Surprise!

Trevor and I were invited to a happy hour for our friend Jake’s birthday at Bar Lurcat yesterday evening. Trevor met Jake and his girlfriend Mindy when he worked at Medica, and we’ve had lots of fun on dinner dates and game nights with the two of them. They also moved into our neighborhood a couple of years ago so they are kind of neighbors. 🙂 We’ve been trying to plan another night out for a while but haven’t seen them since a game night at their house last spring. We were looking forward to going and helping celebrate Jake’s birthday a little early as they’ll be out of town for his actual birthday.

When we arrived to Bar Lurcat there was a table of family and friends waiting, but no Jake and Mindy! I thought it was strange that they weren’t there yet, and thought something was up. After all the guests had arrived, in walked Jake and Mindy. As soon as we saw them we knew what was up, especially since they both had rings on their fingers! Everyone stood up and cheered. Mindy said, “Surprise! Welcome to our wedding!” They had just come from the courthouse where they had tied the knot! We are so happy for them! Soon after, Mindy’s parents ordered a bunch of appetizers for us all to celebrate and everything was delicious!

The hilarious thing is that at first when everyone was cheering and clapping after they walked in and some people were taking pictures, and then we all sat back down and were talking, the following conversation happened between Trevor and I:

K: “I just asked you two days ago, ‘When do you think Jake and Mindy will get married?'”

T: “They got married?”

K: “Why did you think everyone cheered and stood up clapping?”

T: “I thought it was just because they were dressed funny.”

Hahaha!

Hairdo

Cash got his hair cut today and it always amazes me how he looks like such a different dog! Thankfully I think both looks are quite adorable.

Before:

After:

I just love how he poses for me. He totally knows what to do when he sees me with my camera!

Hello Susan!

I’m happy that my black-eyed susans bloomed within the past few days!

I’m also really excited about the dahlias! I planted the bulbs a couple months ago and have been patiently waiting for flowers!

Back from Sheboingboing

In more than a week I haven’t been home for more than 2 days straight. I’ve been down to Waverly, Iowa, to the lakes country part of Minnesota, and to my hometown of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It’s going to feel strange to just be at home this week! It’s back to the normal, everyday life. It’s quite a downer compared to all the excitement of family and friends. I’ve got a long to-do list after being mostly gone for the past week. Coupons, groceries, cleaning, job hunting, etc. We’re also going to be having guests this weekend. One of my oldest friends (we’ve been friends for half our lives now) Katie and her boyfriend Bob will be flying in from Baltimore Friday night for the weekend. Katie is coming to visit her bro Dan who lives in town and then go visit her parents who live nearby in Wisconsin, and we get to be her bed & breakfast and spend some time with her. 🙂 It never gets TOO boring around here.

Trev and I had a really nice weekend in Sheboygan. We went to celebrate my parents 35th wedding anniversary, which is actually today. Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad! We left when Trev got home from work and arrived late Friday night. Saturday we had a delicious home-cooked lunch, took the dogs for a walk, and then headed over to Greek Festival with Mom and Dad by North Beach. We also ate some frozen custard from Cruisers. Trev had his air conditioning fixed in town so we wouldn’t have to deal with the loud fan on our drive back! Let me tell you, that wasn’t so fun on the six hour drive there! After we got the car back we headed back to my parents and shortly after that my brother Andy and his girlfriend Lisa picked us up for our double date. We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Andy was the only one who had been there before. We had a lot of fun and all enjoyed our meals. We then headed over to the brand new Harbor Pointe mini golf course by Lake Michigan and the Sheboygan River, by the Blue Harbor resort. It was a really fun time and I highly recommend it to anyone! Andy ended up winning. Both he and Lisa got hole-in-ones, and it was only Lisa’s second time mini golfing. It sure didn’t seem like it. After that we went to the see “Despicable Me” in 3-D and we all loved it. At first we thought we’d be the only ones in the theater, so we got the best seats in the house. Just as the movie started 3 more people came in and sat together, but that was it!

Sunday we all went to church, and afterwards my parents hosted the coffee hour with cakes and tortes and punch in honor of their anniversary. We then all headed over to The Bull in Sheboygan Falls for brunch. My dad’s sister Lu and her husband Bill came from Madison to celebrate. They are like grandparents to me but it has been too long since I saw them last! My bro Eric drove from Milwaukee, but his wife Brittany had to work so couldn’t make it. My bro Andy lives in town and he and his girlfriend Lisa were also there. It was such a nice time together as a family. Afterwards we went back to Mom and Dad’s for a little while and then we took off on the road for our long drive back. It was just a perfect, though short, weekend.

July july

I’ve been gone at Lake Week with a bunch of Tungseths. Now I’m headed off to see my fam in Wisconsin. I’ll be back with some photos and back to blogging next week!

Iowa Adventure

This past week my good friend Jill (once upon a time a college roommate, and a friend I’ve had for a dozen years) accepted a librarian position at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. She was given a start date of August 1st, which is fast approaching! She started looking around online and saw that she didn’t have a whole lot of options for places to live, so she decided the faster she got down there to apartment hunt the better. Betsy and I both had the weekend mostly free, so we drove down to Waverly, Iowa to meet up with Jill and help her on her search for a place to live. It was around a 3 1/2 hour drive. We were able to see a bit of the new city/cities Jill would be making her home, check out a few rental properties with her, see the movie Inception, and eat at a couple local spots. It was great to be with dear friends on such a spontaneous adventure! We are pretty sure Jill will have a great new apartment to move in to as well. I am so thankful for good friends.

Latest.

I am continuing on working on layouts using photos from 2008. I only have photos from November and December left to do. It’s been really fun documenting these memories, and it seems like there’s no way this happened two years ago! It doesn’t seem like that long! Here are some of the pages I’ve done in the past couple of weeks:

I got the idea for this layout from Vanessa, and it documents getting to see my friend Katie when she was in town.

I used Bazzil cardstock, Making Memories patterned paper, AC Dear Lizzy flowers and little banner sticker, and some other rubons from my stash. I think they are Heidi Grace.

This is us at Lake Week 2008. That was probably the last time I was tan until a couple weeks ago (and now I’m peeling….yike)! They’ve moved Lake Week to a different place this year.

I used Kraft paper, K & Co. patterned paper and Making Memories Vintage Findings patterned paper. The birds rub-on is Hambly, the title letters are K & Co. Handmade, the date letters are Making Memories. Flower is from my stash. Love how this turned out especially because everything was from different companies and lines but goes together so well.

Jill was in town so had a little party to get her friends together.

I got this idea for this layout from Elizabeth Kartchner’s book. I used K & Co. Handmade papers. The white and blue paper is Martha Stewart. The black flourishes and flowers are stamps. The embellishments are mostly Amy Butler, and the letters are AC  Thickers.

This was my first attempt at gardening!

For this layout I used Making Memories papers, a Prima flower, Heather Bailey rub-ons, and the rest is from my stash. I think the border sticker is Crate Paper.

Thanks for looking! You can see more of my 2008 album here.

Dear 22/23-year-old Karin:

* Your job or lack of job doesn’t define you. No matter the status, you are still you, and you are defined by so much more.

* Don’t base your happiness on the people you are spending all these days with. They actually don’t stick around. None of them.

* Don’t talk to him so much. People that are that critical of you don’t need to be in your life.

* Get off the computer and meet some more people IRL. Really. You don’t actually meet your husband online.

* It’s okay to be single.

* Your future husband lives less than a mile away from where you spend your Friday nights.

* Things are going to get better. A lot better.

* You are not fat.

* All those girlfriends you made your freshman year of college? You should try and talk to them. Those are your real friends and will be your most real friends when you are 30.

* Keep seeing all that live music. You’ll miss it eventually.

* Avoid using your credit card, and pay your bills on time!

* Don’t worry so much about roommates. Soon you won’t need to look for new ones anymore and you won’t have to keep moving every single year.

* Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

Inspired by Elise and Andrea.

Our 4-year-old pooch

On Sunday, Cash Howard the cockapoo turned 4 years old! That means he’s 28 in dog years.

I love this little dog. He is my buddy! I love having a little friend around to take care of and keep me company.

We got him in 2006 from a breeder in Iowa after finding him through the Star Tribune. I had been working from home a lot and wanted some company, especially because I would get a little uneasy about being home by myself so much. We did two things- got a security system, and a dog! I grew up loving large dogs. We had a black labrador named Cocoa who was the best dog ever. Trevor grew up with dobermans in his home, so he also liked large dogs. We decided that our house and yard were too small for a big dog. Trevor remembered one of his childhood friends having a cockapoo, and we liked everything we read about them. That’s what brought us to finding our little guy. His mom was a black cocker spaniel named Lady and his dad was a white poodle named Curly. He is the perfect combination of the two of them (and he doesn’t shed)!

When we picked him up from the groomer on September 10, 2006 I wasn’t expecting to see such a tiny little pup or to fall in love so quickly! One of the groomer’s kids, a little girl, handed him to me and said, “Here’s your new puppy! What are you going to name him?” We had originally chosen the name Howard because we thought it would be funny/cute to call him Howie, but then went with Cash after both reading the book “Cash” by Johnny Cash that summer. So Cash Howard it was. He was a tiny little thing that weighed only 4 pounds. In the car on the way home he crawled up and wanted to be on my shoulder. At home he would either sit on our feet or climb up to our shoulders!

The first night home, we put him in the kitchen and used baby gates to keep him in. We also put his kennel in there, hoping he would make it his home. He cried most of the night. The next morning Trevor found him in the hallway, sleeping on his shoe! He had figured out a way to climb out! We had a smart little guy! Training a puppy takes a lot of work and patience, we discovered.

The first year that we owned him we found him eating decon (mouse poison), playing with a lighter, chewing on a box of bullets, and somehow he managed to survive! He also chewed up some pictures and Trevor’s wallet. He loved to play with the toilet paper roll. Now that he is a little bit older he rarely gets into anything, which is nice!

I love that as Cash has gotten a bit older (and now 22 pounds), he has gotten more cuddly. He has settled down. He is still fun and gets hyper and is entertaining, but he mostly just hangs out. I love how smart he is and how many words he knows. He rings a bell on the back door to go outside. He waits to come in the house when it’s raining so we can wipe off his paws. He is so happy when we get home after being gone for a while. He knows the names of his favorite people and goes crazy when he hears anyone talk about Kyle. He loves to go for walks. He hangs out with me when I am gardening and periodically gives me a quick kiss while I’m pulling weeds. He comes downstairs with me when I do the laundry. He is fascinated by friends’ babies. He notices when any of our home decor changes and will stand and stare at new things I put on the wall! He poses for photos. I am so blessed to have a little buddy like him. Happy Birthday (Sunday) Cash!

Project 365: The Book

I recently figured out what I was going to do with all the photos I’ve been taking for Project 365. I’ve been taking a photo every day since March 31, 2010,  so I’m up to 104 photos! By the end I’ll have 365 photos, and I really wanted to be able to put them all in one book. I imagine a photobook will be quite expensive, so I figured out a sort of photo album and scrapbook combination would work out best for me. When I was at Archivers looking around in the clearance section I found some We R Memory Keepers page protectors for 50% off. I bought a few packs of two different styles. One has pockets for three photos, and the other has pockets for 9 photos. I remembered seeing 8 1/2 x 11 American Crafts D-ring corduroy albums at Big Lots in Sheboygan, so I looked around at Big Lots here and was unable to find them. Luckily they still had them in Sheboygan so Mom was awesome and picked up a couple for me and sent them to me! I planned the whole album out and figured out the order and design I wanted to go with, and got started. I print off some photos in wallet size here at home with my printer because I don’t want multiples of each picture. The photo sites have you order them in multiples of 4. I order the rest of the photos in 4×6 from Shutterfly or Kodak. Here is what the album looks like so far:

This is a close-up. MM letters, AC Thickers, Dear Lizzy sticker, little flower and tree stickers are from Borders. Stamps are acrylic $1 stamps.

This is the intro page. Paper is Amy Butler. Journaling spots by Kayla Aimee and Basic Grey. Dear Lizzy ribbon and flowers. AC Thickers.

I’m doing a mixture of these layout pages and other pages with slots for multiple photos.

I am doing this same layout for each page that is a scrap page with 1 photo. I am using just a few colors of Bazzil cardstock and then Amy Butler patterned papers in the entire album.

I have a layout for Day 1, and then the next few days are 4x6s in these sleeves. I have all the info written on the back of each 4×6 photo.

The scrap layout and 3-photo page protector are then followed by 2 9-photo page protectors.

I wrote all the info on the back of each picture. In the top left slot I put a card with the list of which day it is of 365 and a short description of the photo it matches up with.

All the photos are in day order, so I didn’t pick and choose which ones would be wallet or 4×6.  I decided to just go with the flow!

You can get the idea from these photos, but if you’d like to see what I have done so far you can see it all here!

I’m glad that I have it started so that I can add photos as I go and then have a completed book in the end instead of a huge project. I am feeling a little impatient though as I’ll have to wait for at least a week at a time each time I add to the book since I print out the wallet photos 9 on a sheet and am ordering the 4x6s (it’s cheaper that way).

Thanks for looking! Let me know if you have any questions.