Catching up...

A blog post in pictures...I'll just put captions under the pictures. They are from Christmases with both sides of the family. For some reason I didn't take many pictures at either of the Christmases, but did have some cute ones to share in the ones I took! Unfortunately, they don't show many of the people who were there.

The Kleinschmidts

My cousin Joel's oldest (Olivia) and youngest (Phillip).

Huh??

The Clasemanns

My cousin Chris's daughter, Tierra.

Chris's son, Taven with my cousin Daryl's daughter, Brenna.

Taven and my Uncle Dennis (his Grandpa) making a candy necklace.

Father and Son...can you tell they're related?? ;)

Merry Christmas (Eve)

Christmas is my favorite holiday so my tree has been up and decorations have been out at my apartment since the weekend before Thanksgiving! Every year I take the week between Christmas and New Year's off and this year I decided to take the week OF Christmas off too. My dad's family gathered at my aunt and uncle's in Willmar on the 19th and it just seemed to silly to drive back to Duluth for a couple of days...besides I could really use the time off. So I really wanted some time to enjoy the decorations at my place before I headed out! Here are just a few pictures (followed by one of a sample of the Christmas cards I made this year)...







It has been a busy few days already though! Saturday I drove from Duluth to Willmar for the family get together and then home to Long Prairie. Sunday was pretty relaxing...went to church, took a nap, and watched the Vikings game with my friend Jessi's family.

Monday I ran to Alexandria to do some last minute Christmas shopping with my friend Lisa and then took my dad to his PT appointment. He had his right knee replaced a couple of weeks ago. It is healing well and it is amazing to see the progress he has made in the past two weeks...he went from barely walking with the walker to walking around with no assistance (around the house anyway...he still uses the walker or a cane outside for a little extra stability) so quickly.

Tuesday I had a breakfast with a friend that I used to work with at the grocery store. I hadn't seen her for years, so it was fun to catch up. Then later, I picked Lisa's son, Noah, up from school and watched him until they got back from Brian's doctor appointment with the plastic surgeon at the VA in Minneapolis. I have been a big part of Noah's life since he was just a baby and we used to spend A LOT of time together. As life has moved on over the past 5 years or so, we haven't gotten to spend much time just the two of us, so it was really nice to be able to just hang out with him for awhile without him having to share my attention with his sisters, his mom, etc. He is 9 1/2 going on 15! He is so grown up and is just so much fun to be around! It has been really fun to watch him grow up.

After Lisa and Brian came home, I came home and picked Mom up and over to Alex I went again...this time in search of a Christmas tree for next year. Menard's still had a pretty good selection and everything was 50% off, so Mom got a steal! Mom and Dad's current artificial tree has seen better days and Dad told her that he thought it was time for a new one after this Christmas, so we set out to find a good deal on one for next year. When I was growing up, we alternated between a real tree and an artificial one. Mom and Dad preferred the artificial one (and I have to say...it was a pretty nice one) because it was less work, but Mary and I preferred the real ones...so the compromise was every other year. It worked out well. However, since Mary graduated from high school, we have gone to just using the artificial one every year.

Wednesday, my cousin Melissa flew in from New Hampshire, so I went down the cities and picked her up at the airport, delivered her to her parents' house in Spicer, and then headed home to Long Prairie. I was very fortunate to avoid the snow for most of the trip! After watching the 10 o'clock news tonight and seeing what the conditions were like down by the airport tonight, I was extremely grateful that Melissa took a flight so early in the day!

Today will be filled with sleeping, reading, watching movies, and relaxing. I plan on staying put and waiting out the storm! It sounds like it will be the perfect day to just settle in and stay warm! I am looking forward to seeing Mary (she has to work today and tomorrow) and other family on Saturday and Sunday! I hope that even with the storm, all of you get to spend the holiday with your loved ones!

Merry Christmas!!

Back to Normalcy...

I finally finished my fall travel and am back in the office for work. Unfortunately, when I am on the road for work, it pretty much consumes my life. I am horrible at keeping up with email and phone calls normally, but when I am on the road, I am even worse. So to all of you who think I dropped off the face of the earth, I apologize!

I did make time for a few fun things over the past couple of months though...so here are the highlights:

Labor day weekend my friend Nick from elementary/middle/high school, married his beautiful wife Christina. They had a gorgeous day for the wedding and it was fun to catch up with old friends that I don't see very often.

Nick and Christina dancing the night away

A month-and-a-half later, Nick's best friend followed suit and got married as well. :) So the weekend of October 23-25 I made the long trip out to Bismarck for my friend Nate's wedding. Nate and I have always been extremely close, so I was happy to be able to celebrate the big day with him and his wife Brook. I have known Nate's whole family my entire life, so it was very much like going to a family wedding, rather than a friend's wedding. They are fantastic together and I wish them a lifetime of happiness!!

Brook and Nate

Brooke and Nate with 3 of his sisters (Erin, Traci, and Karena)

I was home again this year for Halloween and my friend Jessi had a Halloween/Surprise 30th birthday party for her husband Curt. I had a really hard time coming up with costume ideas and had pretty much decided to just go as a witch (how original and exciting huh?). I think I have probably been a witch 12 times in my life (ok...so maybe I'm exaggerating). Anyway, I was at Halloween Express trying to get some other ideas when I decided it would be fun to be a hippie. I found a great wig and went with it! It was a fun night....my favorite part of my costume were the sunglasses. :)

"Peace dude"

The day after Halloween was the day that the Vikings played the Packers at Lambeau. I went over to my friend Lisa's to watch the game with her and the kids. Here's a picture of the kiddos in their Vike's gear!

Maddie, Noah, and Makenna

Lisa's husband (a former soldier) has been in the VA hospital in the cities for about 6 weeks. He ruptured his Achilles tendon back in March and had a couple of surgeries on it. After the second surgery (in late summer), Brian developed a severe infection in his leg (due to the surgeon not closing the incision completely). He ended up being transferred to the VA by ambulance and went through numerous additional surgeries where they ended up having to remove the tendon completely along with a lot of muscle and skin tissue. After an EXTREMELY long surgery where they did some tissue and skin grafting, he has about another 4-6 weeks left before he will be able to come home and then a long road to recovery. We are all just very excited that he didn't end up losing his leg (which was a very real possibility). He is too young to have the limitations that he will have once he is done with the recovery process, but he ended up being fairly lucky all things considered.

New Bedroom Furniture

My wonderful parents helped my sister and I each buy a new bedroom set recently. Mary got hers when she moved to Fargo and I just got mine last week. I am so fortunate and appreciate them so much!

Anyway, I went to Slumberland a couple of times to check out what they had and see if there was anything that piqued my interest. I found a set that I REALLY liked, but decided it was too expensive (it was going to mean too much out-of-pocket for me after I subtracted what my parents were pitching in). Low and behold, the next week the bed went on sale. So I decided to go back to the store and see what they could do for me. I explained that my parents had just purchased a set for my sister from the Slumberland in St. Cloud and now were going to help me buy one as well and I wanted to know what the best deal was they could give me on the bed, chest, and night stand.

The woman crunched some numbers (and used additional coupons, sales, etc) in addition to the bed already being on sale and came back to me with two amounts. One amount included delivery and one did not. I called my dad to talk it over with him and he said to ask them to knock another $25 off and we would do it. So I asked the woman if they could do it for that price and she said she would talk to her supervisor. She came back with a yes. Since I had asked if they could do it for $25 less than the "non-delivery" price, I figured that meant I would have to line up some strong help to move it in for me. However, two days later she called me to schedule delivery. She had INCLUDED the delivery in the price that was $25 less than the "non-delivery" price she had originally quoted me. I jumped all over that!!

Luckily, CTK, CK, and Joe W were willing to come over and help move my old stuff out for me so the new stuff could be delivered. We stored it in the garage for the night and Dad came up the next day to take the old stuff home.

Here are some pics...the angles I had to take the pictures from make it look huge. ( Oh, and the bed is actually the same color as the dresser and night stand...it just photographed darker because of the lighting.)

Extreme Makeover Home Edition Update

So the house is done, and unfortunately I didn't get to help with it. By the time I got things in order at work to sign up (the day after I wrote my last blog), they were no longer accepting volunteers for general labor. At that point they only needed help with skilled labor (drywall, electrical, plumbing, etc). I am kicking myself because not only was I not able to help out, but I didn't even manage to make it out there as a spectator. If I had, I might have been pulled from the crowd to work. Apparently they were asking the spectators to volunteer if they were shorthanded.

Even though I didn't make it out there, I did keep up with the progress through the website. The house they built is very unique and also very environmentally friendly. No sprawling 5,000 sq ft place this time. They built a 2,300 sq ft house using as many local and/or sustainable materials as possible. They also made it extremely energy efficient. I heard the head contractor on the radio and he said that they actually built it to be 300% above the energy efficiency requirement. Pretty awesome!

If you want to check out before, during, and after pictures, or read the family's story, you can visit www.extremebuilderscommonwealth.com.

"BUS DRIVER…..MOVE THAT BUS!!"

Extreme Makeover Home Edition is coming to Duluth!! They will be working a house for a Duluth family from August 3-12. They are asking for volunteers and I am seriously considering doing it. My friend Alissa helped with one in North Dakota a couple of years ago, and I decided to ask what her experience was like before I made a concrete decision about whether or not to sign up to help. I think it would be really rewarding to know that I was part of building that house for the deserving family. I can rarely get through an episode of the show without crying (partially due to the wonderful editing job they do, I know), but still....they have highlighted so many wonderful people on the show over the years.

They aren't actually announcing the exact location or the family's name until August 3rd when they do the "door knock" at the family's home, so I am not sure where in Duluth it will be happening. They are going to make all of the info public, though, and are encouraging people to stop by, drive by, and help out. I will keep you all updated on what I decide to do...stay tuned!! :)

Evolution

A friend of mine had posted this video from Dove on her Facebook and I thought it was very eye opening. Check it out:

http://www.dove.us/?dl=/features/videos/default.aspx%7Ccp-documentid=7049579&source=shareBlogger