Happy Mothers Day!

I think this is my first Mothers Day away from my momma! As sad as I am that I am not with her today, the good news is she is coming to visit me on Friday with my little sister! YAY! I cannot wait to see both of them. 

Mom and Dani helping me get into my wedding dress; Mom and Dani together

My mom has been the best role model and friend I could ever ask for. I can talk to her about anything and everything, and she always gives me the best advice. I do not know what I would do without her and thank God everyday that he chose her to be my mom. She is the best! 

I have also been blessed with a wonderful stepmom who has put up with me since age 11...and I know I wasn't always the easiest, kindest, or most considerate kid ;) but she has always been there and loved me anyway. She also brought my gorgeous little brother into this world and for that I am forever grateful :) 

K and Dad <3

And last but not least, I have been very blessed with a great mother-in-law. She has been the inspiration behind many of my adventures..two of them being running and blogging! She has always been SO welcoming and has truly always made me feel like family. I love her for that and am so glad I have such a kind hearted woman to call my mother-in-law. I am so blessed to her in my life!

(I also married into a very good looking family :) Here I am with my sister-in-laws and my mother-in-law at my bridal shower)

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day and were able to spend it with their friends and family <3

Our first "garden"

I just LOVE this time of year. Everything is green, flowers are blooming, and the sun is shining brighter and longer. It is just gorgeous! Since our house was just built, we are still waiting on a few things to be done...one of them being SOD! Until the sod is laid, I cannot start my gardening, which I have been so looking forward to! In the meantime, I bought a planter and decided to start a little garden on my front porch :)

My garden is made up of: 
Celosia (the colorful little guys)
Vinca Vine (the vine-y looking ones)
Spikes (the spikes in the middle)

Up next...vegetables!

Does anyone have good advice on how best to grow tomatoes on a porch!?

Crazy Storms!

Man, I do not know what is going on lately but there have been some CrAzY storms out here in Minnesota! 


Last night, Mickey went to his teammates house to watch the Floyd Mayweather fight, and asked me to come but that was about the LAST thing I wanted to do. Boxing makes me sick to my stomach and I end up getting a headache from squinting my eyes and smacking myself if the head with my hands when I try to cover my eyes too abruptly. ;) 


Long story short, I stayed home to read my "Blogging for Dumbies" book, since I am still planning my blog redo/revamp/reworking/re-something. I laid in bed happy as a clam reading until Mickey got home around midnight, and then we went to bed. 


I love thunderstorms and listening to them while feeling comfy and safe in my bed. I do worry about all of the people who are homeless and all of the animals who are left outside :( , but other than that I love storms. 


I am not sure what time it was but I was abruptly woken up by Jagger barking his head off and Mickey yelling for me to get up...my heart raced and I sat up thinking that someone was trying to break in our house. I jumped out of bed as Mickey screamed "hail!" HA! drastically different from someone breaking in our house, but the car was outside so he was worried. 


We ran downstairs, pushed his new football pitching machine out of the way and he pulled the car in without any dents (thank goodness). But the hail was the size of quarters and was piled up on our windshield wipers. Crazy!


I wish I would have taken pictures but I was half asleep and I didn't get a chance. Hopefully the other cars in the area were okay, too!

we have a WALKWAY!

I never thought I would see the day that I got excited about "household stuff," like my vacuum (Dyson ball..ohhhh yeah!), my appliances, my toilets (we got cool flusher thinger-majiggers), and every other thing in/around my house. I used to think my parents were CRAZY when they got excited about things like this. I would think "really? you are ecstatic that you got a new vacuum, are you nuts?" But now, that is me. What have I become?!


Anyway, the LATEST exciting addition to our home is...a walkway. We used to walk from our stone driveway onto an ugly piece of wood to walk, then up our front steps! But now, we have this baby:

Jagger checking it out. Maybe now we won't have as many MUDDY PAWPRINTS all over our hardwood floors?!!

Anyway, now I am going to be cleaning my house since poor Mickey had a stomach bug...time to disinfect my awesome toilets. ;) Have a great Friday! 

International Falls Sportsman's Expo,car accident, and fishing.

A few weekends ago Mickey and I drove to International Falls, MN for the International Falls Sportsman's Expo. Mickey was asked to be a special guest at the show and since a free fishing trip was included in the deal we decided to go :)

We left at 8 am on Friday in order to get to International Falls by 1 pm to go fishing. The trip was going smoothly UNTIL we pulled into International Falls. Thinking we had made it safe and sound, and EARLY, which rarely happens, we were excited. We stopped at the red light across the street from where we were meeting our guide and.....BOOOOOOOM!

A pickup truck slammed into the back of our truck going 30 MPH. Jagger was laying in the back seat but flew up and hit the dashboard pretty hard. Mick and I both had our seat belts on so we were fine, and Jagger ended up being fine as well (except for a little scrape on his nose).

We got out of the car and made sure the other driver was not hurt, which he wasn't. Our car was drivable but the poor guy who hit us totaled his car. We felt so bad for him because he had just WON the brand new pick up truck he was driving. But cars can be fixed, and luckily no one was hurt so we were very thankful!

After a two hour set back, we were FINALLY able to go fishing. Our guides, Wes and Dave, were so nice and waited for us the whole time we were dealing with the accident, but of course, as soon as we were able to go it got cold and started to rain. We went anyway :)

We drove 40 minutes away to a boat ramp and the boys put the boat in. We went down through rapids to a little fishing spot on the United States side of the river. The other shore was Canada so half of the river was Canadian territory and we did not have the license, or whatever its called, to fish on their "side." I found it to be so cool that half the river and the other shore was a different country! I took pictures of Canada since I have never been there before.

                                                                           Canada!

Mickey with one of his walleye!

We had such a great time fishing...we must have caught AT LEAST 50 walleye! I think every other time I put my rod in the water I hooked a fish, and same for Mickey, Wes, and Dave. We were able to keep 8 fish under a certain length. We got all 8 fish within 5 minutes, and the rest we released.

After fishing, we were cold and wet so we drove back to our hotel. We stayed at a cool lodge called the Thunderbird, and when we got to our room Friday night this cute little fruit basket was waiting for us. So nice!

On Saturday we went to the expo which was located in a church gymnasium. We had no clue that the Expo was a Christian event! They kicked off the day with prayer and had bible verses about the outdoors all around the gym. Pretty awesome! Mickey and I sat at a booth and he signed autographs. It was a pretty easy job. Jagger was even allowed inside so he sat with us and enjoyed the attention.

The older man sitting beside Mickey is Frank. He was the first Minnesota Viking ever signed! He was a neat guy and told Mickey stories about how the NFL used to be.

After the event there was a walleye fish fry. It was sooo good! We ate our fair share of fish, and then went back to our hotel just in time to take a few pictures!

View from our room!

Overall, we had a great weekend! If any of you want a beautiful vacation spot with AWESOME fishing, check out the Thunderbird Lodge in International Falls, MN. The scenery was gorgeous and the food at the lodge was AMAZING! Check it out here.

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Monday Funday.

Why helllllo everyone! Hope your Monday has been good and a great start to the rest of the week! I started my day off at neighborhood Bible study, which was great. My friend Kristine hosts it and three other neighbors come with their little kids...there are little twins (precious), and three little boys probably all under the age of six. This neighborhood is FULL of twins! It must be something in the water out here! I think there are four sets in our little development....but anyway...


After Bible Study I drove to Target, parked my car, and turned it off. Then, as I was about to get out of the car, I realized that I had NO CLUE why I was even at Target! HA! Who does that? I think I am so Target obsessed that my body just drives the car there when my brain is not working...so I turned the car back on and drove out of the parking lot before I went in and spent another $200 on cute things that I really WANT but don't necessarily NEED at the moment. ;)


I turned out of the parking lot and headed into town to wait for Mickey to be done with work. He started his "Offseason Training Activites," also known as "OTAs" today. I dropped him off at 8am and knew he would be done around 1pm, so I just waited in the parking lot for a bit and browsed Pinterest on my phone, which I am addicted to and cannot help myself but to look at it at least 20 times a day.


Once we got home I decided to spray paint some objects that were given to me instead of being put in the trash. Recently I have been really interested in, and wanting to, find old pieces of furniture and rehabbing them. If anyone has any advice or knows of great places to look in the Minneapolis area, let me know! Once I am done with my newest project I will post pictures. Stay tuned! Happy Monday everyone!

Fun weekend with my little brother...

Hello, all! Hope the New Year has started off great for everyone :) Mick and I have been awesome....we are home for a few months and have gotten to see our families and catch up with friends. Life is good! One of my favorite things to do while I am home is hang out with my little bro-ski who is 7. He is hilarious and never ceases to keep me entertained. My dad and step mom were out of town last weekend so Mick and I kept Mike. He shot Mickey's pellet gun outside, wrestled with Jagger, watched movies, helped cook, and asked about 10 million questions (which is normal, he is possibly the most inquisitive person I have ever met...). Mikey also had a birthday party to attend this weekend. That was quite the experience. I guess I forgot that Mikey and his friends are not three years old anymore, so when they shook each others hands and chest-bumped as a hello I was a bit taken back. How hilarious! 


I left him at the party and told him I would be back to get him at 9, but being the good big sister that I am (ha!), I showed up a few minutes early and was able to get some of his "skating" on video... I couldn't help but laugh at him, but don't worry, he didn't take offense to it. He was a good sport and thought it was funny, too! Watch and enjoy... (Hes the one at the end of the rink with a black shirt on)

New Minnesota Beginnings and Ugly Christmas Sweater Party!

Well, where do I begin with telling you all about our new life in Minnesota!? I would say that the biggest key to our new life here has been the Bible study we started attending a few weeks ago. Bible study has opened up so many new avenues in our life...we have met so many new people. I am so thankful for this bible study...we are growing our relationship with our Lord Jesus and also making new friends and awesome memories along the way!

This week our Bible Study had an Ugly Sweater Christmas party with a gift exchange. It was so much fun! Mickey and I went to a store called Rag Stock in the Mall of America to find the perfect ugly sweaters. After two hours of rummaging around the store, we came out with some pretty ugly outfits! (I also was the winner of the ugly sweater contest out of all the girls:)

(Unfortunately this came out blurry!)

We also thought long and HARD (and I mean a couple hours of searching online), for the best Christmas gifts. Each person had to bring a rapped, unmarked gift to the party to put into the middle of the living room. Each person in the room picked a number out of a hat and picked one gift to open. The game rules are long, but it ends up that each gift can be taken only 3 times total, and there is a lot of strategy involved. Mickey and I decided that one of our gifts should be a funny, not-so-desired type of gift, while the other should be a more expensive, nice gift. 


I will share what our funny gift consisted of...
Toilet Time Golf
12 pack of ultra soft toilet paper
Poo Pourri "Trap a Crap"
Poo Pourri Original
**We individually wrapped everything and placed it in a large wrapped moving box :)


The game was a ton of fun and everyone got a good laugh out of our gift. Mickey and I made out well with the gifts we ended up with! What a fun Christmas party and gift exchange! Here is a picture of our whole group! 

I hope everyone has an amazing holiday, and remember that Jesus is the reason for the season :) 

Greetings from MinnesOHta!

Well it has been awhile since I have been on Blogger!! I have been so busy lately because Mickey and I just moved to Minnesota for his job.The past few weeks have been packed with packing up our apartment in Florida, driving to Minnesota (its a LOOOONNNG drive from Florida to Minnesota), finding an apartment here, moving in, unpacking, etc. etc! This is the first chance I have gotten to sit down at my computer in a while, so I figured I would check in here in blog-land!


I am loving Minnesota's winter weather. It really feels like Christmas here (as opposed to Florida, where it did NOT feel like Christmas). We have had a few inches of snow and the best part is that its sunny here 98% of the time! Its cold and sunny, what could be better!?


I will be getting back to blogging, so stay tuned...I have some fun creations coming up! (Hint..I'm making gender reveal cupcakes for a friend and everyone will find out the sex of her baby by biting into them at Bible Study this week! yay!)


Have a blessed night!

Oh, how I love fall!

I love fall. It is definitely my favorite season of the year for many reasons. In no specific order, these are the top ten reasons why I love this season:

1.       I love cool air.

2.       I love the colors of the trees.

3.       It reminds me of hot apple cider (yummm).

4.       I love anything and everything pumpkin.

5.       Starbucks brings back fall drinks, like the Salted Caramel Mocha (double yummm).

6.       It’s the start of football season.

7.       I love hayrides.

8.       I love Halloween decorations.

9.       I love trick or treating (still…I went last year)

10.   I love Thanksgiving (and the start of Christmas music!)

(My brother, our labradoodle, and me last year on Trick or Treat)

(My sister-in-law and me at a Vikings game)

God Bless the USA

Last night, Mickey and I went over to our friend's house who also happens to be a Navy SEAL. I have such tremendous respect for him. I am so thankful for all of the sacrifices that our soldiers and their families make to protect our beautiful country. I thank God and pray for the protection of our military men, women, and their families every day. What an amazing group of people.

Recently, I read Lone Survivor by Retired Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell.  Every American should read this book. Luttrell recalls the heroic efforts of his teammates who died fighting beside him in order to protect our country.

Caution: once you start this book, you will not be able to put it down.

Click here to watch one of Marcus Luttrell's speeches: Marcus Luttrell Speech

Also, for anyone interested in donating/helping support our military personnel and their families, take a look at Marcus's foundation: Lone Survivor Foundation

May God Bless the USA and all those who have and who continue to fight for our country!

A Beautiful Morning.

What a beautiful morning it is here. I love nothing more than a breezy, sunny morning to start my day off right. Every morning I get up with my hubs to make him breakfast. I love making eggs. That probably sounds strange but it is something I have always liked to do (and I have often said I would love to own a cute little breakfast café…but that’s another story). After he eats, I take Jagger out to do his morning business and play fetch in the yard for a while. Then, it’s my turn…I make myself coffee and something to eat. I go through phases of what I want for breakfast. A month ago all I wanted to eat was cereal with blueberries, now all I want is peanut butter toast. But anyway…

I bring my breakfast onto our back patio. I love looking out into the sound and watching the water. Little waves roll in and crash on the beach while crab trap buoys bob up and down in the water. Boats are usually out, and today a big, white yacht is powering through the water. I love watching the boats go by. I usually say my prayers out here, because it is quiet and I can focus. I thank God everyday for many things…I thank him for sending his only son to die for our sins, I thank him for my family and friends, and I thank him for the beauty that surrounds me every morning.  <3 J

Wine and Running

Today, Sue (Mickey’s mom) and I went for a run. Mickey’s parents came down to visit us. They traveled in their motorhome and are staying right down the street from us. I am happy to have my running/wine buddy back. Sue and I always have fun on our runs, and she is teaching me about different kinds of wine. She makes wine as a hobby, and she actually made wine for our wedding! The wine bottles were our guests’ placecards and added such a personal touch to our wedding day. I will post more pictures of our wedding once we get the CD from our photographer!

(This picture shows more than the wine bottles I discussed above, however, it is the only picture I have of them! Top left picture is of our toasting flutes that were painted by my friend's mom, Terry. Bottom left is our dinner menu. Middle is our signature drink. Right is my friend, Joanna, holding our signature drink at the cocktail hour!)

Okay..back to where I started this whole post...RUNNING.

Sue also got me into running my freshman year of college. She helped me train for my first half marathon, which was the Nittany Valley Half (http://www.nvrun.com/index.php/racing/club-sponsored/nittany-valley-half-marathon) I was so proud of myself when I finished the race that I decided to run more. To date I have run three half marathons, and am planning on running a full marathon as soon as I can! Sue and I also ran the Miami Muddy Buddy last year. It was such a fun race! If you have never heard of the Muddy Buddy, check it out here: http://muddy-buddy.competitor.com/. Everyone should run this race at least once…it was the most fun exercise I have ever had!

                     (Me and Sue—post race, Muddy Buddy 2010)

Annnnnd, on that note, I’m heading to bed. Goodnight everybody. Don’t forget to give thanks to God for the day. Sleep tight!