Moving fun

The packing has begun, and is (hopefully) almost done! Just a few last minute things to throw in boxes. We are visiting our favorite places one last time, saying our last goodbyes, and getting ready to hit the road. Isaiah and I leave on Friday morning for my parents house. Steve will join us there later in the evening with the moving truck. Saturday morning, Steve will head to St. Louis while Isaiah and I will head to Iowa with my parents for my cousin's wedding.

So, in the packing process Isaiah reached a new milestone. He can now pull himself up to standing! I am definetly not ready for this yet, but it was pretty exciting! The pictures are in the slideshow below.

This will probably be the last blog for awhile, since as soon as we get to St. Louis, we head out to New Jersey for 10 days. Check back at the end of August for a ton of pictures and a long update!
Look for an email with our new address as well!

Our First Family Vacation

Yes indeed, we had our first family vacation! We hadn't take a vacation since our honeymoon almost four years ago. Usually when we head out and go on trips it is to visit family in either MN, NJ, or FL. So this was our first official vacation! It was short, but sweet. We left Thursday morning and headed to Park Rapids, MN. We arrived at our home away from home, The Vacationaire Lodge. We checked in, settled in and went to the lodge to eat. Since the weather was less than desirable, we explored the small town shops in downtown Park Rapids. This was just a cute little strip down main street that included antique shops, souvenir stores, restaurants, and a couple of old-fashioned candy stores and fudge shops!

Throughout our weekend we had to make up for the crummy weather. It was rainy, cold and windy. Just perfect for the MIDDLE OF JULY!!!! So instead of swimming in the lake or fishing off the dock we enjoyed the simple things like: eating out, family naps, watching the Penguins of Madagscar, and swimming in the Lodge's indoor swimming pool. On Friday there was enough dry weather for us to head to Christmas World and play some mini-golf, which I won! That night we had a nice little venture to the "restaurant capital of the world" in Dorset, MN. This town has a population of 22. I'm pretty sure that they have more places to eat in this town then residents. But they do have a number of real tasty places to eat and do pretty decent business up there surrounded by so many lakes, campgrounds, and resorts. Oh, and they even have a Lutheran Church there so we are hoping we do not get sent to Dorset come Call Day 2010! Can you imagine?

On Saturday we headed up to Itasca State Park to see the Mississippi headwaters. Thankfully it was a nicer day and rain free. So we enjoyed walking through the "mighty" Mississippi River and walking around Minnesota's oldest state park. We walked the Park museum and a few other short trails. We even walked through some old Indian burial mounds. If only we could have stayed on Sunday it would have been a perfect day to rent a boat or bikes to see more of the park. But when the sun finally came out late Saturday afternoon, it was time for us to get ready to head home. We headed back south into Park Rapids one last time to eat a bar that claimed to have possibly the best burgers and fries in Northern, MN. Big time disappointment. Steve is always looking for a good, small-town, hole-in-the-wall bar that serves awesome handmade, heart attack-inducing, big and juicy burgers. This was definitely not the place but kudos to them on their effective, yet misleading advertising! (However, Billy's Bar & Grill in Vergas, MN is the place according to him!) Anyways, we stopped at an old fashioned "Minne-soda" fountain to get some ice-cream for the drive home.

Here is the slide show of our vacation:

Flour Fun

Photo Shoot

I took Isaiah to get his 6 month pictures taken, and I have to say that he is a ham!!! He certainly does not get this from me! I HATED getting my picture taken as a kid, and as a result, I don't have very nice pictures to show for it. So he obviously gets this from his Dad. It was extremely hard to choose which pictures we wanted prints of. Here is a slideshow of the photo session.

4th of July

We had a nice long 4th of July weekend. We spent Friday at the cabin wearing out our welcome again. It was Isaiah's first time taking a dip in the lake water. He seemed to enjoy it when he was being held. He did not like his floaty thing too well. After his swim he got to hang out on the dock in his birthday suit! He loved that! We came back in time to enjoy a wonderful dinner and campfire complete with make your own desserts at our pastor's house.

We took in the annual 4th of July parade, but were really disappointed. The parade consisted of a total of 6 entries and lasted about 5 minutes. As someone near us said, we waited longer than the actual parade lasted! Isaiah enjoyed the fire truck though. We had a patriotic church service with a gathering on the lawn of the church to watch the fireworks. We ended up going home before the fireworks due to thick mosquitos and a tired baby. Over all it was a nice day.

Slide Show

So the last blog said to look below for the pictures....I didn't get them there, so here they are....

Holy Moly!

I almost fell off my chair when I read our blog just now and saw that we have not blogged in a month!!!! A whole month! Well, here is our long over due update....

We started June out with a week of Vacation Bible School. Steve was on the drama team and taught a class with twelve 5 & 6th grade girls. He pretty much had his hands full and hairs grayed that week. I (Calie) was the snack leader and taught 8 kindergartners. I quickly realized how much I really miss teaching this age of kiddos. Isaiah had a great time visiting with all of the church members and getting passed from one to another. A trooper and smiler through it all, he will certainly be missed by our congregation more than Steve and I combined! One evening of VBS, he was taken on a "walk" with two ladies. He was returned to us a tattooed man.
And yes, it is a tattoo of a scarecrow/pumpkin head. I guess it was the only one they could find. But as Steve said, at least he did not come back with any piercings!

Right after VBS, we headed down to St. Peter to celebrate Father's Day and Mom's birthday on the farm. My sister and our two nieces were there. It was a fun filled couple of days. We got to jump in the bounce house, ride the 4 wheeler, and visit the cows. Check out the slide show below for pictures. Then on Sunday we headed to Hudson, WI to visit old friends from Trinity. Although we didn't get to see everyone, it was a great get together and a ton of fun. We really do miss living in Hudson and all the friends and family we made along the way.

Steve got to enjoy his first official Father's Day. Though it didn't turn out exactly as planned, it was still a fun day. Earlier in the week, we found out that Isaiah not only cut his first two teeth (bottom front), but also had bronciolitis. A week of coughing fits, runny noses and flem in the throat...poor little guy! Isaiah gave me so many great kisses, that I too got a little sick. Needless to say Father's Day was kind of a bust with a sick wife and child and a crummy weather day. Though even that wasn't so bad as Isaiah snuggled and slept in Daddy's arms for a couple of hours. And we still had tasty grilled chicken kabobs and made it our favorite Fargo ice-cream spot that was handing out free waffle cones to dads. So we relived part of 'Father's Day' the following week with a breakfast buffet to die for at Granite City!

Isaiah also had a big week of meeting new people. He met our friends Cory & Megan from Hawaii, crazy Sonja from our Hudson days, and his first play date Joshua. Joshua was born to friends of ours from the seminary a couple of months after Isaiah. So there is bound to be a few more play dates in the future.

We enjoyed going to the cabin a few times in June as well. We have become unofficial members of the Friedrich family. Either that, or we have just become those annoying house guests that will never leave. Regardless, that won't stop us from trying to get there as much as possible in our final weeks in Moorhead. Steve has realized how much he loves to fish. I am stilling waiting for some warm, sunny days to work on my tan and Isaiah just loves being outside, swinging in the hammock, and getting held by everyone and anyone! We are still hoping to have some days in July that will be warm enough to spend in the water and on the boat.

As long as you have read all of that, I will include his 6 month stats! We just got back from the doctor today; he had to have his six month shots. He weighs a whopping 17 pounds and is now in the 40th percentile (that's up from the 7th percentile just two months ago). He is 26 inches long in the 33 percentile. We thank God each day that He gave us such a cutie pie.

We are now staring at the last few weeks in MN. Then off again to a new adventure in St. Louis. I promise I will take more time off from packing to update the blog more often this month.