45 minutes later, we ended up in TN and had to sit in a church parking lot for 20 minutes until someone could come meet us there and take us to the wedding!! Unfortunately, that was not the end of the adventure as most of the roads were blocked by fallen trees! We finally ended up at the wedding, just a few hours later :) Luckily, Kelly wasn't too upset and the rest of the evening went without further complications. We spent the night in a hotel, and Rusty and I got home today (sunday) around 6. I can't believe tomorrow is Monday already. And next weekend...we get to go to another wedding! Luckily this one is in IN.

Here are a few pics from the wedding! I also have a pic of the patio with the new furniture set we got. Enjoy!

And....we're back

Yes, after another long absence, we have returned to posting! Sorry for the long pause since our last post :)

Some highlights for us over the past month or so is having my sisters home for the summer, getting to visit with my friend Michelle who lives in Virginia, and building our new patio!

I have lots of pics of the patio, from the beginning to end. I have to give credit to Rusty for pulling it all together. He did a great job! My advice to anyone who decides to do this themselves is get lots of help! It's been a week since we started and its still not completely finished.

I also have some cute pictures of our time with Michelle. Rusty and I took Michelle, John, and Nathan to the Indy Zoo. We saw lots of exciting things, including a man getting arrested for jumping in the elephant exhibit! Sorry, I didn't get any pictures of that :)



Have fun looking at the pictures! I put some in of our house too just because I planted a ton of flowers and I wanted to show them off!! There's also one from last week when I babysat Sasha.

OK-I just uploaded my pics and they are all in the wrong order and I don't really know how to label them so you'll just have to figure out which one is which.

Babysittiing Fun

Well, I meant to post over a month ago with pics of the big snow storm we had! But, since its practically spring and I really don't want to think about snow anymore, I'll just have to wait for next year's snow!

Just thought I'd share some cute pics with you of our fun babysitting night. You can ask Rusty for his description of the evening, but deep down I bet he would admit that he had fun watching our friend's baby Sasha. Thanks Brandon and Anya for trusting us to watch your baby!

This weekend we're headed to Lafayette to celebrate my best friend Lissa's daughter Emma's brithday. Hard to believe she is 1 year old!! Rusty and I thought it would be fun to hang out in Lafayette for awhile since I grew up there and he spent 4 years there at Purdue! We thought it would be great to go to some of our hold Hang-Outs. But then when we tried to think of where we used to hang out, we drew a blank! The only place I could think of that we used to go to a lot was Applebees....woo hoo! So I'm not sure what we'll do.

Sunday we head to celebrate my cousin Noah's 8th birthday! We're looking forward to spending time with family.

Ok, here are some pics of our babysitting night. And also one pic of my amarillus plant because I am so proud that it bloomed!

Your eyes do not deceive you...its a new post!!

SO SORRY!! I know it has been way too long since my last post. I really have no good excuse so I won't bother making one up :)





Since our last post...we had a great Christmas (see the attached pics), and great New Year. Rusty and I both made a commitment to read our bibles more and spend more time in the Word and in prayer as a couple. In January, Rusty attended a men's retreat on leadership. It was an awesome time for him and he came back very much on fire. He's been doing a really good job in leading our home and I look forward to him someday (hopefully soon) leading our family.

Our most exciting news to date is our Florida trip! We went the week of Jan 20-28th. We went to Disney World (first time for both of us), but only had time for one day. We got a chance to see Eric, who was practically like my little brother growing up. He hooked us up with some free tickets so we were pretty excited about that too. After our day in Orlando, we headed south to the Miami area where Rusty had a convention for work, and I had a "convention" at the beach :) We enjoyed awesome weather in the upper 80s and were very sad to come home to the bitterly cold Indiana weather!

This past weekend we had a lot of fun--first spending time with my little sis Sarah to celebrate her 21st bday!!, and watching our Indianapolis Colts win the superbowl! We had a great time hosting a small superbowl party. Monday they held a pep rally and parade for the Colts. Since I work downtown I was really hoping to see at least the parade, but unfortunately the Colts were delayed so I didn't get a chance to see the team. There's always next year :)

OH, also, since my last post, two of my best friends have had babies! Anya and Michelle both gave birth to adorable baby boys.

Ok, hopefully I won't overload blogger with my attempt to post all my pictures since Christmas. I promise...my next post will be much sooner than this one was!

Happy Halloween

Friday night was our super fun Halloween Party! I think the fact that I was never allowed to celebrate Halloween growing up has made me love to celebrate it as an adult! We had a costume party for some of our friends. Everybody got really into and put a lot of thoughts into their costumes. Thanks to Amber, Nathan, Jill, Andrew, Jenny J., Rob, Anya, Brandon, Jenny M., Steve, Liz, Kyle, Jenny H. and Jace for all coming!! I've attached some fun pictures from the party :)

On a totally different subject, I just have to share a movie with you that I hope that NO ONE else will have to see! Marie Antoinette! If you are thinking of going....DON'T DO IT! It was the most boring movie I've ever seen. And anyone who knows me at all knows that I like almost every movie. My movie standards are really not that high! I have a review on yahoo under their movie review section if you are dying to read it. I went with Sarah and Rachel and we were both SO bored. The best part of the movie was when it was finally over! Ok, I could go on and on but I am getting all worked up again so I better stop now!

And now, enjoy some pics :)

Pictures!

A Story

Sorry to all my loyal readers for how long its taken for this post. I promise I will try to do better! WELL, gosh, so much has happened since my last post. :) Ok, not really. Rusty and I have been a little under the weather. I thought the up-side to that would be tons of quality time together. I was wrong. We spent our sick-day home together with Rusty watching about 8 hours of football (or something else on ESPN), and me, watching 8 hours of Law and Order, SVU on the other TV. That show is so addicting! I blame the USA network for showing THAT many episodes in a row!

I've been asked to share some fun trip stories from our European Vacation! Several come to mind, but I will start out with a foreign eating experience. Almost the entire time in Paris, we ate at little cafe's, mainly because it is much easier to just point at something in a display case and order it rather than trying to communicate in french with the locals at a restaurant! So, we finally conjured up the nerve to go to a fancy (and totally overpriced) restaurant which overlooked the Louvre! We thought it would be a great first place to try our highschool (and some college) francais. So we get a menu and pull our our trusty french/english menu translater book. NOTE: do NOT waste money on these books...it is guaranteed that nothing you actually want to find will be in one of these books. So, anyways, we try to get our waiter to speak english. I'm sure he spoke perfect english, but he pretended like he didn't. So finally he tried to help us make out a few things. One thing he said was noodles with sauce-sounded safe. And another dish he said was a very delicious risotto dish. Both seemed pretty normal so we went with it. About 20 minutes later I see our waiter walking towards us carrying something with whiskers and eyeballs. I think "surely this isn't OUR food". But, alas, he stops at our table and sets the food with eyes in front of me. ( I should mentioned that technically, RUSTY ordered the thing with eyes. But I let that slide.) So Rusty starts in on his noodles with what we decided was Ragu sauce, no meat, and I attempted to eat my eyeball dish. I took a few bites but just couldn't do it. I did, however, eat the risotta which was UNDERNEATH the eyeball thing and that, was delicious.

So, there is the first trip story for any of you who were waiting to hear one! Sorry....we realized later that we should have taken a picture of it but we were so grossed out that we totally forgot! Oh, and the worst part was that my dish alone cost more than a good old American meal for 2 at Applebees!

Ok-I have been trying to get some pictures up but for some reason blogger isn't putting them on my post! Sorry...I'll have to try again later. Pic to come soon!