Dinner with Grandma Margie & Neil

Sunday night we went out to dinner with Matt's Grandma Margie and his cousin Neil, who was in town from Texas for a weekend conference in Minneapolis. Neil and his wife Debra and their young daughter Grace are originally from Texas, but moved to Minnesota for about a year and a half for a new adventure. Last December of 2007 they moved back to Texas to be closer to family. We miss them so much! In May they had their second baby, a little girl named Haley. Matt is close to all of his cousins, and it was great to see Neil this weekend. We also enjoyed spending time with Grandma, who lives in Golden Valley. She is such a positive, spirit-filled woman, and she is always so loving and supportive towards us when we see her.

I got an email at work this afternoon from our Aunt Kathy saying that Grandma fell this morning and broke her hip and is now in the hospital. She will have surgery tomorrow. Matt went to see her in the hospital today after school, and she was resting in her room. Please pray for Grandma Margie as she has the surgery to repair her broken hip and I'm sure has a long road to recovery ahead.

Here are a few pictures from our time together last night. Isn't Grandma cute? :)

Andy & Kelly's Wedding

On Friday night we went to Andy and Kelly's wedding. Andy Linn is one of Matt's good friends from college at Bethel and they were roommates for many years. After they graduated, Matt and Andy lived in an apartment in Richfield for a year, and then lived together in Matt's townhouse in Bloomington until we got married in 2002. Friday night Andy married Kelly Raatz, an awesome girl he met at church. It was an outdoor ceremony at the beautiful Long Lake Regional Park in New Brighton, and they couldn't have had a nicer day for it. On Friday afternoon it was sunny and 85 degrees in the Twin Cities - not too common for the end of September in MN, but a great forecast for a fall wedding. By the evening ceremony it had cooled down a bit and was warm and breezy, a perfect setting. We had a great time catching up with college friends that we haven't seen for awhile, including Arnie, another good friend of Matt's from Bethel that now lives with his family in Colorado Springs, and Lamont, another friend that now lives in Los Angeles. Andy and Kelly now live in Champlin, so hopefully we'll get to see them every once in awhile. Congratulations, Andy and Kelly - we had so much fun at your beautiful wedding and we wish you many blessings in your life together!
Andy eagerly awaiting his bride.

Here comes the bride... Kelly and Junior Best Man, Ethan Raatz. Ethan is Kelly's 3-year old son, and such a cutie. He did great during the ceremony.

The happy couple!

Kelly and Andy chose to do a Unity Sand, a similar idea to the Unity Candle. Here is Pastor Nathan Gustafson, representing the role of faith in their marriage, Kelly, Ethan, and Andy. It was cute, when they had finished pouring all the sand into the glass jar, Ethan said loudly, "Wow, that's a lot of sand!" :)

The kiss... so sweet.

Mr. and Mrs. Linn. I can't really tell how Andy is feeling by the look on his face, can you? :)

Good friends at the reception, from L to R: Julie and Matt, Katina and Marcus Sarazin, Andy, Kelly, and Ethan, Camryn, Anthony, and Kerri Vogel, and Lamont Hunt.

Baby Shower #2

Last Friday my good friend and co-worker Liz hosted a shower for me at her place in St. Paul with about 15 other gals from MA. It was so fun to get together outside of school and hang out with these fabulous women. Thanks to everyone that helped make this a fun and special evening! Here are a few pictures from the shower.




The food was awesome - Liz went all out! It was funny, earlier in the week Liz & Robyn were in my office talking about the shower plans and the "c-a-k-e" - I said, "um, hello, I'm sitting right here and I can spell!" :) I had to laugh at that.

Gifts, gifts, and more gifts...

The best party planner around, Liz!

Great friends, co-workers, and teachers - Randi, Katherine, Liz, and Robyn.

Isn't it cool?

Ok, this is NOT my belly, and I do not know who this belly belongs to. But I got a forward of cute pictures from a friend today, and I thought this one was so cool - cool enough to post. I've never experienced anything like this with my own big belly, just a hard butt sticking out every once in awhile. :) Maybe this little foot thing will happen to me before our little girl comes, who knows?

38 weeks and other fun pics!

As of today I'm 38 weeks! Here are a few pictures that Kristi took of me today on our deck (I kind of have some strange smiles in those) and other pics of some baby things around the house. The baby room is pretty much ready to go, minus some random things laying around the room left over from my baby shower, like cards, empty packaging, etc. My good friend Liz that I teach with at MA is throwing a ladies co-workers shower for me this Friday, so I'm sure I will have a few more things to add to the room after that. We also recently got a beautiful glider and ottoman as a gift from Matt's parents, Craig and Karen. (Thank you!) So of course Nemo and I have had some rocking and relaxing sessions in the glider, just breaking it in for the baby. :) And the parents of the MA kids that we took to Japan in June gave us a cute black and pink Baby Bjorn carrier, so you know who had to try that out too! That was such a generous gift. We feel so lucky to have family and friends who are excited for us and are helping us to prepare for this baby. Stay tuned for baby updates and/or a birth announcement and pictures... baby girl could really come any day now!

Labor Day Weekend '08

We wanted to do something fun over Labor Day weekend, who doesn't? We thought about going to the Johnson family cabin in WI, but decided to stay in town just to be safe. My doctor (and the week by week pregnancy book I read) said to stay close to home after 34 weeks, just in case something happens and you'd want to be near your doctor, hospital, etc. So instead we decided to go to a hotel for a few nights to get away together and relax, somewhere away from our house. We ended up going to the Residence Inn in Plymouth, a nice brand new hotel not too far from us. We swam in their eco salt water pool, Matt worked out in the fitness room, we laid outside in the sunny, gorgeous weather, went out for dinner, watched tv in hd on the flat screens in the room (one of Matt's favorite things about the weekend, I think), read, played Scrabble, took naps... nothing too exciting or crazy, but very relaxing. I'm at the point where I'm getting tired and uncomfortable after little to no activity, so it was perfect for me. Here are some pics from our weekend "away"...


Hmmm... who is that cute boy passed out in the sun? :)

Reading my "Your Pregnancy Week by Week" book.

A fun game of Scrabble!

Matt watching TV in bed with his forever friend, the coffee mug.