the one with busy-ness

our next few months are little bonkers... preview:
Dana's bridal shower
mpd follow-up conference for 4 days
Iowa for a week
Fargo for 2 weeks
home for doc appt and pack for cabin
mpd/cabin with my family for Mem. Day long weekend
home for a few days
Rochester perhaps?
home for Dana's wedding
mpd from Cities to finish June?

we're excited to see family (including both nieces)
and celebrate graduations and weddings
and of course work on mpd too... stay tuned for pictures!

the one with KIM

Kim is coming...

...TODAY! We're going to scrapbook and celebrate our birthdays!
Kim's 27th birthday is TOMORROW
and I'm excited to have some girl-time!
AND she's bringing Gideon so Ole can work on carpet back home.
Gideon is the cutest little boy ever in the history of little boys.
Maybe G and Aaron will have some guy-time while Kim & I scrapbook.

the one with 27

I turned 27 and Aaron surprised me with a Cricut!
(he was super excited about a 40% steal-of-a-deal at Joann's)

And my dad bought us tickets to our first Twins game
at Target Field - my birthday was the first night game!

We brought Dr. House!

For some reason we had seats in the handicap row.

Twins won 10-3. It was good day :)

Saturday night we had dinner with some friends at Pepitos
down the street from our apartment... a fire truck showed up.

I am incredibly blessed and had a great birthday!

the one with celebrations

I like birthdays... even if they are boring like #23 (below)

I even get other people to help celebrate![Michael & Andrew told me they couldn't make it to youth
group the night of my 25th and then surprised me with
a butterfly net of birthday-goods! It was great!]

My 27th birthday is coming up!
It's going to be a fun week!!

the one with my favorite

My matron of honor is in the Midwest!!
Erin flew in from North Carolina to spend spring break
with her family for Easter week and I get to see her today!
We are meeting in the middle for lunch in Alexandria.
I'm VERY, VERY EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!

[pic above is the "Erin/Aaron" sandwich]

the one with training

In the spirit of training for the half marathon,
a friend of mine suggested I try the Couch to 5K program.
I found a "First Day to 5K" podcast series to add to my iPod
and so far I'm liking it. It's a mix of music that changes BPM -
beats per minute - so I walk to a slower beat then run to
to a faster one. I'm not a runner so it's a nice, ease-me-in
tool. At the end of the 10 week series, I should be
running 3.1 miles without a problem... looking forward to it.

If you're not a runner and decide to take up running,
I'd also recommend trying the Couch to 5K plan
or downloading the First Day to 5K podcasts!
There's my 2 cents for the day :)

the one from Easter

"HEPAR AYSPTE"

love, Ava

We celebrated our risen Lord and Savior in
Des Moines with the Murrays. Such a fun day!

the one with spring time

we have been in Des Moines for a week or so.
we came to dog-sit Bella while Jamie and Rachel
celebrated their 2 year anniversary near Chicago.

now that they're back, we've enjoyed hanging out with J, R and Ava,
who discovered sweet potatoes while hanging out with grandma!

April 1st was so nice the boys grilled and played football outside.
Ava and Rach stayed cool inside.