The BEST Wedding:)

Yesterday night we went to the wedding of a friend of mine from High School. Part of the group of us who gets together a bunch, we were all super excited to celebrate with Emily and Jeremy. Pictured are all the TG people at the wedding reception: Meg and I on the left, Jackie in the front middle, Fred (Meg) next to her and in the back is Vieve in the red, and Josh next to Emily, the bride. Are you all turned around yet? I kinda did that in a circle. Oops. Anyway, it was a beautiful wedding and we are happy for the newlyweds! Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Best!

The wait staff at the reception was awesome! When it came time to serve wine for dinner, I declined obviously, and the waitress...I think her name was Barb...asked me if I wanted milk instead. And not only did she go the extra mile to offer me something besides water, she brought it to me in a beer glass! Also, each table got their own cake and there were a bunch of different flavors...We got Chocolate Raspberry, but Meg's table had Carrot Cake...there was one with amaretto (SP?), one with baileys, one lemon and I can't remember the rest...there was a lot of table swapping for dessert which made for some good laughs! Fun stuff:) And I have to say, the milk in a beer glass goes way better with chocolate cake in my book!

A Little More Brynn

These are a bit old by now, but the picture of Josh holding Brynn was at the hospital on the second day after she was born. And the pics of Riley and Adrienne with Baby Brynn are of the day they brough her home from the hospital. This was the first day Adrienne got to meet her sister because of the visitation restrictions. She seems to be pretty excited about this baby sister thing, at least for now:) She even shared her ki-kee (blankie) with her!

Bringing in the New Year

Yesterday was spent bringing in the new year in fun-tastic fashion. We spent the whole day with our friends Jim and Erica and their daughter Ashley, and Jim's mom, Vicky who was like a second mom to Josh growing up...and we were joined later by our good friend Tommy B and little Christopher, who is Jim and Erica's nephew.

We started with lunch at Applebee's and went from there to the indoor water park at Maple Grove's community center. When the kids were worn out and the dad's were freezing, we packed it up and headed to Vicky's new apartment for dinner and play time and a lot of "Remember When" conversation. Riley was so tired her cheeks were rosy before dinner...but we stayed until 8ish and she crashed hard in the car on the way home.

Today, we will spend time with more friends as my friend Emily from high school is getting married and my TG girls bunch will be there to celebrate! What a great way to start the new year! Thanks, Mom and Dad for cutting your getaway short for baby sitting duty this weekend. We really appreciate it!!

Christmas #2 at the Schusters

While we celebrated Christmas at the Schusters in early December, that was to celebrate with Auntie Jessie and Great Aunt Pammy who weren't sure if they would be able to make it on Christmas because of work conflicts. We celebrated again with Schusters on Christmas Day with Great-Grandma Mary and Great Uncle Don. Jessie and Cory were able to make it up late, but Pam and Pat were stranded in South Dakota and couldn't get there, so it's a good thing we did both celebrations...although, we did miss Pammy's cookies:) But I'm told she will be delivering some sugar this week:)

If you want to see the rest of our earlier celebration, I posted sometime after December 6th if you want to look back at them. And in keeping with family traditions, the hat Josh is wearing (not the pelican, but the hat) belonged to his great uncle, Pete.

Blue Moooooooon....

I thought it was really cool that the year 2009 ended with a blue moon. At it looked pretty darn cool coming up over my neighbors' roof, so I tried to get a picture. Sorry, it was too cold to go outside to take it so it's through my living room window. But how often does a year end and a decade end "once in a Blue Moon" ?

TIGF - 2010

Welcome to 2010! I am thankful for an ok year in 2009, but hopefully for a better 2010, especially for Josh. Let's just say his work situation has gotten a bit stale and he is not as happy as he has been for many years. We are lucky, I know, that he even has a job so we will focus on that for now:) 2010 Promises to have LOTS of big changes for us, starting with our new baby boy in just a few short weeks. I am both looking forward to this big year and starting to freak about all the changes we may see coming:) Wish us luck...and HEEEEEEERRRRRREEEE we go!

Christmas Morning

We didn't stay long on Christmas morning, just long enough to eat YUMMY caramel rolls that my mom made for breakfast and for the boys to help Dad shovel/plow out. We headed home to do the same to our driveway before we went to Schusters for the afternoon. Riley and Adrienne played with the tutu's that Santa brought for Riley while we packed up everything in the car again.

The picture of my dad in the crazy bathrobe was another family tradition. This robe ONLY comes out on Christmas, and before I went to bed on Christmas Eve I told Dad it was mandatory that he dig it out for the morning:) Thanks, Dad!

P.S. Sorry, I couldn't fit it all in to last year...one more Christmas post and we'll move on...