congrats Jenny and Bart!

While biking with my mom we came across some notes written in sidewalk chalk to a girl named Jenny. We thought they were encouraging notes to someone running a race and thought they were sweet. Later we saw a guy wearing a tux standing in a large red box with a bow on it at the top of a hill and a sign pointing for Jenny to go up the hill. We realized Jenny must be on a scavenger hunt for her birthday with a proposal as the ending gift!

I thought it was the sweetest thing! My mom and I were scanning the crowds hoping to see Jenny on her quest! I wish that we could have stayed longer to see Jenny go up the hill to meet Bart but I felt honored to have witnessed a part of it! I don't know you, but congratulations Jenny and Bart!

sister!

I was very busy this last week preparing for school by day and hanging out with family by night! My dad and baby sisters came up from Chicago and Tahnee came down from Brainerd. We all met up at Lacey's on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. I love when we can all get together but it definitely makes me wish we all lived closer so this could happen more often.

Wednesday morning Tahnee came to school with me to see my classroom and to meet my co-workers. We decided to dress alike since we don't actually look like twins at all. We are nerds but it was fun! It felt like we were 4 again wearing the same thing!

The next time I see Tahnee I will be meeting her baby girl! I can't wait, and neither can Tahnee!

*No I am not pregnant, I am just mocking her stance in the photo!

Joel said I could start another project since the house is clean...

I bought these flower shaped bowls at Savers last week but didn't know where to put them. Then last night I came across a bar of handmade soap that I had gotten during a gift swap and it gave me an idea. I could redo our bathroom and then I would have the perfect place for my bowls and my soap!

I knew that Joel was going to be gone all day, out with his college friends for their annual golf event, so I decided to redo the bathroom as a surprise for him. Here is the blah beige before:

After a biking back and forth to target and menards for supplies and a few hours of work here is the after:

It is all finished except when Joel gets home he will be helping me install the new faucet.

I was going to try to do that myself but I decided that if I didn't do it correctly my "surprise" for Joel might not be as fun since the whole idea was to do all the work rather than making a mess he has to come take care of for me. I hope he likes it!

hallelujah

While this picture might not look like much to you, it is a sight for sore eyes for me. I have not seen an entirely empty floor in front of my washer and dryer in months, seriously. Some of it was things I brought home from school to wash over the summer and never got around to. Who knows what all was piled up to be washed but now that it is all done I feel a new sense of freedom. I am posting this as a reminder to myself how good it feels to have it all done...and also maybe as inspiration for you to do the same!

date night

By the end of this week both Joel and I were exhausted. When I got home from school on Friday I crashed on the couch. He woke me up from my nap to suggest we just order chinese food for dinner and stay home and watch a movie. While that idea sounded wonderful for my tired body I wanted to preserve our date night tradition of doing something out of the ordinary for us. So we ordered chinese, picked it up and had a picnic dinner at a park near us.

It was a perfect evening out. The sun was setting and families were out enjoying the last few hours of daylight. Some were fishing, playing basketball or enjoying a picnic of their own.

since I posted last

It has been a few days since I posted...here are photos to summarize what I have done in the past week:

I enlisted Joel's help to get the top of my table attached and then I sanded it.

I came across this old church cook book and found this recipe for cookies that didn't have butter/dairy in them

They were delicious. I substituted butterscotch chips for half of the chocolate chips because I didn't have enough. Also I didn't include the walnuts because nuts should be optional when baking...I always opt out!

It made 4 dozen cookies. I shared them with Joel and with all of the staff at school. I went back to school this Tuesday. I can hardly believe my summer break is over!

I do a lot of my teaching in this area so I decided I wanted a cute chair to sit on. I went to Savers, of course, in search of a chair to paint or reupholster and found this wood one. I liked the simplicity of it and the spindle carvings on the legs and chair back. I spray painted it aqua and for $6 total had a new chair.

Last but not least I painted and brought the completed table to school. I think being able to bring my new table to school to see how it looks in my classroom helped me to have something to be excited about when I returned to school on Tuesday. It is already loaded up with art supplies and ready for kids to come be creative (hopefully they won't spill to much paint on it, but I guess that would just signify being well loved and used!)

Now that my classroom it cute and organized I will begin my actual teaching prep work which is of course more important but I needed to ease into the school year by doing the fun decorating part first.

I still have a couple items left on my summer to-do-list but I figure that since I don't actually teach students until September 1st I still have a little bit of summer left to finish.

hope you liked your present Joel!

Today Joel got to take his new kayak to the lake for the first time! He was very excited and visited three lakes before choosing the one he wanted to play in! I sat in the car patiently as he looked at beaches and finally chose the one that fit the vision he had for his first time out. It was really cute!

Pushing off to begin his maiden voyage.

Me relaxing while Joel was out playing.

Visiting me post-paddle. He was VERY happy!

He sent me out to try it. We are still trying to decide what type of kayak to get for me. His was really nice!

Here is the video of Joel rolling his kayak for the first time. He did great, the only problem was that his spray skirt kept coming off as soon as he flipped over...he successfully rolled 4 times, each time the skirt was unsuccessful so we might need to buy him a different one.

kayak demo

Joel has been wanting a kayak for a long time. Growing up he and his friends would kayak the Poudre River in Colorado. He has been missing the river since moving to Minnesota so about a month ago I agreed that we should get kayaks. Joel has been doing his research ever since then. On Thursday we went to a kayak demo hosted by Midwest Mountaineering at Lake Nokomis. We were able to try out several boats and we both really liked the Daggers.

After the event we went to Midwest to look at a few other boats that weren't at the demo. When we arrived there we saw they were having a event to celebrate winning Backpacker Magazines "Retailer Of the Year" award. There was music, food and prizes. We had been planning to go out to dinner but since this was free we stopped by. The first thing we did was spin the wheel to win prizes. I was hoping to win a water bottle, since I can never have to many of those, but won a spork instead. Then Joel stepped up and used his normal "wanting it real bad" strategy and won the grand prize $100 gift certificate!

So we went inside, used the gift card and a 20% off coupon and bought Joel his very own kayak: LiquidLogic Remix 10.

We didn't have our roof rack on the car yet so we had to go back the next day to pick up the kayak. Now Joel won't be jealous every time we see a car with a kayak on top!

last date night of summer

I was hoping to get the Marque in this picture to show we went to the movies but oh well, I like this picture of us so I will share it with you! Date night this week was Joel's choice. We went to see "Inception". I was worried that it would be too scary for me but it wasn't really scary. It was very twisted and thought provoking and a fun evening for us. We are still discussing it today. I will not spoil it for you but you should see it!

9:00 date

One thing I will miss about being home during the day is my 9:00 date with Lindy for some snuggles. Every morning I retire to the basement to eat my breakfast in the cool environment. Sometimes I would watch Ellen, read a book or catch up on a few blogs before I head to my craft room. Without fail Lindy would come find me on the couch and snuggle me! I could always hear her coming as she would be purring before she even got to my lap. I think she will be just as sad as me come next week when I go back to school.

teaching L to sew

During last school year I helped with the musical. I was in charge of the costuming and helped during rehearsals etc. During this time I met L, a fourth grader and aspiring clothing designer. I told her that if she wanted to do that she would need to learn how to sew and I volunteered to teach her. She came over yesterday and we had a great time. She was a natural. She is very talented and I have no doubt that she could become a designer one day. Her are the projects she made.

She made the design decisions and I would sew a little bit in order to show her how to do each step. She did most of the sewing herself. She also learned how to thread the bobbin and the sewing machine and used the iron for the first time. Everything she made was from materials I had in my stash. Next time I hope to go to the store with her to see what she likes so she isn't limited to my fabric choices.

When she arrived she gave me these flowers as a thank you. So sweet.

Now I can cross that off of my summer to do list!

Liv the builder: day one

One of the items remaining on my summer to do list is to "make table". The picture above is the table that I want for my classroom this year. With one week remaining before I go back to school I decided that today was the day to start this project. So Shawn and I headed off to Home Depot. I went with the list of wood and supplies I needed, the size that the wood needed to be cut into and the hope that someone there would know what all of the numbers I had written down meant.

We returned home only 1 1/2 hours later thanks to the hard work of Kim, a friendly Home Depot employee. Without him the first stage of our quest could have taken hours! We got smoothies to celebrate all of his hard work and the successful completion of phase one: buying the wood.

As soon as we finished our smoothies we got right to work pre-drilling holes.
Here is our work after the completion of phase two: screwing boards together. That was all of the work we could do until I got my hands on some more power tools.

A few hours later through a friend of a friend I had my impatient hands on the jig saw I needed. 12 cuts and 30 minutes later I was sweaty and finished with phase three: cutouts.

While gathering materials for this project I couldn't find a sharp pencil to mark the cuts I needed so instead I grabbed a pen we have with a Jesus topper on it (courtesy of my friend Steph). You can see Jesus hard at work in the third picture above. I couldn't have gotten this far without Shawn's help and support, Ben's jigsaw, Joel's instructions on how to use the jigsaw without cutting off my fingers, Kim's wood expertise, a little bit of ambition on my part, the instructions found at knock-off-wood and of course Jesus' carpentry skills!

Tomorrow the saga will continue. I can hardly wait!

tbe day I nearly won the "Best Wife Award"

This weekend we did an awesome event sponsored by New Belgium called the "Urban Assault" with our friends Shawn and Chris. It is a bike race in which you create your own course but must stop at 5 different checkpoints, complete challenges and find 2 mystery checkpoints. The winners did it in under two hours but we did it for fun and finished in about 3 hours. Over all we biked about 20 miles I think.

The Stewarts were team #172

Here we are after arriving at Checkpoint #5 and completing the piggyback polo challenge. So fun. I wonder if there is a league out there for this sport...we were pretty talented!

At the end of the race we had to complete a course riding little kids Big Wheels bikes. They were so fun. I absolutely loved the Smurf Big Wheels my grandparents had out at the farm so this challenge brought back happy memories for me!

This is the cute little boy that we were behind during one section of the race. He was riding a tag-a-long bike behind his dad. He was so cute. I will take one of him...in a few years maybe!?! At one point we were going to go through a park and they had to turn around because of an art festival and when he rode by us again he said, "We have to find another way" in the cutest little melt your heart voice. Shawn and I were in love with him!

Here is the guy I am truly in love with though. We had so much fun together during this race. A big thank you goes out to Joel for getting and installing our new bike rack just in time to use it for this race.

My hero posing as a ranger at the event

Here is me during the limbo on teeny bike competition. I was truly hoping to win Joel one of the Urban Assault Timbuk2 messenger bags...but sadly I failed in the second round, I slipped and hit the cone holding the pole. Boo

But then I was given an opportunity to more than redeem myself...winning the grand prize that Joel has wanted forever, a New Belgium Cruiser bike. I thought it was the prize for the winner of the race but then learned it was part of the raffle. Joel and I used our "wanting it real bad" strategy and my number was called to be one of four people to compete in a triathlon to win the bike. I was so close, but in the end I was second and didn't win the bike for Joel. He did appreciated how bad I wanted it for him though.

This was a day filled with sweet memories as Joel and I try to cherish the last few days of summer!