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Beware of the cone.

Thankful

My amazing, caring husband

Crazy cone head dog

A house that has endless possibilities

Our God who loves us when we don't deserve to be loved

Super supportive family members

Clothes in my closet

Food in my pantry

A paid off car

Nadine

Perfect rug that took tons of effort to find

Beautiful friendships both near and far

Employment

Christmas music



Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!



image via the nourishing gormet

28 things

Last year after I turned 26, I made a "27 things I want to do before I turn 27" list. I regret to inform you that I did not accomplish everything on that list. Rats. But I decided that's ok, and some things will carry over to my "28 things" list and some things that are not that important to me anymore will just fall off into oblivion.

These are the things that were accomplished from my 27 things list. You can see the original list here and here. And since this list was never finished, I added some things that were major accomplishments this year.

2)Get my picture project done check
9)Make my own cleaning supplies done - this was really easy
14)Get a funky bundt pan gift from my parents
16)Start an herb garden maybe I should have said "start and tend" and herb garden.
17)Go on a girls trip woot woot!
19)Pay off the car sooo happy about this one!
20)Re-learn how to knit I knit (knitted?) a blankie for Elijah
24)Buy a house yep
25)Get and train a puppy train is a relative term
26)Actively get involved in a ministry New Wineskins Ministry. God is doing cool stuff
27)learn how to edit html code boo ya!

Here's my list for this year:

1)Go to the Global Market
2)Finish our wedding album
3)Get a bike (or find my old one?)
4)Get Dave's bike fixed
5)Go on bike rides with Dave
6)participate in a race
7)Take a road trip with Dave
8)Attend an auction
9)purchase a sewing machine
10)Renew our passports
11)Use our passports
12)Attend more community functions
13)Paint the kitchen
14)Paint our bedroom
15)finish porch project
16)Start on library project
17)plot out and plant perennial garden
18)File all our important papers
19)Establish a weekly date night
20)Organize laundry room
21)Love people at work that are hard to love
22)Bake something once a week
23)Clean out and organize garage
24)Plan a few "weekend getaways" to fun little towns in the area
25)Spend more time with our grandparents
26)Organize the closets. All of them.
27)Save up for and purchase a DSLR camera and lenses
28)Learn how to use camera in # 27

There you have it. I'm going to try and do a follow up post once a month so I can keep myself accountable to accomplishing more of the list than I did last year.

I love lists.

olive's nemesis

The rake.
I believe that deep down in her heart she truly feels that our rake in an evil being bent on destroying her little dog life, therefore it must be destroyed.



She may look sweet and innocent, but don't let her fool you. As soon as Mr. Rake enters the scene she quickly morphs into Olive the wonder dog with one thing on her mind: the rakes total and complete annihilation. That's right. Total and complete.







Note to rakes everywhere:
if you have fulfilled your yearly duties, please stay safely locked in the garage. There's just no telling when Olive may feel the need to rid the entire world of you evil monsters.

faraway friends

Our friends Caleb and Amanda came to stay with us last week. They are our faraway friends. They live in Australia and haven't been in town for a few years. They don't have much Mexican food in Australia so that was high on their "to do" list. But after eating Mexican for several days in a row, their stomachs said, "move on!" so they did. We ate a lot of good food while they were in town.



It was so great to spend time with our faraway friends and the weather even cooperated and gave us above average temps almost every day!



Amanda is a photographer and takes really amazing pictures. I would share her website with you, but I don't think it's done yet. Caleb? Is it done yet? She's also a musician (I know, right? Those Aussies. So talented) and you should check out her band: Margaret Helen King. They are on itunes. I promise you will love them.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to get them here more often. OR we need to start saving our pennies so we can visit the land down under!

mustache goes to the orchard

Traditions. I love them. I'm all about the things you do "every year" especially around the holidays. It just makes an already special time more special.
Going to the apple orchard is very high on my "must do" list for the fall. It's a tradition. We go to the same apple orchard every year. We taste and pick apples. We buy apple turnovers and listen to live polka music. We board a giant wagon pulled by a tractor to get to our desired apple picking destination.

This year things didn't go exactly as planned.



As we drove up the long driveway of Minnesota Harvest and got to the expansive grass parking lot we were shocked to find it nearly empty. We parked right up by the barn (which in previous years was impossible due to the sheer volume of people) and wandered in with confusion written all over our faces. Thankfully someone was good enough to explain this Twilight Zone-esque scene before us. A leak in the roof had been discovered the night before and most of the big barn was shut down. WHAT?! Do you know what that meant? No apple turnovers. No polka music. No 237 kids running around with sticky faces having melt downs because they were told they had reached their apple donut limit. WHAT?!

We did leave with apples but we did not pick them. Sad day.

Thankfully the other part of our tradition was enjoyed. We had lunch at Emma Krumbees and it was delicious. And something new was added to the tradition:

Jim's Apple Farm



This place is wondrous to behold. it's stuffed to the gills with old fashion candy, root beer, honey, jam, sauces of all kinds, pastries, jerky. It was awesome. And you know what else is awesome? The fact that Dave was still sporing his mustache from his Halloween costume the night before.

its not a pitchfork!

Pumpkin carving almost didn't happen this year. The fall has been incredibly busy for us, but thankfully we figured out how to fit it in.



We ended up carving on my birthday which made it even more special.









Even though mine looks like the devil's pitchfork, it's really not. It is supposed to be a candelabra with the bottom part on a second pumpkin. I had this grand idea of stacking them and having the carving span the two pumpkins. Alas...I ran out of time, leaving me with a pitchfork. I was even asked by some trick or treaters if it was a pitchfork. Rats.



Thanks Mom and Dad for letting us carve at your house and for the use of your big sharp knives!