From the phone...

I can hardly believe it's August already... this summer is just flying by!  So, as I sat down today to write a post about everything that we've been doing lately, I checked my camera to see what pictures I had to share.  The only pictures that I had were from Alex's birthday.  I checked the camera on my phone and I had a bunch of fun things to share!  So, here is the inaugural "from the phone" post!

Did you know that we moved?  Ha.  It's all we've been thinking/talking/doing lately!  We've now been in our house for almost a month and we absolutely love it!  Getting here, though, was a lot of work.  My dear husband worked so hard to get us all packed up and ready to go.  The timing of our closing worked out so that we spent about  a week getting a few projects done at the new house before moving in.  We had so many friends and family make the moving process go smoothly, and for that we are very grateful.  

 

Although we didn't plan it this way, Steph was also in town (to see her brand new niece!) to help us move and was a key participant in the "get Holly and Joe's house in order" project!  Besides moving/cleaning/organizing, we also had a few opportunities to have some fun!  One afternoon we took Alex and Johanna to a Laurie Berkner concert at the Basilica!  (Laurie Berkner's CD is one of Alex's favorite.... and is pretty tolerable as far as kids music goes!)  We had fun, although it was SO hot!  The kids were pretty excited because they got to get tattoos.  Alex got a duck and Johanna got Hello Kitty.  With a stop at the Jumper before we left, I would consider it all and all a success!

In the midst of all the moving craziness, we also celebrated Alex's 6th birthday!  On his actual birthday we took him to The Rainforest Cafe for dinner, and Gramma Linda, Bonnie, and Tad joined us!  Alex loved all of the "animals" and we had a great time celebrating!  Alex has been having so much fun playing with all of this birthday gifts too!  He got a cool Mosaic by Number art set from the Wasingers that he's loving!

 

Alex has been a trooper over the last several weeks as we have dragged him to lots of stores and have run lots of errands.  It seems like most of the time we have been at Menards or Home Depot, but we have made it to Ikea a few times (and stopped for Swedish Meatballs too!) and Joe and Alex decided they needed to try out some of the furniture!

 

Joe and I also celebrated our 9th Anniversary in July!  In some ways it seems as if it was just yesterday that we stood in the church with our family and friends and said "I do".  In other ways, it seems like a forever ago!  Either way, I'm so glad to have Joe in my life!  I was surprised on our actual anniversary with flowers delivered to work!  I loved them!  And, they were daisies, the same flowers we had on all of the tables at our reception!

 

We had the chance for a little more anniversary celebration a few days later, when we went together to the Ozomatli and Los Lonely Boys concert at the MN Zoo.  We had so much fun!  The Zoo is a great venue for a concert and the handicap accessible seats are like 10 feet away from the performers.  So awesome!

 Alex also got to spend a week in South Dakota with his Gramma and Grandpa!  He got to go to Vacation Bible School with them, which is always a highlight of the summer!  I got a few pictures sent to my phone from Gramma, showing us all of the fun they were having.  They played tons of games, went to the LaBolt Dam for Disc Golf, conducted science experiments, looked at the stars in the telescope, and had lots of adventures!  So much fun!!

Whew....... Thanks for checking in on us!!!