November

I didn't blog at all throughout November (except for highlighting trick-or-treating), so I thought I'd list a few things from our month:

-Matt and I celebrated 7 years of marriage!

-We went to Chick-Fil-A in the twin cities...we love that they are closer to home now

-My college roommate and her son came to visit one day

-We played more inside...the weather is getting cooler

-We had our share of coughs, sniffles and sneezes

-We celebrated thanksgiving with Matt's family and then spent the rest of the weekend sigh my family

-Matt and I saw Steven Curtis Chapman in concert...he was fantastic

-I went Black Friday shopping with my mom

-I got to play my French horn in church...it's been many months since I've played

-Matt got glasses

-The girls and I baked Christmas cookies with my mom

-We had a family Lefse making day with my extended family

-Apparently we did a lot in November!

fall happenings

Fall is definitely one of my favorite times of year.  I love that the weather is a bit cooler and yet we can still go outside without needing to completely bundle up.  I love apple orchards, leaves changing colors, baking pumpkin and apple desserts, eating soups and sitting outside by a fire.  We have done almost all of those things already and we're only a week into this wonderful season.  I love living where we can experience each season.

The girls have come to enjoy much of fall, too.  Last weekend, Matt and I headed out of town for a wedding and the girls got to stay back and play with grandma and grandpa.  They had a great time...and so did we!  Here are some pictures from both of our weekends.

treasured friends

Yesterday, Matt and I were able to attend the wedding of one of Matt's college roommates. We were thankful to have both sets of our parents take turns and watch our girls at home while we could spend a date day at the wedding and reception. We knew we would be able to see some friends from college while we were there, so we were both really looking forward to going. The wedding was lovely and the reception was so fun. We have some truly wonderful friends from our college years. It's amazing how even after many months (and sometimes years) go by, we can pick up right where we left off with these dear friends. Matt lived in a room with seven other guys for two years, and we were able to see most of them along with their wives. I was just reminded again yesterday that while some people are placed in our lives for just a season, there will be some that will probably be there your entire life. I am so thankful for these friends and always look forward to seeing them again!

beauty

My extreme absence in blogging has a reason:

We were a little preoccupied over the last part of July.  Matt and I, along with my aunt and uncle and college roommate and her husband, drove a total of 3,886 miles across 8 states to visit here:

Lake Tahoe.  It is absolutely one of the most beautiful places in the world.  Matt and I went there on our honeymoon and jumped at the chance to travel with my aunt and uncle this summer when they asked.  Because my college roommate is a teacher, I asked if she and her hubby would like to join us and was so glad that they could!  We had a great time seeing the beautiful scenery, enjoying the *perfect* weather, laying on the beach, going out for walks, and just spending time together.  We didn't take our kiddos along (which was definitely hard!), but really enjoyed having time for each other.  It was a lovely vacation and we can't wait to go back again someday.  

Yes, this place is a bit of heaven.

musings on moving from montana

My last post about Montana was sort of left "to be continued," so I thought I best continue a bit on our very quick jaunt out to Montana to move Matt's mom back to Wisconsin.  For lack of time to write a completely detailed post about everything that happened while we were there, I am going to make a list of some of the more noteworthy things that happened, or things we noticed and/or discovered along the way:

*Spending hours upon hours in a car calls for a lot of food.  We had every junk food imaginable: chips, cookies, candy, and cupcakes (I guess all of our non-healthy food started with 'c').  We had a few healthy things, too (apples, carrots, and sandwiches).
*iPods, a sermon series, Christmas music, movies and chatting will help pass the time driving.
*Seeing the mountains always makes me so in awe of our Lord and His creation.
*It takes a lot longer on the return trip when you're hauling a massive trailer and driving through a blizzard.
*November in South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota and Wisconsin is cold.
*Gas mileage is cut in having when you're hauling a trailer.  That's important to remember when it's 9* and the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota.  You may be very, very close to running out of gas before you find a gas station and may call 911 because you were really that close to running out.  God provided us with gas when we literally had none.
*It's always good to have friends in Fargo who are willing to house three very tired people at 3:00am so that you can catch just a few hours of sleep before continuing the last five or so hours of the trip.  Thanks, Ryan and Emily!
*God answers prayers.  We know we had so many people praying for us on this trip and we could see how He watched over us the entire time.  We were able to leave early and got ahead of a big snowstorm that we didn't even know was coming (although we did go through part of it).  We were safe through the storm.  We made it back in good timing.  We fit almost everything into our trailer.  And, we did have some fun times together despite a lot of things that were potentially stressful!

2500 miles

...is how far Matt and I traveled in the past four days.  I will attempt to write more of a detailed post about our quick turnaround trip to Missoula, Montana sometime soon.  We drove there to move Matt's mom from Missoula to Wisconsin and conquered a blizzard, a vehicle almost running out of gas, climbing three flights of stairs with many, many boxes, lack of sleep, icy roads, and cold temperatures.  But, we are glad to have her back and enjoyed seeing the mountains for a few days!

More to come...

Travels on the North Shore, part 2...

Our second day on the north shore including a lot of time in the car, but we had many stops along the way. To start, here is the view right outside of our room. I'm sure if the weather was warmer, we'd take a few more strolls down to the lake... but for now, at least we get to enjoy the beautiful lake-view.

Our first stop was about 10 miles north to see Cascade Falls. I've been here a few times before, but it was still nice to stop at. It's also fun to see each of these places in a different season than I'm used to seeing them in (summer).

Our next stop was after about an hour drive south to Gooseberry Falls. Matt didn't think he had been here before, so we stopped and walked around. It was, again, nice to come here in the late fall. It was so quiet... usually there are SO many people around!

Finally, we drove to Duluth. We will be driving back through there again tomorrow, but we thought it would be best to spend time there today since we will not get a chance to stop on our way home. We enjoyed walking around to a few shops, seeing the biggest ship we've ever seen come into the harbor and eating a late lunch at Grandma's...

It was another fun day today! Tomorrow we will be heading back home... and most importantly, to go see Miriam!

Anniversary getaway!

Matt and I are blessed to be celebrating our 3rd anniversary this week. We decided that to celebrate this year, we'd take a short trip up to the north shore. We are staying in Lutsen and went north up to Grand Marais, Grand Portage and the Canadian border today. Here are a few pictures from our day:

A view from just outside of Grand Portage...

Down by the lake next to the main lodge of where we are staying

Inside the lodge where we ate a delicious and massive breakfast

It has been a wonderfully relaxing and enjoyable trip so far. We love not having an agenda and just taking time to drive wherever we want and even just spend time watching movies and reading back at our room. We are planning to drive down to Duluth tomorrow to visit a few places before heading back again on Wednesday. We'll put up more pictures tomorrow (hopefully!).

trip to Pike's Peak

We decided we couldn't visit Colorado Springs without going up to Pike's Peak, so we took the trip on Monday afternoon. It was a perfectly sunny day to go up to the top! We opted to drive up and were warned that it was a gravel road with no guard rails. However, I thought that was a joke and wasn't really expecting such a terrifying experience. All in all, despite the frightening drive... it was truly beautiful.

This was about 4 or 5 miles up the 18 mile highway. We still had far to go!

This was closer to the top... just to give a little perspective on what the roads were like. Obviously, it's not quite as scary when you can't see the thousands of feet on the other side of the cliff.

And, of course, there was snow! It was in the 40's up top... brrrrr!

We made it!

Next time, I think we'll go up on this...

Beautiful! What an amazing, creative God we have!

It's pretty clear how "America, the Beautiful" was written up there!