Our Little Trip To Canada

        So on Friday July 20, 2012, we were on our way home from being in town when all of the sudden my husband out of the blue said, "Let's go to Canada!" And I said in a very calm voice, "Okay." And then we started talking about how we have been here as a family since February and we still have not been to Canada. So luckily, I just happened to have all 3 of our passports on me!
        The drive was pretty, lots of farm land. When we made it to boarder control (I guess that's what you call it) the guy asked like 100 questions. And he asked where we were going and we said, "The first town we come to so we can get some Canadian money and buy something small." So he eventually checked our trunk and gave us the OK to go.

         It seemed like we drove forever once getting over the boarder! But we finally made it to the small town, which I really liked. (I will have to post the name of it later when Drew is around) And would you believe it?!?! They had a CO*OP store!! They had those in Europe. So we parked and Drew went in, and took like 10-15 minutes. But he eventually came out with two candy bars, "Mr. BIG" (which by the way were AMAZING!!) and some Canadian money. And he was ready to drive away and leave. I said, "Wait a minute!! You mean you are going to take me to Canada and not let me get out of the car?!!?" So he let me go in and look around. I noticed that they sold the juices in the boxes like Europe does, which was pretty cool. And I don't know if it was because it was a small town or what but everything seemed a bit expensive there.
         So I went out to the car and we left for home. Getting through the US boarder control was not hard at all, maybe because we were returning home. Pretty much all the guy asked was if we purchased any fruits or vegetables that we were bringing back to the States. And I said to him, "Nope, just two Mr. BIG bars." And he let us be on our way.
         The whole trip took like two hours. Which was good because Drew only had about two hours before he had to be at work, before we even decided to go to Canada. As long as we have a little extra time and money I do not mind these spur of the moment things that we do.

Trip To South Dakota & Wyoming

         It sure has been a long time since I have last posted on my blog!! But it hasn't been because I haven't wanted to, it has been because I have been crazy busy making summer memories with my little family!
         My sister flew in for a visit at the end of May. We had to go and pick her up at the Minneapolis Airport, which is like 8 hrs from here.Sure it saved us $200 on the ticket and we spent like $200 to get there... But we also got to go and explore The Mall Of America while we were there!! Now that was pretty cool!! We also took like a 5 day weekend and did some traveling with her. We went to see Mount Rushmore!

And a cool thing about it was that in the gift shop there was one of the original carvers of Mount Rushmore there giving signatures and what not! If that is not cool then I don't know what is!!

This is my sister and I at the Crazy Horse

They had a lot of Native American stuff there.
Below is all we got to see of the carving,
we did not take the bus to go and view it.

Caroline in the Jewel Cave

(So Much Fun!!)

Yes, my amazing husband carried my amazing 2 yr old

throughout the whole Jewel Cave Tour!!

It was just BEAUTIFUL!!!

This is Devil's Tower in Wyoming

We ended up just driving down there

One evening to see the sunset

As you can tell, it was beautiful!

Okay, below is where the pictures start

From our Gold Mine Tour

And after the tour we got to... PAN FOR GOLD!!!

I seriously LOVED this part of the trip!!!

Sure it was a bag of rocks and what not

Put together for you BUT it was a lot of fun!!

Besides, now I know how to pan for gold!!

Just Catching Up

       We have 3 weeks left before we make the long drive to Minnisota to go and pick up my sister at the airport there. We chose to have her fly in there because the plane ticket was like 200 dollars cheaper. Sure we'd have to spend money to drive there to get her BUT we will be able to do some while we are there. We are all excited about her coming to say the least!

        It has been a while since my last post and not too much has happened since then. We've been going to the animal shelter on a regular basis since we moved here and we are actually in the process of adopting a dog now. He is a Cocker Spaniel and he has been in the shelter for about 5 weeks now. He was turned in as a stray so they just call him Carmine. But ever since we have been going and spending one on one time with him Andrew has been calling him Buzz. I think it is so cute! And before we go to the shelter I ask him if he wants to go see Buzz and he gets all excited. Today when we were leaving the shelter Andrew started to cry as we exited the building and he was reaching towards the shelter's door as Drew was putting him in the car. But hopefully we will be able to take Buzz home soon. (This is a picture I took today while visiting with Buzz. We took him for a nice walk outside)

        Lately I have been in the mood to do some sewing. So Drew took me to JoAnn's Fabrics to get some fabric. I had made Andrew a Toy Story blanket and pillow case that turned out great for a beginner sewer like me. Well practice makes perfect, right?! So a few weeks after I made those I was wanting to sew another project. So when we got paid Drew took me back up to the fabric store and this time I got some Mickey Mouse fabric. I did not have to spend money on the quilt batting this time though because I had the awesome idea of just using fleece blankets that we have put away for the winters. (the thinner fleece blankets for kids) I made another blanket and pillow case for Andrew. I figured we could do a Toy Story theme for a while and then switch it up and do a Mickey Mouse theme. Oh, and I also got some Charlie Brown fabric and made Drew his own pillow case. :D

         We were at WalMart last week just doing some minor shopping of something we needed and on our way out we passed the little shops that are in the WalMart store. And Drew asked them if they had any openings. Drew told me that he wanted to get Andrew's pictures done as a Mother's Day gift to me. I was so excited! The only thing was he was wearing a dirty cartoon shirt so I asked Drew if we could please just buy him a cheap but nice shirt for him to wear, and we did. The lady taking the pictures was using a football to try and get him to smile but he insisted on holding it during the pictures. Which I told her I was totally fine with. Because if you know Andrew then you know that he LOVES balls! But the picture turned out GREAT!!

(In the picture below, the lady told him to lay on his stomach. She was thinking he would throw the ball down so he could lay down. But he put the ball by his chest and layed his head on it like he was using it for a pillow! It was so cute!)

Wow! It has been a while since I have updated the blog!

Seeing how I have not even posted our Family Easter Pictures yet.

Now these are just pictures that we took here at home.

Thank goodness for the little timer button on cameras!

Otherwise we would never realy be able to get family pictures done!

I am so thankful for all the Lord has blessed us with.

Times have been hard lately and everything has always worked out.

Last paycheck, which was this past Friday,

we did not get paid.

We had been told a few weeks prior that we needed

to set up payment arrangements

for a paycheck in advance that we had got last year.

Well we set the payment up to take out $100 dollars per month.

Turns out they took the whole thing out at once!

I am so thankful that we had food storage.

And I am thankful that we were able to have on hand

the foods that we like and eat on a regular basis

and not just having to live off of like masked potatoes

and canned veggies for two weeks!

I know it sounds silly but I am thankful for it.

And our car was starting to make some odd noises.

But luckily we had just enough money to have it covered.

I mean, we had to hold off on getting the tires done

and wait til next paycheck to get it done but

we were able to pay for the main part.

And I am thankful that it is just the front two

tires right now that need the fixing.

Well now it is 12:30 and I really need to get in bed!! Good Night!

Expecting A Visitor!!

           Ahh!! We are so excited!!! One of my little sisters is flying in to spend a few weeks with us this summer!! She flew in to see us when we were in Biloxi, MS like 4 yrs ago and stayed a few weeks. I think she was like 13 then. But she is coming the end of May and staying til Mid June. It is just so hard trying to go and see everyone all of the time and it is a nice change to have someone come to visit us. And money is always hard to come by, especially with being in the military!!
          She is going to be flying in to Minneapolis, MN. Since we have to pick her up there we thought it'd be nice to pick her up that Friday, the day she flies in, go by The Mall Of America on that Saturday then on Sunday drive everyone back to our place. Spend the week here, probably going to go and check out the indoor water park in the mall and well, I don't really know what else. And then that following weekend we are going to go and drive to Mount Rushmore and check that out!! And we will stop at a near by western town and spend the weekend there!! Fun, Fun!! I am totally looking forward to it too!!!

Fun Little Projects

Well we have been busy lately trying new things out.

What works for us and what doesn't.

New fun indoor and outdoor activities.

Colored Rice

Items Needed for this activity:

*Rice (of corse)

*Food Coloring (any colors work)

(we used blue and green)

*Gallon sized Zip-Lock Bags

(to color the rice in)

(we used two different bags)

*A cookie sheet

*What ever items you think your child would have fun

using to play in the rice.

(we just used safe kitchen items and letter magnets)

Andrew had fun helping me color the rice!

We would pour the amount of rice that we wanted in the gallon bags.

Then we would take one of the bags and add several drops of whatever food coloring

and shake it up!! (His favorite part)

Once we had the two bags of rice colored the colors we wanted (blue and green)

We poured them out onto the cookie sheet.

Then comes the fun part!

Add toys, measuring cups, metal pots....

whatever your kid would have fun with!

Andrew really enjoyed scooping it up and putting it in the big mixing bowl.

 

All smiles!!!

He would use that cup to pour rice on the top of the metal bowl

then se that little black measuring spoon in his other hand

to hit the bowl like he was playing the drums

and he enjoyed watching the rice bounce off as he did this!

Finger Painting In The BathTub

I had baught some finger paints thinking it'd be such a fun thing for him to do.

Well then when I got home I thought about the mess that would be made.



So I remembered seeing this online somewhere

where they let their kid finger paint in the bath tub just in a diaper

and figured I'd give it a try and see just how messy it'd be.

He had a blast painting with his fingers (and toes)

Clean up was super easy!

Just turn on the shower and spray the paint off!

Now it is time for a bath!! :D 

Playing Outdoors

We are lucky enough to have a near by playground right in our neighborhood.

(Okay well, it is like right in our backyard)

It seems I cannot open any of the blinds that point towards the

backyard without him saying, "Play" and pointing

towards the playground.

So we are out there often.



But one of the things Andrew loves to do is play in the "dirt box"

Yeah it is dirt not sand...

But I can be sure that everyday we go out that I am going to have to

wash his clothes as soon as we go back in. :)

He also loves the rocks that are laying around in the dirt.

He likes to get a bucket and fill it up so high

that it is too heavy for him to pick up himself.

And you can notice his car in the bucket too.

Filled up to the tip top

He was so proud!

                                                      

                                                                                 

So proud that he dumped it out! :)

But before we went inside

I brought out a cookie sheet

and filled it with water

And also filled his bucket with water.

So he could rince off his toys

Before we put them in

The outdoor storage room.

Thursday 3-29-12

     So Drew got off at noon today since he has the night shift tonight.  Since Saturday is the start of General Conference we decided to go and run errands today and just take Friday easy, since he will be getting off work in the AM tomorrow.

*We went to the animal shelter and Chance is still there. I really like him alot and I know it is very unlikely but I hope that he is still there when we get our fence in.

*We stopped by this place called Papa Murphy's Pizza (Take N Bake Pizza) We got a pizza there so we could take it home and set it out til we are ready for dinner. We have always wanted to try this place out since this is our first time hearing of it.

*We stopped by the rental place next door and got a game for the PS3, Six Flags. Going to try that out.

*Next we went to fill up on gas. Well turns out that Drew could not find his Debit Card, so we went back to the rental place to see if it was there. Sure enough it was because they called us as we were heading that direction to let us know. So we went back and got gas and then headed home.

Right now Drew is laying down with Andrew in "Andrew's House" as he likes to call it, watching 101 Dalmations. Andrew's "House" is the closet down in the den. It has three shelves that go all the way around it. Top shelf is board games, second shelf is books, and first shelf is Andrew's books and little toys. I put the bean bag in there for him to sit on. Right now he loves flash lights so he like to go in there in the dark with his light. We also put the portable DVD player in there so he could watch a movie if he wanted. But mostly he just likes going in there, shutting the door and playing.

Spring-like Weather Already!!

   So the weather here has warmed up! We may go out and play today, actually I think we will! We went out and played last night and had a blast and met someone who might be a life... long friend! And the crazy thing about it is, she told me she was not planning on bringing her kids out and that it was a last minute thing. And the funny thing about that is, it was a spur of the moment thing for us too! And we were talking about coming to Minot, we both got here this winter, and she was saying how Heavenly Father blessed her with the warmer winter because she was dreading it. And I told her thats exactly how I felt about it too! And then I mentioned how before I got here I was planning on how I was going to get caught up on food storage. And then she was like... "Do you go to a church?" And I was like, "Yes, and I was about to ask you the same because you said Heavenly Father." And she was like, "Well I am LDS." And then we just started talking like crazy about everything! It is just so cool when you meet people that you know Heavenly Father had His hand in for y'all meeting. Anyways, she invited us to thier place for Saint Patty's Day for a BBQ dinner. And did I mention, she is Irish! Accent and all!! I think she is pretty awesome!

   We had a rough night last night w/ Andrew being sick but he woke with a smile on his face, he was up from 3-7 and slept 7-11:30. Lets just say I have lots of laundry to do today bc of it!! BUT he is back to his normal self.

   Drew works his second job today so it'll be just me and Andrew til 9 or so.

   I also went to the dentist yesterday... and like always they never have good news for me. And if you know me, you'd know I am a teeth brushin and teeth flossin freak! But lets just say I am looking forward to April 7th, because it is the day AFTER April 6th!!!

Beautiful Sunday

So we made it to church today! Not at our correct time of going

but we did make it to the 2nd Ward. I don't know why but Andrew

 did so good in church today!! We have like a 20 minute drive to

church and he fell asleep on the way there, slept for like 5 minutes.

Well I thought he'd be just unbearable with not getting his nap out

 and all. He sat through the whole Sacrament, 1 hour, without

fussing or anything!

Reason being is I packed two bags of goodies..

 (a bag of frosted shredded wheat & a bag of gummies)

And yesterday we went to Dollar Tree and I was able to get him

a workbook for his numbers, which is what he is learning right now.

Well I gave him the book and a pen in Sacrament Meeting

and when he seemed to start moving around or something

I gave him the snacks.

(Which I put in a quiet sandwich bag before we left home too)

Church was at 1 PM today, maybe he does better with the evening time,

I do not know.

But either way we are still going to go the the Ward that we are supposed to

and that is the 1st Ward.

Drew went to Sunday School while I stayed in the nursery with Andrew.

I would have tried to sneak out but they needed the extra

help in there so I stayed.

Drew peeked in during the third hour and told me to go to class

and that he would sit with Andrew.

So I was able to go to Relief Society and enjoy a nice lesson in there.

Drew peeked through the Relief Society door and had Andrew in his arms.

With only 5 minutes left of class I just grabbed my stuff and left.

Drew said he did very well in nursery and was playing extremely nicely

and all but he just needed a diaper change.

So I searched for the Mother's Room and changed him.

After he was cleaned up we headed out to the car and came home.

Andrew fell asleep on the way home of corse and Drew

brought him inside and layed him on the bean bag chair.

I fixed Drew a sandwich and he ate it then headed back to church.

There is a Priesthood meeting and I wanted to make

sure that he was able to attend.

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormonism-101

Oh, I must write about how beautiful the weather has been this weekend!!

Yesterday it got up to the mid 60s and I would not be surprised

if it has at least gotten up to 60 again today!

It is so lovely!

And sure it may get really cold here during the winter but at least

the beautiful sun does not go into hiding.

Thats one thing about Germany that I do not miss.

The dark winters.

But I do miss alot of other stuff about Germany.

Like the dear sweet friends we had that were not in the military,

who we probably will not have the chance of seeing again.

And I miss being able to go and see so many new and exciting

places that most people just dream of going to see.

Officially a Mama of a TWO YEAR OLD!!!

We ended up not making it to church on his birthday, though we really wanted to be there. Since we had all been sick late in the week before and not feeling 100% that staying home would be the best thing for our family.

Saturday night, March 3, I stayed up (but not late) making a birthday shirt for Andrew to wear for when he ate the cake.

This is how it looked when I first started out with it...

And I thought to myself, "This is not going to turn out that great.... I wish I was more crafty.."

Then I thought of outlining it with a different color. And it looked a little better. Then I got an idea to just outline it again! haha. Well it looked even better. So what did I do???

I KEPT OUTLINING!! HAHA!

And this is the end product!!

I thought it looked awesome and was could not decide if I should have outlined it just one more time but with purple. But I didn't want it to end up looking girly so... I didn't do the purple.

But I did this with "fabric markers" I found them in the art section at WalMart. I was in the art section looking for those fabric paints... I remembered the puffy paints from when I was a kid. And remembering how horribly I shake I thought the decorating with the paint bottles would turn out horribly. So I found these markers.

Also on the day before his birthday I made his cake, un-frosted. I used a box of the confetti cake mix and I used two six inch (I think) round cake pans. After the first two were done I took them out and placed them upside down on different plates, we are limited on kitchen utensils since we've just moved in like a month ago. After the pans were empty I cooled and cleaned one and re-greased it to make another layer with the remaining cake batter that was left. And then put that one on a plate to sit over night too.

Finally it is Sunday! Andrew's birthday!

(Also keep in mind that we are not feeling 100%)

 After laying in bed sort of late I remembered that I still had to decorate the cake. But I wasn't too worried because we did not plan on eating cake til later that evening. So I went in the kitchen and grabbed a Pop Tart for Andrew's breakfast. (It was a special treat for him since we don't usually have those.)

I got busy preparing the frosting. (I had got the vanilla frosting that came with the sprinkles to put on top of the cake when done, although I did not use those sprinkles.) I had baught a seperate bottle of sprinkles for the cake. They were the flat round sprinkles.

I had in mind how I wanted the cake to look, but you know how that goes... I thought maybe it'd be impossible to do. Kind of like maybe a Martha Stewart project and here I am just somebody who doesn't have a clue what I'm doing...

So I got out my mixer and bowl and put it together. I dumped the frosting in the bowl and started mixing it so it'd be more fluffy and started adding blue food coloring til I got it to the shade I wanted. Well I used pretty much the WHOLE BOTTLE of food coloring!!

So when I got it to the right color I went ahead and put the three layers of cake on top of each other but seperating them with frosting. When that was done I started the frosting which didn't take too long.

I had baught the candies that you put on top of cakes, like I mentioned before my hands are very shaky when it comes to writing. So I decorated the top of the cake. And I put the sprinkles around the top outside of the cake. I thought it turned out nicely.

Now the tricky part... The sides were just blue with the frosting. So I got a cup of water and used the plastic knife that I frosted the cake with and wet it and placed it in a plate coved in the flat and round sprinkles. The sprinkles stuck to the knife, I placed the knife's side to the cake and the sprinkles stuck. Well I continued to do this til ALL of the sprinkles from the bottle were on the sides of the cake. And here is the end product!!

I thought it turned out even better than I thought it would have!!

His birthday turned out pretty good though. We had his favorite for lunch, corndogs and mac and cheese. Well the corndogs are his favorite, not so much the mac and cheese. And for dinner we had meatloaf and home made mashed potatoes! Yumm!

After blowing out the candle

This from earlier that day, his birthday nap

Picking at the cake and eating the frosting

The frosting from a candy that was on my forehead... It was the only way he'd look at the camera

His Daddy enjoying the cake

Happy Birthday Andrew!! We love you!!

Home At Last!

              So we have been together, the three of us, in our home in Minot for one month now! We are loving our new home!! It seriously is like 3-4 times bigger than our apartment in Germany! We have room here to be ourselves and not worry about people who live below us. We are connected to our next door nieghbor by the garage and by a room which is our guest bedroom/computer room. Another exciting thing about our place is, we have a tree in our front yard!! A mature tree, one that has been there a while. (Which is pretty awesome b/c not many trees here except the tiny newly planted ones.) We have our own backyard! (Which will be fenced in this Spring/Summer) And right outside of our backyard we have the nieghborhood playground! So the playground is like 50 feet from our back door! Which will be super nice this summer!
             Andrew did amazingly on the trip up here! It took us 5 days to get here from North Carolina.We were able to see so much on the way up. The first day we drove almost the whole way through TN. We would have gone all the way through that night but we saw a nice place to stop, and we wanted to check the area out when the sun was up too. It was Jackson, TN. They had an area dedicated to Casey Jones with trains and stuff, almost like an old western type theme. We ate dinner at the restuarant and walked around the gift shop. I baught some home made Lavendar Soap. They had alot of old fashioned candies and jams there too.

From Jackson TN we were able to drive up to Lawton, OK to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Blake. This was our first time being able to go and visit and stay with them. Andrew had so much fun playing with a toy train set at thier house and before we left they ended up giving the train set to him.

The picture above is of Andrew playing with toys at his Aunt Maureen's house while we were watching the Super Bowl 2012. We had a GREAT time just relaxing and hanging out with everyone.

Grandma and Grandpa Blake

Andrew and Uncle Tom

Saying Good-Byes before we hit the road again.

Grandma and Grandpa Blake

We stayed two nights with Grandma and Grandpa Blake and we got to go to church with Grandma, Grandpa said he was not feeling well enough to go. And can you believe it?! Andrew stayed in nursery the whole time all by himself in thier ward!!! This is the first... and only time that he has done this! He hasn't done it since then. I guess he was just happy to get out of the car for a change.

The picture above was taken in Iowa, where we spent the night after leaving Oklahoma. This was our first time driving through snow during the whole trip. I remember the lady working behind the desk at the hotel was laughing at us like crazy because of our Southern accents. It was pretty funny.

And of corse we couldn't leave the hotel without letting Andrew throw a few snowballs first!

While traveling we saw informantion signs along the highway for the Mormon Trail Center. So we followed them and we stopped here to take the tour.

Lots of hands on stuff to see how big the carts were. I don't really know if Andrew really got anything out of going but he really did enjoy himself!

This is how big the beds were on the ship, not much room at all

We would have gone over to the cemetary which was just across the street but it was completely covered in snow and we would not have been able to tell where we were walking.

Winters Corner. The Temple is right by the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery.

This beautiful statue is in front of the Mormon Trail Center Building

Sleeping peacefully.

We saw an information sign from the highway about a Dino Story Land... Well this is the only Dino thing we found... So maybe this is it?? This is like right in front of a busy gas station too.

FINALLY!!! We made it!!! But I must say, our journey up to North Dakota went surprisely well! We all had good attitudes, especially Andrew, and I only had like one melt down where I broke out crying for like 30 minutes... But besides that it was PERFECT!! Glad to have us all together again. I know Andrew is so glad to be back with his Daddy!

I know this is a rough picture but it was taken like at 1 AM on the night/morning that we got in our new home!! Can you believe that we got here at 1 AM then our household goods from Germany were delivered to our home like 9 hrs later that morning!! We got there in perfect timing to get our stuff and not have to re-schedule.

Okay, I have finally done it! I have updated the blog about our move up here. WooHoo! Go Me! But now, well another day, I have to update about how Andrew's second birthday went. Can you believe it?!?! Andrew is TWO now??!! I sure can't. I have been having a really hard time lately like emotionally, no I am not crying all of the time or anything like that, I have just been in a funk... down in the dumps I guess you could say. I don't know how or why but I have told Drew and he is trying to help me out the best that he can. In the mean time, the number one thing that gets me through my days are the sweet little hugs and kisses Andrew surprises me with all throughout the day! Makes my heart melt!! I love that boy so much!!