Our Big News!

We've been sitting on this news for about a month now, and I know what some of you are thinking... and no, we're not pregnant. :) Remember, how I mentioned that we fell in love with the first house we looked at?  Well, here it is folks, and it now has a sold sign in the yard.  Welcome to our new home as of December 15.  We look forward to hosting many ice-skating and kayaking parties in the future.  And I'm looking forward to making friends with the backyard river otters and planting a garden in the spring.  Now it's time to starting pouring over the paint samples and looking at light fixtures.  Let the house projects begin!      

classic Kramer handshake



Welcome to our home!



The living room window view.





The backyard

Dad's going to have to give me some gardening lessons...



Iowa Reunion

Along with some of our college friends, we road-tripped to Pocahontas, Iowa this past weekend to visit our good friend Peter.  It had been WAY too long since all of us had been together, and we had a fun weekend catching up and laughing a lot.  We learned about life on the farm (including driving the tractor and disc ripping the field), tested our paintball skills (and left with a few bruises to prove it), ate way more than we should have (thank you Donna for the delicious food), road around on the four wheeler, gator, and in some instances – semi trucks, enjoyed the peaceful countryside and the stars, went to church where everyone noticed we were out-of-towners, had a little friendly competition playing Ticket to Ride, Settlers, and card games, and made many memories along the way.  Thank you to Peter and his family for their hospitality and for welcoming us to their home for the weekend.  We are SO incredibly blessed by our friends and their fellowship – the encouragement, the serious “grown-up” talks, and the tears and laughs that come with our time together.  Here’s to our next reunion! 

Lost?  Yes, we missed our turn while we were focused on playing car games.
Thank you to the Blackberry for directing our way back.

Welcome to Pocahontas, Iowa!

Pete showing Matt how to drive the tractor.

The boys figured out how to drive the semi by themselves. 
It was a surprise when we saw them come around the corner. 
Thankfully they didn't hit anything, and Jeff didn't fall off.

Perfect paintballing terrain

An rustic barn. 

The paintballing crew

It was a blast, minus the bruises.  :)

The boys.

Peter, me, and the ram.

I love sheep!   

Seriously.  How cute is that? 

Hungry sheep

We left our hearts in Iowa.