God's Country

After spending a few days at Grandma Ara's we proceeded south to spend a few days in Medora. Medora is one of my favorite places on earth. The landscape has remained the same for millions of years and it is so full of rich history. Theodore Roosevelt lived out here and he is one of my favorite historical figures so it is just so fun!

Mia and Isabelle checking out the "Fairy Dogs." (that is what Mia called the prairie dogs).
Boy, getting down was A LOT easier!!
Whew! Me made it!
Kent, Mia and Isabelle
Cowgirl Isabelle

Cowboy daddy. The shirt Kent is wearing has an interesting story. It was over 100 degrees in Medora when we got there and we went through about a million gift shops to find a sleeveless shirt and were unsuccessful. So, we bought this shirt as a regular t-shirt and I sat in the hotel room using a Leatherman and my teeth to tear the sleeves off of the shirt. Loads of fun!!!
Huge buffalo bull posing for the camera
Grandpa Richard, Isabelle, Mia and Kent cooling off in the hot summer heat.
Stagecoach horses
riding the the stagecoach. They didn't have much for shocks and struts back then!

My favorite picture of Medora.

"I promise daddy, I won't touch anything... at least while you are looking."

Father's Day

For Father's day this year we went up the DL and again like last year. We went to the flea market outside of town and bought a few things. Then we went to Zorbaz to pig out. When we were walking in something happened to me that hasn't happened in a while...I was carded before I was able to enter the building and then I had to wear a wristband into the establishment to indicate to the servers that I was over the age of 21. I told the guy at the door as I was handing him my ID that he just made this old lady's day. He looked at it and said he never would have thought that was my age. Must be the Arbonne skin care I use or maybe the fact that I lost 30 pounds since March...well either way it was a nice compliment.

Monkey see...
(here's the monkey)
Monkey do! (Sorry about the lack of tan, people, but I'm Norwegian. I can't help it!)

Girls' Birthdays

In the middle of June we went up the Kent's Parents' cabin for the girls' birthdays. Since Mia's is at the end of May and Isabelle's in the end of June, it worked out to have it somewhere in the middle. As always, we had a very nice time up there and enjoyed the simplicity and the peacefulness of it all.

Mia and Isabelle with their "cakes." It was actually stacks of cookies.
Isabelle and Mia trying to coax the deer over to eat from their hand.
Opening presents

Kitty on the Roof

We are not really sure how or why our cat Molly ended up on the roof of the house. We were outside doing some work in the yard and usually when we are out we let Molly come out too. While we were doing our thing we realized that Molly was missing. Being we have a fenced backyard so we thought she had to be back there somewhere. Soon we saw her peering over the edge of the roof and wanted desperately to get down. She was too scared to jump so I finally got the ladder out and got her down. She was very relieved to go back inside.

It's Tea Time!

For Isbelle's 9th birthday we had a tea party. We started coming up with ideas for the event about a year ago and it slowly came together. We wanted to have a fancy little party were the girls dressed and acted like young ladies, drank tea in fancy tea cups and ate finger food. The girls had a wonderful time and they really played up their manners and English accent. Everyone of them decided they were princess from somewhere (I was the Queen and my mom was Queen Mum). Isabelle says that now when Mia is old enough I should have a tea party for her too!

This is a picture of most of us. Mia, my niece Brook, My friend Christina and her daughter Hannah are not pictured and unfortunately in the craziness I never nailed everyone down again to take a picture of the whole group. I think the brown and white version of this picture is really neat.
Here we are making the hats. Note the stinky boys on the right that crashed the party!
Backs of the hats
Girls on the swing
enjoying the tea and goodies.

Mia seemed to enjoy the tea quite a bit.
Here is Mia in her tea party attire. I did get her to slow down for at least one good picture! The dress is one that I made for her this winter and it came in handy for this occasion

Tea Party Practice

The day before Isabelle's tea party, my mom, sister-in-law and I decided that it would be best if we decorated our hats ahead of time so we knew how to do it and could help the girls make their's better. We do look pretty rough, but honestly, only a few wine coolers were involved. It was about one in the morning when this picture was taken so we were running on empty!

Redneck In Training

After Mia's birthday party, we had a fire out on the deck and we roasted marshmallows. This is the outfit that she came up with to wear for the occasion. Quite the combo. All we need now is some plastic pink flamingos from Wal-Mart in the background!

Mia's 3rd Birthday

Mia's 3rd birthday was on May 27th. We celebrated by meeting her little friend Sophia and Sophia's mom Chrissy (mommy's friend) at the zoo. We has lots of fun and saw a bunch of really neat animals and got to feed some of them.
Mia and Kent feeding the goats.
Mia and Alicia feeding the cow. He was pretty eager to get his food!
Mia and Sophia running away from the scary polar bear!
Mia and her cake. Again, this one was flipped on my picture program. I don't know what is up with why it flips sideways. Anyway, Mia asked for a blue cake so I took a white cake and dyed the heck out of it and dyed the Cool Whip too. We all had a slight blue tint to our mouths after eating it.

Easter 2007

This Easter we went to my parent's place. My sister and her husband and my brother, his wife and kids were there as well. It was very nice to get together with everyone.

Mia and Isabelle in their Easter dresses, looking very adorable
Mia, Isabelle, Cole and Brooklynn. Mia just got done eating a blue candy
While visiting, we went out to my aunts farm a few miles from my parent's place and saw all of her new calves. They were eager to be around as long as they got a finger to suck on
I flipped this picture before I download it so I don't know why it is sideways, but whatever. This is a picture of Mia and the cows. Note the purse, a necessary accessory for checking the cows!

Cakes Ablaze and Shiny Rocks!

So I reached a little milestone in my life on March 24th. I turned 30. I dreaded it coming for a few years and I kept thinking it was because I was getting "old". Well, it isn't that. It is that it is an end of an era. As long as I was twenty - something I could goof off and screw up and people would just say "well, she IS only twenty (something)." Now I can't rely on that anymore, I have to GROW UP! Besides my twenties were a blast and so many wonderful things happened in that decade that I am not sure if I can really top it. I became a mother two wonderful times, I met and married my soul mate, I graduated from college, and I had a lot of tough times that built...character. I had a stiff upper lip the whole day, I never shed a tear - unlike my 25th birthday when I sat in a snow bank bawling my head off because I was SO OLD! I made it through with dignity and grace, I guess that comes from being older and wiser!


Now to the exciting part - my present from Kent. For almost four year now I have only had an engagement ring. We were always planning on getting a wedding band, but life happened and before we know it, we are four years with no wedding band. Anyway Kent got me the lower band for my birthday!!! It is so beautiful all put together, the picture does not do it justice. Ya, I'm spoiled, I will never deny that!!

At the Park

The water slide park was where we spent most of our time and we had a blast! Mia was a little unsure about the slides at first but once she went down them a few times she kept wanting to go. They had three of the smaller slides to go on and then they had two big slides that you slide down without tubes and one big one that you go down in either a double or a single tube.

Winter Vacation

Okay, so it has been a long time since I put in a new post, but the truth is, is nothing has really been going on. The winter is a slow time and we kind of get stuck into the winter rut. This year we decided to shake things up a bit and go on a mini winter vacation. We went to Arrowwood Resort just about 100 miles from home and spent some time at the indoor water slide park, antiquing, and of course eating out. These are pictures of us eating at Buggaboo Bay, our favorite place to eat when we are in Alexandria. While there, we had an appetizer of alligator. It was very different tasting. I thought it kind of tasted like goat and had a very rubbery texture - so, not my favorite thing I ever ate. Mia seemed to enjoy it as you can see in the picture! Kent had a burger that was so pack with garbage, we had to take a picture (nerds, I know!). He called it a heart attack on a bun. The other picture is the "kids" watching cartoons and eating breakfast in the hotel room before heading out for the day.