older and wiser

I had a birthday. Boy, am I getting old. I really did used to think that 24 sounded so old and mature. I am a disgrace to the 24th year because I certainly don't act mature enough to be this old. I think I am just now getting to the point where birthdays just aren't that big of a deal to me. Maybe I am a little old to have just reached that point, but nonetheless it is sort of a sad and depressing point to get to. I miss being so excited for my birthday I could hardly stand it. But even without as much excitement it is still nice to have a day of your own.

My birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, which is just sort of a lame day for a birthday if you ask me. At least when you have a husband in school it is. Needless to say the celebration wasn't huge, but it was still very nice and much needed. Brennan didn't do any homework or studying and we didn't have to feel guilty about it! That was probably the best present I got. Spending that much time with him seems to be a rarity these days. He made me a sweet video so we watched that together and then I opened the gifts he gave me and we headed out to eat. After dinner we stopped at a couple of stores and browsed together and then we headed home for some ice cream cake, games, a walk, and clay creations. It might not have been extravagant or expensive, but it was sure relaxing and fun.

Me and the Mr.:
Duke decided to pose with me, my big pregnant belly, and my stash of gifts:
The clay Brennan got really stained your hands, especially the green:
Brennan's "Barney in Reverse":
Sometimes Brennan is just like a little kid, and sometimes it's kind of funny:
Brennan got right to work with the clay. He made the reverse Barney, a pig, some sort of tree, and I think the list goes on. It was creation after creation. And he kept getting annoyed that I hadn't made anything, but was just messing around with my clay instead. At one point he said, "who is going to sit down and play with our kids and teach them how to do this?!" I just stared at him. Clearly he will. I have no creative juices in my veins. But to appease the poor guy, I finally came up with a beautiful robot. (because he needed something that could fight his dinosaur. duh.)

Here's the big fight about to unfold:
Haha, don't worry, we weren't complete dorks for too long. We eventually played a real game and had some yummy cake. (And we didn't actually have the clay figures fight. He just wanted a pictures of all of them.)
Thanks to everyone who made my birthday great. From the phone calls to the gift left on the porch to the facebook posts, I appreciated it all. It was a good day. :)

wrong way...again

A couple of weeks ago Brennan and I were able to go to Nauvoo to attend the temple. It was our ward's temple day so we were able to carpool with our friends, the Shahas. Little did we know how much embarrassment we were about to experience. Especially me.

We ended up leaving our house a few minutes later than we wanted to, but figured we would still be okay. However, on our way to pick up the Shahas we came to the realization that neither one of us had a clear recollection of where to turn to get to their house. Keep in mind we have been there multiple times. And at least a couple of those times were without looking up any sort of directions. How on earth we both happened to have amnesia at the same time is beyond me. So...we had to call them and ask them. Luckily, we were only about 5 blocks from their house when we called, but it was still adequately embarrassing.

Here's the real zinger though. I was trying to be a good and supportive wife so I volunteered to drive so that Brennan would have some time to work on his homework. Big mistake. We had barely begun on our journey (feeling confident that we had managed to leave early enough to make the session in plenty of time) when I decided to start reminiscing. About none other than taking the freeway in the wrong direction on our way to Nauvoo. *See said story at end of post.* We were on I-80 at this point and just needed to get on I-380 going south. Literally right while I am telling them about my prior mistake I mindlessly get on I-380 going north. In my defense, 2 days a week I work in Coralville for the morning and then I have to drive to Marion, taking 80 to 380 north, so it was a path I am used to driving without thinking. But still...I was horrified! I could not have been more embarrassed. And I was so afraid it would make us late to the session. I figured the Shahas would seriously regret agreeing to carpool with us! In fact, they probably do. BUT! I did manage to get them to the temple on time so I wasn't a complete failure. We did have to drive all the way back to North Liberty, where Brennan and I had just come from, in order to turn around and go the right direction on the freeway, but it was a beautiful day and I just wanted them to enjoy scenic Iowa. ;)

All-in-all I thought it was a great trip to the temple. It felt like Brennan and I hadn't been there for awhile and it was quite refreshing. The company was great too, so thanks for putting up with us Shahas.

On our way home, we even stopped to see the Nauvoo High School viking. Brennan almost knocked the giant thing over (again, embarrassing, but hey, we keep things interesting, right?:)), but luckily we managed to leave with the viking still standing.

This is what the guys came up with, when Wendy told them to be fierce:
And the girls:
Yeah, we got nothin'. Dave kept waiting to even take a picture because he wasn't seeing any fierceness. I think he finally gave up and decided he wasn't going to get anything more impressive out of us.

*Previous embarrassing story goes like this: It was the day before Brennan and I were getting married. We were headed down to Carthage with my friends, Kassy and Whitney, so we could get our marriage license and then meet everyone else in Nauvoo. I was going through the temple that day, so we were on a schedule. Brennan was driving but when we got to the freeway I told him to get on eastbound thinking, "Well I know Illinois is not WEST of Iowa, so obviously we go east." Oh dear. I mean, that was an accurate thought. But Nauvoo is really just south of us. Barely east. And to get there you need to get on the westbound freeway. Once again I have a defense for myself, I had never driven to Nauvoo before. I was always just a passenger and you just don't pay very close attention when you aren't the one driving. Needless to say after heading east for quite a long while I began to realize that nothing was looking familiar so of course I called my dad. He was shocked ("you got on 80 going WHAT???") But by calling him regularly and taking weird, random turns here and there he was able to get us to Carthage on time. Again, I was mortified. Not to mention the fact that I was panicking that I had just ruined my own wedding! If we didn't get our marriage license that day, there would be no wedding. It was not a wonderful feeling.

Moral of the story: Always make sure you are getting on the freeway in the right direction. But when you don't, if your destination is the temple, I'm pretty sure the Lord will help you get there on time. ;)

farewell to summer

I was recently looking through some of our old blog posts and I realized that there are a lot of things that get recorded on here, but nowhere else. It made me recommit to blogging regularly, but we shall see how long that actually lasts. It also made me want to fill in the events of our life, even if those events aren't always very exciting.

The weekend before Brennan's classes started we decided to have one last hoorah to send the summer out in style. And oh what a hoorah it was. Ha. We went camping in Jones counting with my parents and Crystal and Rich and the kids. It was right before the kids started school as well so it really was our farewell to summer. We really didn't do much, but it was still enjoyable. Brennan, Rich, and Caden did quite a bit of fishing but unfortunately didn't catch a thing. We played so Kubb and frisbee. My mom made her usual delicious foil dinners, Brennan made some dutch oven peach cobbler, and we had some banana boats. So we certainly ate enough! Once it was dark we had a grand old time trying to scare each other. I realized one of the benefits to being pregnant. When you're camping and your dad has two sleeping mats and your mom is opting to sleep in the car, you are next in line to get the extra mat. Score! It actually really helped I think. I don't remember being uncomfortable anyway.

I guess it rained sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Once I thought I saw lightening but when I didn't hear any thunder or rain I figured I was imagining it and went back to sleep. But our tent (dad, Brennan, Caden, and I) got up to find everyone from the other tent (minus Rich) trying to sleep in the van! Apparently there was quite a storm so they all took cover in the vehicle and left the rest of us to fend for ourselves. (But really, how bad could the storm have been?? NONE of us even noticed it was raining! Chickens.)

The best event of the trip involves Macy and her bike. Just earlier that week she had mastered her two wheeler so they brought her bike and one adult bike. She was anxious to show off her new found talent to the rest of us. Our campsite was on the inside of a horseshoe-shaped road which was slightly sloped. Macy and Crystal were riding around on the road and when they were coming back toward our campsite (on the decline) we heard Crystal saying "brake, brake". I really didn't think anything of it, but then I look up to see Macy flying toward us in the grass, her feet OFF the petals and a look of terror on her face. My dad was sitting in a camping chair and Macy was literally headed straight for him and really rather quickly. Crystal's call to "brake" got louder and at the last possible second Brennan, the only one standing, ran over and grabbed Macy's handlebars right before she ran into dad. She was scared to death. Right after he stopped her she just breathlessly whispered, "thanks". After the shock wore off we all got a real good laugh out of it. The look on her face was priceless. Apparently she was only used to riding on flat surfaces so she was accustomed to just slowing down and stopping when she veered into the grass. When that didn't happen she wasn't sure how to get her feet back on the pedals or what on earth to do. Poor girl.

Now that I have written a novel, here are some pictures. Too bad I didn't get a picture of the bike incident. :)
Macy was Papa's little helper in setting up the tent.
Just chillin'. Enjoying the great outdoors.
We decided to play charades in the dark. We used a little lantern and the Eskelsens had some crazy glasses with lights on them. They were quite handy to the one wearing them, but rather blinding to anyone else. Good times.

Considering that was the only camping trip we managed to fit in this year, it was kind of pathetic. Pretty short and not much to it. But I'm still glad we got to head out at least once and I still had a lot of fun.

learning to celebrate

Well I am going to take a brief opportunity to make a big, or not so big, deal about an accomplishment of Brennan's. The poor guy doesn't get a lot of slack from me. He works super hard at both work and school and pretty much always pulls it off successfully. That combined with the fact that I've sort of always been a perfectionist myself, causes me to be a stick in the mud. I tend to never make a big deal over his successes, big or small. But this last week we had a little bit of a surprise. He just finished at Kirkwood this summer and started at the University of Iowa this fall. Brennan made sure to take the right classes to result in an Associates degree because it would make transferring to Iowa much more smooth. So when we got a package from Kirkwood we just assumed it was his diploma. We weren't wrong, but there were two! That's right, without even meaning to, Brennan managed to earn two Associates degrees.

Granted, this is not his end goal and there have been a fair amount of jokes made about these degrees. But it's a step and an accomplishment nonetheless, and I think I need to do better about recognizing the small steps along the way. And celebrating them! I mean we are supposed to enjoy the journey right? So good job Brennan! Two degrees down, two to go! :)

Utah

At the end of July Brennan and I were able to go to Utah for about a week. My cousin Lauren had been visiting my parents so we were able to take her home. My parents came also, which made for a great number of drivers. But it also made for a very tight ride on the way out there. We managed to survive. The trip was a lot of fun. It was good to just get away from every day life for awhile and see so many people that we love.

We got to Utah just in time to celebrate the 24th of July. The parade was fun, but a bit too long and quite hot. But we did get to do sparklers with Nathan and Caleb and their families.

Not sure why Libbie is about to eat the sparkler.

Cute Claire.

A bunch of the kids, just loving the sparklers.

I got to hang out with Jaren during the sparkler excitement.

What won't he do for his grandkids?

There was some serious fun had on the swing near Caleb's house.

One afternoon we headed to Bridal Veil Falls. It was beautiful.

It was a pretty warm day so we enjoyed our time there by dipping our feet in the pool of water at the bottom of the falls. The kids of course thought it was the greatest and could have stayed there all day. They didn't have their swimsuits on but that didn't stop them from getting wet!

Quite a rock that Mia found...and quite the face she is making too.

One of many times when they slipped on the rocks and went a little farther in the water than their parents might have wanted.

Libbie was wearing tennis shoes that day and it was kind of painful to walk barefoot on the rocks. So she borrowed my huge flip flops to walk around in. At one point one fell off and so she went off chasing it. In the process she lost the other one as well. It was pretty entertaining to watch her panic and try to catch them. She did get them both back, but I wish I could have captured her frantic rescue efforts.

Just some cute pictures of Jaren at Texas Roadhouse.

Brennan's dad and step mom have recently moved up to Utah so we were able to see them on this trip as well. We were lucky enough to be out there to hear them all speak in Church and to be at the Harding family reunion. It was great to see everyone. One night we all met up in Salt Lake and Aubrie and Callan's apartment. We enjoyed a yummy dinner and then played some Xbox Kinnect. It was a lot of fun. Thanks for having us Aubrie and Callan!

Me, Aubrie and Thor.

Rex and Kellie.

Callan showing off his sweet dance moves while Abbey looks on.

I swear I got pictures of Brennan doing the dancing as well. So I'm thinking he must have erased all of them. That stinker. He's going to hear from me.

Nathan took us by his tax office to show us the little hummingbirds he has been watching outside his office window. They made a little tiny nest on the one of the Christmas lights Brennan hung for them a couple of years ago. They are just so tiny!

Once again we were not the best at taking pictures. I have Brennan to thank for the ones we do have. We really got to have a lot of fun in Utah. We got to see my grandpa and Brennan's grandparents, lunch with Melanie and Lester, Libbie's soccer games, ice cream with my cousin Alex, dinner in the mountains, and lots more. Mostly we just enjoyed spending time with family. We sure wish we got to see them more often. Now we are back to everyday life. I started back at Grant Wood this week and Brennan starts classes at the University of Iowa on Monday. We will be busy but life is good and we try not to complain....too much. :)

a busy 4th of July

Wait until you hear about our 4th of July. It was so fun, but crazily intense! I should have known I was in for it when Brennan started to write up an itinerary for us on Sunday night. I figured there was no way we were going to everything on the list, much less stick to the time frame. But we actually did a surprisingly good job.

We hit the morning off by going to play tennis. That was a blast. Mom and I even beat Crystal and Rich in doubles. It was pretty amazing. After tennis we stopped by the house to switch gear and headed to the baseball diamond for some work ups. It was so hot and I just felt like I was baking in the sun! Crazy Lauren even slid into third base with shorts on and no long socks. She has quite the battle wounds to show off from that. Once we were all thoroughly starved we headed home for some lunch and a little rest. We didn't stop for too long though, there was still plenty to get to. So we headed up to Cornell to go ice blocking. Dad had made a couple ice blocks for us with rope frozen into it to hold onto and to help drag it back up the hill. It worked pretty well and that activity proved to be very entertaining. (pictures and video at the end of the post)
After ice blocking we were hot and tired so we went home and had a water fight. Almost everyone ended up drenched. We got mom and then despite our incredibly lame excuse to get dad out of the house, we still managed to get him wet as well. Dripping wet, but slightly cooler, we walked from their house to the football field and played ultimate frisbee to dry off. Famished again, we headed home to get cleaned up and eat some yummy food. We finished the night off with some fireworks in Cedar Rapids. I think this picture of Brennan and Lauren on the way home from fireworks adequately illustrates how we were all feeling by the end of the day.
And now for the ice blocking pictures. First pictures of people safely riding down.
Angelynn
Dad
Grant
Mom
Caden
Me
Rich and Lauren attempting a train.

Now for the most entertaining part, the spills. :)
Crystal
Macy
Rich
Brennan
The end result of the train.
And for the grand finale, a video of mom headed down the hill. Makes me laugh everytime.

It was a great 4th of July. Maybe even the best one I've had! We hope you all had a great 4th as well.

Fishing

For Valentine's day I gave Brennan a fishing pole since he would always talk about how much he wished he could go fishing. Well a mere four and a half months later he finally got around to getting a fishing license and trying out the new pole. At first I was excited he was finally using it. Now I'm getting a little worried it's turning into an obsession. :) Luckily our nephew, Caden, is always happy to go with him. And even my cousin Lauren, who is visiting for a few weeks. Which gets me out of having to get up early to go with him. They went in the middle of a bike ride we went on over the weekend of the 4th, but didn't catch a thing. I think they went again that weekend, but still nothing. But Caden and Brennan went really early Friday morning and Caden got 2. Still nothing for Brennan. Finally on Saturday morning Lauren got 1 and Brennan got two. I think he's going to cook them up sometime this week so I will let you know if they were edible.

The happy fishermen.