Peek-a-boo!

I'm back!

Well after a 4 month blogging break, I'm back!  We had a crazy summer and an internet fiasco that led to an absence in blogging, but I'm officially back!

In an effort to catch you up quickly, I'll do an overview of our summer.  And I'll try to go back and catch up on some of these highlights in more details.  So what's have we been up to?  

In July we celebrated Camden's 4th birthday with a party at Pump It Up.  

Several of her friends joined us for some jumping fun.  Kade refused to pose for the picture though!

The week after Camden's birthday, we moved into our new house.  I'll dedicate an entire post to that sometime soon!  This is what caused the internet fiasco.  Apparently we live in the boonies and we had trouble getting permanent internet installed.  We survived with mobile broadband while we submitted several escalations to get someone to service us. But that is all worked out now and we have real internet again!

The following week, we celebrated Kade's 2nd birthday with a Sesame Street themed party at our house.

We spent some time in Okoboji on a few different occasions!

And our fall was full of soccer!  Camden played on a soccer team this fall and it was so much fun to watch!  I will dedicate a post to this as well because I have LOTS of pictures!

So this is the reason for the absence and I'll to my best to catch up on what I've missed!

Okoboji

A few weekends ago Camden and I went to Okoboji for a few days with the Blessingtons. Derek was on Charlotte earlier that week and didn't want to take time off for Okoboji. So Camden and I decided that wasn't going to keep us home.

Our first day there, we spent the afternoon playing mini golf. This was Cam's first time playing and she loves it. She still has some learning to do, but had fun trying.






We went to Bridges Bay waterpark for the morning the next day. We love that place!






Of course it wouldn't be a trip to Okoboji without spending some time on the beach. The water was high so we had a hard time finding a beach that was open. But we found one!






Grandma B, Uncle Beek, Aunt Tarryn and Reagan met us for supper one night. After supper we went to Arnold Park and rode the rides.

Cam really wanted to ride the ferris wheel. I didn't think she would like it, but she did!







She was brave and rode all the kiddie rides by herself!







We were very sad to leave Okoboji! We love it there!



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House update - almost done!!

I am a really behind on updating the blog, but it is because we have been so busy!

The house has made great progress since the last posting. In fact, we are only about a week from moving day! And we are so excited!!

Here's a peek at the kitchen with some if the cabinets installed.


The mantle and bookcases are in. The stone will go on this week as well as the cabinet doors.


We had an unexpected expense come up with a need for retaining walls. While it wasn't in the initial plan, we love how it turned out.


And this is the kids' favorite thing about the new house. Daddy built them a playset!

House Update - Drywall has been hung!

They are making big progress on the house now!

The drywall was hung on the main level this week.  In just over a day, the framing was covered and it transformed into looking like an actual house! We did decide to have them drywall the lower level as well so they will start on that part next week.

Here is the master bedroom.

On Thursday they started finishing the drywall.

It's amazing to actually get a feel for what the flow of the house is.  For the most part we love every little bit of it.  But there are a few little things that we are kicking ourselves for not catching on the floor plan.  For example, they put the dryer hookups on the left and the washer on the right.  But with our front-load washer and dryer, the doors will open into each other rather than away.  Not a big deal, but one of those things that we wish we would have caught before it was too late.

 The shakes have been hung on the front of the house.  So far Derek and I have agreed on pretty much everything about this house.  But this is one decision we didn't necessarily agree on initially.  We couldn't decide if we wanted to do shakes in the peak of the house or just do siding on the whole front.  We both went back and forth on this one and finally decided to do it.  But the compromise is that we are going to have them painted the same color as the siding.  

This is not the final color of the house.  It will be a darker beige/taupe color.  The bottom that hasn't been covered yet will be done in stone.  And we'll have black accents such as black shutters on the kids's windows, a black front door and the dark roof.

The siding has been finished on the entire house now too.  It's ready to be painted and the stone is ready for installation.

The next decisions to be made are to finalize the interior paint colors, lighting and floor.  We've done some initial looking at paint colors and flooring, but haven't decided for sure yet.  We need to have those picked out in the next week!  This is where it gets difficult since Derek will be traveling for work part of next week.  Hopefully these decisions are as easy as the others have been!  

Catching Candy

What says summer more than a parade?!?  

With the dads busy, Jacki and I decided we should meet in Stuart and let the kids experience the fun of their first parade of the summer.  Emmett and Camden knew exactly how this process worked.  Ella and Kade weren't too sure in the beginning, but caught on quickly.

The cousins looked on with anticipation waiting for the first sign of the parade starting.

The noisy fire trucks started the parade.  Kade and Ella were a little skeptical of the sirens.

The kids quickly caught on to the fact that they got a lot more candy if they waved at the participants.

When the first handful of candy was chucked at the kids, Camden and Emmett scrambled to pick it up as quickly as possible.  What did Kade do?  Well, he picked it up and threw it back at the people marching in the parade.  After a quick explanation that we get to keep the candy, he soon figured out how it works!

We came home with two bags full of candy and two exhausted kids.  I would call the day a success!

Hitting the Links

A few weeks ago, we took advantage of the incredible weather and took a family outing to the golf course. We chose a quiet Friday night and the whole family tagged along.

The kids loved riding in the golf cart.  Kade just giggled every time we would take off.

Kade clearly doesn't understand the concept of the sport...yet.  As soon as we would pull up next to one of Daddy's balls, Kade would hop out of the cart and yell, "I get it!".  

Cam attempted to help Daddy keep score.  I really think it was just an excuse to draw pictures on the score card.

If Kade made it to the ball before Daddy, he would pick it up and bring it over to him with a very proud look on his face.

Kade took his turn putting the ball.  We need to work on his form.

It's a wonder Daddy was able to concentrate at all with these two "helpers".

Here's Cam taking her turn putting.  She has a little work to do on her form as well.

It was a great night to just soak up the beautiful scenery of River Valley Golf Course.

But of all the beautiful sights on the course - this one is my favorite!  Our new house peeking over the hill :)

We stayed out on the course until the sun went down.

We cannot wait until this is the view out our front door.  Only another month or so and we can call this place home!