Babies, babies, babies

I have some really fun friends here in town. It just so happens that 3 of those friends all decided to have babies here in the next little bit. Stephanie is due with #7 in October, Angela #3 in early January and Desiree, with #4, in January as well.

Exciting, right?

A few of us got together and decided these girls needed a baby shower/girls night before we all got too busy with the holidays.

Doesn't it feel like Christmas is right around the corner?

So the plan was hatched and the date was set. Invites went out.

And we got super excited.
We decorated. ..and decorated some more. Sorry, I didn't take very many pics.

The plan was simple: Socialize! Eat! Socialize!

Angela, Stephanie, and Desiree looked confused when they walked through the door and we all yelled "SURPRISE!" They weren't sure who the surprise was for and why they weren't in on the secret. fyi...keeping a surprise party a surprise from 3 people is hard.
They got some great loot.

The theme was baby essentials and we hope they are pretty well set. At least to start with.

Here's Desiree looking at her boy stuff:

Stephanie looking at her girl stuff:

and Angela lookin at her boy stuff:

Thanks to all those who came, for being in on the fun and for coming to girls night!

And Congrats on the new babies ladies!

Homework

It's tough being in Kindergarten.

Homework is brutal.
Thank goodness Ansen's a smarty pants.

Kahau's first Christmas

When Kahau was just 5 1/2 months old she celebrated her first Christmas. We were so excited to get her gifts and we went big....or as "big" as you can go as poor college students. We got her a really cool play gym, great toys and books galore. We wrapped them up all pretty and set them under the tree just knowing how much she was going to love her loot. Cause all babies care what they get for Christmas, right? Give us a break....we were young and she was our only child.

Back to the story. Christmas morning was a success. Her presents were received well and she looked happy. She fell in love with one item more than the others almost instantly. She kept it with her all day and cried when we tried to take it away.

What was the magical gift you ask?

An empty shoe box.

My empty shoe box to be exact. A free, ugly brown, size 8, shoe box. She could have cared less about everything else. The box provided hours of entertainment.

***

Now to 2 days ago. Out comes a storage box. Large, plastic, old, boring. What do the three kids do? Play in it, on it, under it, around it for hours!!!!!

Three things:

1. The best things in life are free.

2. Some things never change.

and

3. Guess what every body's getting for Christmas this year?

Oktoberfest 2010

Oktoberfest in the rain?

Yes I think so.We were able to see some things that we haven't seen before like the Maypole. It was a lot of fun to watch.

Another thing we had never seen before was our friends Michelle, Jessica and Lisa perform at Oktoberfest. Okay, this is their first year performing and they were great. They sang and then danced traditional Bavarian dances. The whole time the girls kept saying "I want to wear a dress like that and dance in Oktoberfest!" Come to find out, we can! And next year the girls and I will join the Kurns and dance too. They are so excited.
Jayden and Jessica.
Lisa and Braley.

The Kurns singing.

Each year we participate in a very serious, very traditional German dance.

The Chicken Dance.

Oh how we love the chicken dance.

Each visit to Oktoberfest is ended with our favorite dessert. Apple Butter Cake. Jason loves this cake and we count it as his birthday cake.

Happy Oktoberfest everyone!

Jason's birthday

I think it went pretty well. I mean...what wouldn't you love about getting a lot of fun stuff like a new grilling cook book? Also, grilling spices and new games for the trailer?

Yep. Pretty fantastic, I'd say.
And who wouldn't love being 30-something and having a Toy Story party?
Buzz and Woody just make everything fun.

Besides hanging out with your wife, your parents and these 3 is great any day but on your birthday, to quote Nacho Libre, "it's the beeesssst!"

PS. Turning 30-something requires 1 banana cream pie, 1 Costco pumpkin pie and 1 Marion berry pie. Yum!

AFTER the Warrior Dash

The end of the race was crazy.
First we had to run over fire. The flames were much higher than we thought they would be.
Next, we ran through what felt like a bajillion tires. Maybe it was a kajillion. It was a lot.
Then we got dirty. Down a mudslide and under bob wire all while knee deep in mud, mud mud.
It. was. awesome.

Thanks to all the friends who did this with us. You all rock.

Warrior Dash announced yesterday that the Northwest 2011 dates are Sept. 10 &11.

What do ya say?

Same place, same time?

Are you a Warrior?

DURING Warrior Dash

So like I said in the previous post, I asked (made) a lot of our friends do the dash with us. I took along a little water proof disposable camera to capture some of our "finer moments". When we didn't have any "finer moments" I got everything else.There were lots of hills at the beginning of the race.

They were a little brutal.


This is a pic of some of our S'Morriors: Jallyn, Lindsey and Shirlynn.

This is one of our water obstacles.

These girls were so excited to jump logs in the bog.

Just look at the smile on Emily's face.

That pure happiness right there folks.

And let me tell you something. That water was not warm.

Nope, not one bit.

Here come the troops.

I don't know the name of this obstacle.

It was straight up and down. Fun!

Mud Jump!!!

It was thick, sticky, and gooey.

Spider webs...but the fun kind.

Jason and Brandon "charging" the webs.

Fyi-you can't "charge" webs.

But Brandon did prove you can somersault through them.

Then we went Up some cargo nets...

...and DOWN some cargo nets

in between the UP and Down we crossed the cargo's. Some of us crawled across and others rolled across. All that is important is that we made it across.

Then my camera ran out. But not before we jumped over some beat up old cars.

We still had a few obstacles to go but they were at the very end.

Pics to come!