Looking back... May 2010

Well, looking back through the last several months, we haven't posted much at all since May. So here are some pictures from our May, and we're hoping to catch up through the months over the next few weeks before the new baby comes.

We started off the month celebrating my sister Kristi! Her birthday is in April, and she graduated from her masters program at the University of Minnesota in May. Matt, Mckenna and I brought her out to dinner one night to celebrate these fun milestones. As always, we had a good time. Here she is with her birthday/graduation gift - a girl always needs a nice purse!


Having a belly laugh with Aunt Kristi... look at that face - love it! :)


Onto Northrup Auditorium at the U of M for Kristi's graduation ceremony. Here she is with some friends from her program, ready to walk across the stage and accept her hard-earned masters degree in Business and Marketing Education.


If you went to the U of M, are a fan of the U of M, or just ever have been on the campus, you know that it's really beautiful. Matt and I love this school and had a great experience here, and something about Northrup Auditorium at the helm of the mall on campus is so classic.


Proud big sister. :) Kris spent all summer diligently applying and interviewing for teaching jobs. Finally at the end of the summer, just one week before the school week started, she was offered and accepted a media specialist teaching job at Legacy Christian Academy in Andover, a northern suburb of the Twin Cities. So far she is really enjoying her new position.


Congratulations, Kristi! Love that maroon and gold... go Golden Gophers!


Also in May, Matt and I went to an awesome 40th birthday party for our neighbor Jodi. Her husband Carl and sister threw this fun party, and I really didn't know what to expect because both Jodi and Carl are casual, laid back people, and we've been to casual neighborhood gatherings with them before. When we arrived at the party, we headed to the backyard and what we saw was so beautiful!


Live music... a nice touch to a fun outdoor party.


Isn't this gorgeous?


Happy Birthday, Jodi! We unfortunately didn't get any good pictures of the birthday girl.


A nice night out for Matt and I. It may sound silly, but when you're in the daily grind of parenthood, working, etc., sometimes it's easy to forget the feeling of being an adult and getting out and being with friends. So it's nice when it happens. Thanks for babysitting, Kristi!


We have great neighbors and feel very blessed to live where we do. Jodi's husband Carl is next to Matt - thanks for the invite to the fabulous party, Carl!


One of our sweet nephews turned one in May. Happy birthday, Joel!


Mckenna LOVES her cousins! The pictures of these two cuties are so sweet, don't you think? :)


Mckenna with another cute cousin, Ayla. It cracks me up how often the most fun "toys" aren't really toys at all - a plastic bag and a book - go figure!


In an earlier post I mentioned that we got a new playset for our backyard. Matt looked on Craiglist for weeks, we went to an indoor playset showroom to see what we liked and what we didn't, and we looked at other backyards when passing by to see what we liked. Matt found a good deal online on a nice set in Bloomington, and we were excited to finally get it put up in our backyard and have Mckenna start playing on it. A big thanks to our neighbor Tim for coming over several times to help with the set-up, we really appreciated the help!


Our little lady conquering the climbing wall...


...look at that determined face and her proud daddy standing by!


The next few pictures were taken at the Best Prep annual luncheon on Nicollet Island in Minneapolis. Kristi was there with her cooperating teacher that she student taught with at Burnsville High School. It's fun for us to now be in the same world in our teaching careers!


I was presented with a "Teacher of Excellence" award for my work in furthering business education. It was such an honor for me to accept such a special award that recognizes my hard work in a field that I really love.


The main speaker for the event was Martha Rossini Olson from Sweet Martha's Cookie Jar. Anyone who has ever been to the Minnesota State Fair knows about Sweet Martha's cookies, whether you've actually eaten them or not. I thought her entrepreneurial story was very interesting, and I wrote down a lot of what she said and brought it back to share with my business students at Minnehaha. They were also really interested, and it started a good class conversation about the various business stories that we know about from the iconic MN State Fair.


My good friend, fellow teacher, and department chair was able to be at the luncheon with me. Liz is such a positive and phenomenal teacher, and she is so supportive of what I teach and the importance of the subject to our students. I know she was happy to be there, and it meant a lot that she took time out of her busy teaching day to support me in that way. Thank you, Liz!


These next pictures are so fun to me. My neighbor Nicole and I decided that our toddlers and cutie-pie friends, Carter and Mckenna, should take a little tots swim class with their daddies. So Tim and Matt were good sports and took the kids twice a week for six weeks to practice being comfortable in the water. It was so fun to watch them in the pool!


Aren't they cute? Mckenna had a few rough moments (crying and a bit scared) over the six weeks, but overall, I think she did pretty well. Matt is so calm and patient with his sweet daughter - definitely a good team and the right person to help teach her some of these skills. And the fact that Matt has been a certified lifeguard in the past puts my mind at ease too... we always have a water lifesaver around if we need it!


Her determined face is so priceless - love it! It's funny because over the summer she really seemed to enjoy being in pools, splashing around and "swimming." But we still have a bit of work to do for her to get comfortable in a lake. Maybe because the water is much darker and cooler than a pool... I don't know. I'm sure she'll enjoy the lakes just as much as the pools as she gets older.


Tim and Carter, Matt and Mckenna, with their swim class participation certificates. I love Mckenna's laid back stance here... it is so true to her personality! And she loves her good friend Carter - so cute!


The last few pictures are from our Memorial Day weekend at the Johnson cabin in northwestern Wisconsin. Nemo got groomed right before we left, and I was glad that we did it then because she got a lot of ticks crawling on her at the cabin, so it would've been difficult to see them all through the thick fluff! This is a before picture, and you'll see an after picture below.


She is so darn cute! I love everything about this picture - her stance, cute eyes, smile, sitting on the tree stump, the pretty forest background... LOVE HER! :)


Taking a walk on the road that leads to the cabin. I love how Mckenna's pants are falling down and her tummy is sticking out - pretty funny. And here is Nemo's after haircut picture - she looks so little compared to her long, furry self!


Here Mckenna is sticking her tiny finger into the big, sharp toothed mouth of the wooden musky on the wall of Jim's Bait Shop, near the cabin. I think one of Matt's dreams is to be with Mckenna when she catches her first musky - how sweet! :)


Fun with Grandma Karen on the boat at Matt's cousins cabin on Little Sissabagama Lake (a.k.a. Little Siss.) Mckenna was keeping Grandma on her toes as she ran around the boat with her fast little feet! You can tell by her stance and the look in her eyes that she is ready to go.


A boat ride with Grandpa! I think it's pretty cute how little kids can look so stuffed into their life jackets.


May was a month full of fun times, and we hope to get more pictures up soon of our fun summer! Stay tuned... :)

San Diego!

At the end of March, I went to San Diego for a week for the NBEA annual conference - the National Business Education Association. Last year I went to the conference in Chicago and really enjoyed the sessions I attended and colleagues that I met, so I knew I wanted to go again this year. It's always refreshing to be with other teachers with the same passions as I have for the subject I teach, and I hope I can go to this many more times over the years. It was my first time to San Diego, so of course I was picture happy. It was so fun to be there - I had heard great things about the city, but now I got to experience it for myself!





Coming from cold Minnesota, I was excited to see sun and palm trees when I stepped out of the airport doors to catch a taxi to the hotel. I was looking forward to the conference ahead, and to the warm, beautiful change of scenery. No snow here!

Despite fighting a bad sinus infection while in San Diego and feeling sick from my early pregnancy, I was still able to enjoy my week. The view from my hotel room was awesome! Here is what I saw when I looked out the windows in my room - the pool was right below me, and I was looking out at the marina and to Coronado island. Isn't is nice?






Looking straight across the bay from my hotel room you can see some reddish-colored turrets dotting the horizon on the other side of the island. That is the famous and historical Hotel del Coronado. I was told by many that had been to San Diego that I had to go to this place and check it out. So on one of my breaks from the conference I headed over there on a short taxi ride, curious to see what all the hype was about.




The Hotel Del, as locals call it, was first built in 1888 and is a National Historic Landmark. According to the Hotel Del website, the resort has hosted eleven U.S. Presidents, Princes from overseas, American greats such as Thomas Edison, Charles Lindbergh, and Babe Ruth, and Hollywood celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Madonna, and Brad Pitt. There have also been many movies and tv shows filmed here over the years.


I looked around inside the hotel for a few minutes, but I wanted to get outside and experiences the famous beachfront. I would explore the inside more later before I left. I grabbed a sandwich to go at the outdoor cafe near the pool, ate on the outdoor deck overlooking the water and beach, and headed out onto the sand. I was in heaven! It is interesting to note that it was actually warmer in Minnesota during the week I was in San Diego. The sun is deceiving - it was actually breezy and cool by southern California standards. But that didn't stop visitors from being outside swimming, walking the beach, and enjoying the beautiful views. I talked to my friend Laura who lives in Los Angeles while sitting on the beach, and she said to me, "Isn't it cold sitting out there?" I was actually just fine - the beauty of the place was keeping me warm. :)








There were two men building these elaborate sand castles on the beach right outside of the resort. Very cool! When I was looking at this, a group of older couples were walking by and asked if I wanted them to take a picture for me so I could be in it. I must have looked like a tourist with the big cheesy grin on my face and camera in my hand - go figure. We got talking, and I learned that the man who took my picture grew up in the Twin Cities and moved to So Cal about 15 years earlier for his job. Very nice people to chat with... it's really a small world!


My best friend Laura was able to take a few days out of her busy work and doctorate program schedule to come down from Los Angeles for a few days and see me. She had plenty of work to do on her own, so I went to all of my conference sessions, she got some of her work done, and we were able to hang out a bit on my breaks from the conference. Laura grew up in St. Paul, and we went to middle and high school together and have a lot of fun memories. She is the kind of friend that I am only able to see about once a year or so, but we can just pick up like no time has passed. I love friends like that - she means so much to me. This isn't a great picture of us, but the only one I got. Like I said, it was windy and chilly!


Laura had been to San Diego before, which was nice because she was more familiar with the area. We visited the historic Gaslamp Quarters several times, called "The Historic Heart of San Diego." It was just a short few blocks walk outside of our hotel. There were some fun shops, cafes, and restaurants to explore.




We wanted to check out this cool looking "blue" building with the blue lights outside...


It was a beautiful, upscale hotel - fun to walk inside and see the lobby.


There was a nice walking park right outside of our hotel and on the marina. Laura and I walked here on our last day before we went home. You can see some Marine ships in the water off to the left. I didn't realize that San Diego is a Marine town and home to the Marine Corps base Camp Pendleton - interesting to learn.




The hotel I stayed at and the site of the 2010 NBEA conference - the San Diego Marriott Marina. From the two NBEA annual conferences that I've been to so far, I really appreciate that they have interesting and educational sessions to attend everyday that I can take back and use in my teaching, yet they also always encourage all of the convention goers to enjoy the city, explore, and rejuvenate during the week. We work hard during the school year after all, we deserve it! :)




A beautiful sunset to end my nice week in San Diego. I hope I can go to many more NBEA conferences in the future, I do really enjoy the whole experience.