Vacation to Minnesota!

VACATION DAY ARRIVES

We are heading out for vacation!!!!
Talk to you all when we get back on Sunday!

More pics from the weekend

Here are some pictures when we went fishing this weekend. Unfortunately we didn't catch anything :(

Birthday!!!

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Well, I had a great bday. The morning started off with breakfast at Stomping Grounds where I had a vege quiche and a cappaccino, it was dellllliiicccoussssss. Then Nelson and I loaded up the truck and headed about 30 minutes out of town to do some fishing in the river. We both put our waders on and went in, but no such luck. Guess the water was running too fast for the fish, who knows. Then, I spent the afternoon reading a great book while Nelson was busy preparing a fabulous dinner. We had some friends over for dinner and then had two cakes, yep, two. Reminds me of all those birthdays that I shared with Stacey, we always had two cakes. Except these were both for me, ha. It was great, I was up for awhile after all of that sugar. Katherine the cake was great, I knew you could bake, no more excuses now.......oh, that home-made ice cream was delicious too.....

Thanks everyone for the calls and just such a great day.....

Here is also some video from the evening using my new camera :)

more birthday pictures

A cute cat video

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Here is a hilarious video. I am practicing uploading video. I am getting a new digital camera for my bday that will have some video capability. I wanted to try this out before it arrived.

Well, it seems that summer has finally arrived, yippeee!!
Nelson survived the semester and so did I. We are both glad....
The weather is finally warming up here and it dawned on us the other day that we survived the winter without too much suffering. I am glad that the temps are warming up but it sure is windy here. We have been in Ames a year now, my my my, where did the time go.

Nelson went on a fishing trip this weekend and had a great time. He caught a 14 inch Walleye and said that it was fun. Unfortunately we don't have a picture because I had the camera. Hey Nelson, I keep telling you that we "need" another digital camera;)
I took the day off Friday to enjoy the day. Went to the tulip festival this weekend and also the outlet mall, what a great time.

But, all good things must come to an end. I started my first day of summer classes today and it is back to the grindstone for me.

Here are a few pics from the weekend.

Pictures from Easter

Well, finally I am getting a chance to post these pictures from our Easter trip to Minneapolis. We spent the weekend getting to know everyone and it was a great trip. We had lots of great food and great company. We also spent Saturday at the Mall of America and then went downtown to explore a little bit.
Here we are with our Easter baskets. Boy, I like this tradition at Aunt Daisy and Uncle Bill's. These baskets were loaded, let me tell you. It was also a lot of fun helping to put them together.

Here we are chowing down on a fabulous lunch. Boy it was all so good!

Pictures of the easter egg hunt. It was a great twist, everyone paired up and then one person was blind folded and the other had to give verbal directiosn to find the eggs. It was interesting:)

Pictures from the trip

Well, the first day of the trip was a whirlwind as we tried to do and see everything in the rain. I have to tell you a couple hours of walking in wet squishy shoes is not fun, however, it wasn't too cold so it was tolerable. Here we are the first day standing in the rain waiting for the cable car, which turned out to be broken down, who would have know after standing 30 minutes in the rain we still wouldn't make it to where we wanted to go.















Here are the seals at Pier 39, they look happy, boy were they loud!













Our second day we spent time see the tourists hotspots. First we took the bus to Golden Gate National Park where the Golden Gate Bridge is located. It was just beautiful, the sun was shinning and everything was so green.

After leaving the bridge we had a time trying to get back downtown as some of the cables from the bus line were down, we went to get on another line but it never showed up, and after about an hour just decided to try the first bus line we had originally been on, which finally got us back to downtown. The buses all run on cables there to decrease pollution, it is pretty neat.












We went to China Town next, it was chaos, since it was Saturday and all the markets were open. We ate at this restaurant called New Asia where you just grab dim sum (chinese dumplings) off the cart as they pass. We had a ton of good ones, but don't ask me what they were because no one spoke any english, in fact we were the only non-Asian people there. It was quite an experince. It took a long time to get out of China Town because the buses were so loaded, I have never been pushed around so much, but I stood my ground just like my mom had taught me, with my elbows out and pushed right along. We made it back safe and sound. We did a little shopping since there was a huge shopping area 1 block from our hotel and we also went to the big shopping district where I bought a Fossil purse, which I absolutely love.
So, anyway, on Sunday we finally did spend a little time at the conference but we had also scheduled a trip to Alcatraz in the afternoon. The rain just wouldn't stop, but the boat went anyway. Here are some pictures, I think it would have been such a great trip if it wasn't raining so much.
Alcatraz has actually been a National Park longer than it served as a prison. The big "to do" is that there were five Yankees baseball players on our boat, so of course that was all the talk. But, the prison tour was great and the island was actually smaller than I thought that it would be.
We saw a lot of other stuff and ate a lot of GREAT food. Here are some random pictures from the rest of the trip.













Here I am at Coit tower, just a great place to look at the city.













Here is the most crooked street in the world, Lombard Street









Here is Dave, Tanja and Mark at the conference

BACK FROM SAN FRAN

Made it back from San Francisco safe and sound. Had a wonderful trip and will be posting some pictures in the next day or so. I am trying to get caught up on some work that i missed :)

Is it Friday yet?

Well, I have been back from vacation for a week now, really, did I ever go???? It is hard to believe that you can get so behind when you go away.
Anyway, I am getting ready to get behind again. I am off to San Francisco on Friday and won't be back until Tuesday. I am going to a conference there. It should be fun but the weather looks yucky. Looks like I am going to miss a beautiful weekend here in Ames, there is even a prediction of temps in the 70's next week, yippeeeee....

Nelson has been busy studying for two tests, poor thing, it just doesn't end. He has a test tomorrow night and another next Tuesday. So, guess he will be stuck inside and not out fishing (hmmmm....wonder if that will happen, ha).

Gotta get going!

More Vacation Pictures

Here are some more vacation pictures. Last night the blogger was acting weird so I didn't get to finish my post. Oh, I did foget to mention that Stacey and I had to the best time eating shrimp po-boys and drinking a daqauri.

It was a blast. Fortunately my sunburn feels much better today.
Everyone needs to check out Stacey's new blog http://lucasfamilylife.blogspot.com/

Bye!

Back from a wonderful vacation

Matthew with his new helmet and tricycle



























I am back in the icebox again. The day that I came home Ames got 6 inches of snow, but luckily it is melting very fast.
Had a great time in Mississippi as you can see by the pictures. Played a lot with little Matthew (who has just grown up so much) and enjoyed spending time with mom and dad. Mom and I hit every coffee shop that we had time for. I managed to eat lots of shrimp, crawfish pie, po-boys, beignets and coffee in the little time I had. The last day was spent at the pool where I am still sufferring for not putting enough sunblock on, however, it did make people jealous when I got back home ;) Although I have been called lobster around the department. What a relaxing and enjoyable time.....can't wait to go back.

So Proud:)

Okay, so I know that maybe I shouldn't brag so much but I am so proud of Nelson that I have to post this late and breaking news. Nelson got a 96% on his Calculus II midterm, the second highest grade in his class. I thought everyone should know :), my husband is a genius. Just so you all know, he didn't want me to post this and I did anyway, sorry Nelson.

Things have been pretty crazy here. I got a big bunch of lambs yesterday for my research. So, they are keeping me busy. I bonded with some of them today, some of them needed bottle feeding. I am busy studying for two midterms next week, don't you all wish you could be me???? any takers????

So, I am looking forward to my visit to Mississippi in two weeks, yep, two weeks and counting. I am gettin' outta this icebox.

Gotta get some beauty sleep, it is five minutes past my bedtime ;)

Nelson Survivies!!!!!!!

As you all know Nelson has been studying and studying and studying. He had his first physics test last night and PASSED! YIPPPEEEEE!!! Not that I didn't think that he could do it, because I certainly did. However, the fact that 50% of the 600 students in the class fail, it is a huge accomplishment. Way to go Nelson!!!!!!!!

We got a couple inches of snow yesterday, it was pretty for the moment. Today it has yet to get above zero degrees and the windchills have been down to -20 degrees. Anyone want to come visit????? However, it is good hot chocolate drinking weather and I just finished a cup. Gotta get back to work. Miss everyone.

Some cute munchkin pictures

As a proud Aunt and Uncle, we feel it is our duty to show off pictures of our nieces and nephews. Thanks for all the pictures, everyone is growing up so fast.