We had a great day celebrating my ordination with family and friends at what I consider to be my home church, Our Savior's Lutheran, in Stillwater. This is where it all began...
And I have such incredible family and friends who came out to celebrate my ordination with me!!
And of course, we can't have a celebration without a party afterwards! My parents took all our family and close friends out to dinner at a new Irish Pub in Stillwater, and it was delicious!! And of course, it's not one of my parties if I don't take a million "selfies" pictures with people!!
What a great night of celebrating! Thanks to everyone who supports me in my ministry and spent the day with me!
Get ready First Lutheran Church in Aitkin...I'm on my way!!
August has been a crazy month. Ok, that's an understatement! Our lives are beyond crazy these days, and here's what's been going down...
First of all, it's official that WE ARE MOVING TO AITKIN!!!! I know most of you know this already, but this is the first time that I've made it official on the blog. Contracts and papers have been signed and I am the new Associate Pastor for First Lutheran Church in Aitkin, MN. I will be working with the children, youth, and families of the church mostly, but of course I will be doing other things that associate pastors do too (visiting people, counseling, preaching, running services on Sundays, weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc.). It's exciting...it's an AMAZING church and community from what we have seen and experienced so far, and we are excited. Of course it will be hard to leave the cities, where we have lots and lots of family within 30 minutes of us, but we will only be 2 hours away, and it is a great small town for our family to be a part of (and only 20 minutes from Brainerd!). We will be moving in 2 short weeks to this house...it's not perfect, but it's a great house! And we are renting it until we get to know the area a little bit better to know where we might want to eventually buy a house.
Michael and I will both be quitting our jobs in the next 2 weeks, and so there have been lots of things to fit in and/or tie up with our ministry jobs. For me, it was pulling off a week long VBS for 110+ children at my church (a number that just kept rising and rising and one that this church had never seen before!). It was such a great week...absolutely insane dealing with logistics and getting to the actual VBS, but once we got there, we had a great time at our Everywhere Fun Fair VBS: Where God's World Comes together. Here's some of the things I did to transform the church for a week into a Fun Fair...
Yes, it was a great week, and I was pooped when it was over (and ready for a day off!!). After VBS was all over, Michael and I got a chance to go out and celebrate our 4th Wedding Anniversary! We went downtown Stillwater and had some drinks and appetizers on the garden patio at The Green Room, and then we headed over to Marx Wine Bar (one of our favorites!) for an incredible dinner together! It's crazy how much we have been through together these past 4 years!! And I couldn't be more blessed with an incredible husband and dad!! Happy 4 years to this guy!
We've also been trying to get in our last few days of pool time this summer! Every Friday we have "Friday pool days" where anyone from my family is welcome to join us! This past Friday, my cousins were teaching Adelyn to throw blueberries into her mouth...here's a video of how great she got at it!!
haha. Too cute! Other than that, life has been us hanging out, keeping busy, and loving up on these ladies!!
Oh - and have I mentioned that Adelyn constantly sings Happy Birthday to people?? Ever since all the July birthdays, she sings "Happy Birthday" every day to anyone! Here is her singing one to Michael on his actual birthday...
The next couple weeks will be spent finishing up jobs, packing to move, and lots of transitions!! Oh - and yesterday we bought a couch!!!! Just one more thing to make this move feel like it's really happening! So exciting (since when did it become normal to get really excited about buying a couch?? oh geez...). Stay tuned for upcoming transitions in our lives...:)
Let's just back up in time and pretend that I am super on top of things and have time in my life to blog every Monday at 10am as is what I could do in my ideal world [in my head]! Man oh man...I am Behind!! Better late than never, right??
Well...a couple of weekends ago, we had a great weekend celebrating family! Our weekend started off by celebrating the graduation of these two amazing ladies!! Hannah and Sarah had a super fun grad party that consisted of amazing soup and breadsticks, a float and ice cream sundae bar, and lots of great salads too! Food is one of my favorite parts of any grad party, and these ladies didn't disappoint!
Adelyn rocked the party!! She kept busy all day and could have cared less if I was even there!
One of our favorite parts was that all of Adelyn's little cousins were here!! My cousin Jessica and her three kids even came in from Maryland and Adelyn just LOVED playing with all of her adorable kiddo's!! And of course, cousin Claire is always a favorite for Addi to hug and love on!!
Happy Graduation Party Day to two of my favorite people ever!!
The next day, since Jessica and her family were in town, we decided to have our annual Seekel Summer Bash and hang out with family again. It was a great day by the pool with lots of food and swimming and kids running around (I just LOVE that sight). While I failed at getting any pictures of the actual Seekel Party, I did manage to get some pictures of my husband in the emergency room that day! Yep, that's right...during the party, Michael stepped on a beer bottle and shattered it, and so we took an afternoon trip to the ER where he got 4 stitches in his VERY bloody and cut up foot. Yuck.
So the next few days Michael had to take it easy and try to keep his foot elevated as much as possible. I took that opportunity to "let him rest" and took the girls to the Mall of America for a day of shopping. I even managed to get both girls by myself onto the ferris wheel for a fun ride...
And we went to Lego land for a little bit so Adelyn could play with legos while I fed Olivya (I was proud of myself for such a strategy!!)
Monday night then we dropped the girls off at my parents house and met Holly and Chris for our annual Twins night out! We started at Brit's Pub for some great happy hour specials and then made it to the twins game. Even though we got SMOKED by the Yankess (booo!!!), we still had a great time. And great seats!!
Funny story...a guy sitting next to us offered to take our picture and he said, "Oh that's a great Lifetouch picture...do you know Lifetouch?" and Chris ended up looking up the company and it turns out that the CEO of Lifetouch photography was sitting right next to us. (I'm pretty sure they are the ones that go into all the school and take the head shots that you get to pass out to all your friends! haha.) . But the funny part of the whole story is, that this picture of the 4 of us isn't all that great! You would think a CEO of a photography company could do a bit better than that...even with an iphone! too funny.
What a great weekend spent with lots of family!!! Whew! Non-stop fun is what we're about these great summer days!
Yes, folks, when there's an event to be celebrated, we definitely know how to do that!! This is my dad's oldest Brother and he just turned 70!!! I would say that's reason to celebrate!! (Micahel even made Bobbo some "Bobbo Bobbers" for our annual cabin week that we take with this family!). We had a great day celebrating complete with great family, food, and fun!! (and nice weather for the most part! Yay!!) Here are some of the cousins (and of course, my children!) living it up at the party!!
One of my favorite parts of this day was seeing Claire and Adelyn love the heck out of each other!! (Incase you don't remember, this is my cousin Jenny's daughter, and since we were so close growing up together, we are so excited that our kids will be growing up together too (ok, let's be honest...they really don't have a choice). But seriously, they LOVED each other and just kept hugging and playing, and it was so fun to see them together!
Yes, it was a great way to celebrate a great man!!
On other news of the weekend...Michael and I went out on our first real date without kids since we had Olivya!! My cousin Abbie came to babysit (she handled both kids by herself!! Truly an All-Star!!) and Michael and I grabbed some Pei-Wei for dinner (thanks to our friends Betty, Scott, Maggie, Scott, Suelynn & Aaron for the giftcard!) Dairy Queen for dessert, and we even saw a movie too!! (Great Gatsby! A classic...)
And this little lady is growing like a weed!! Stay tuned for her 1 month post to be coming soon!!! (can you believe it's been a month already???)
