Hello Minneapolis!

We had some flight vouchers from our trip to the Dominican Republic last year and decided to go out and visit Rodd's Uncle Craig out in Minnesota. He even took the week off for vacation to hang out with us and show us around! The vouchers paid for all but most of our flight and we stayed with Craig and he drove us around so we got to spend our money on all of the fun stuff!! :)

Wednesday: We flew out from SLC to Dallas/FTWorth, then on to Mlps/St. Paul and were there by 330pm. Craig picked us up at the airport and gave us a quick tour of the area.

Thursday: St. Paul Temple, St. Paul city tour (St. Paul Cathedral!), Minnesota State Fair!!!

Friday: Mall of America, Sushi for Fish Friday, Rodd wins a BYU game Flyaway to New Orleans!

Saturday: St. Paul Temple, Rodd Finds his sock :), St. Paul and Farmers Market, Summit Avenue, Mary Tyler Moore's house, St. Catherine's University, Tour of the lakes (11,248 over football field), Rode Street Car, Target Center and Field.

Sunday: VFW Church, Fort Snelling and National Cemetery( Perpetual Care), feed the ducks, Cadillac Dealership.

Monday: Lake Minnetonka, Trolley boat ride, Tonka Toys.

Tuesday: Flight to Chicago, plane flooded... 2 hr delay, on to SLC. BED EARLY :)

Pics to come.

New Additions

We have recently added to our small simple family...

Max on the left, Maddie on the right. They are Pekingese Pomeranian. We adopted them from our sweet neighbors who are moving. They have been really great since we got them Thursday and we are loving having them around. :)

Summer Yard Projects with LOTS of help!

We have the most wonderful friends in the whole world. We mentioned some projects we were hoping to get done this summer and they were over the next afternoon to help us!! What a blessing they are in our lives. :)
We finally got rid of our ugly rose bush in the front yard! (and the neighbors rejoiced)
Then the stump in the back yard...



VICTORY! Wow, we've been waiting so long to get working on the yard and the end is in sight! Then another friend came over with a bobcat and made it look like this:


It looks great! Thanks again to everyone that has helped!! We count our blessings every day for the wonderful people that we have been surrounded with. We once said to each other, "How did we end up in such a great group?" They heard us and said, " You're damn lucky".
Agreed.

Dancing with DEREK HOUGH?!?!?

Yesterday was so full, but a lot of fun.

It started out with, well just getting ready... but I had planned a reunion with some friends from my ward family in Highland. We got together at someone's house for lunch and reminisced about the good ole' days. What a blast.

We went straight from there to see Avatar IMAX 3D at the Jordan Commons. That was awesome too, except kind of long... I was entertained the whole time, my body just has a hard time sitting that long(It's amazing to think how far we really have come with technology and everything... NUTS).I was ready to be up and moving, but then I just had to drive home to meet Rodd to go to another show in Provo!

We went to a dance performance "MOVE" put on by Vibe Dance Studios . A friend of mine was performing in it and told us about it. Last night was the closing night of the show and Derek Hough and Mark Ballas were there along with Chelsie Hightower for some guest performances. My body was aching from sitting so long but I knew that we'd enjoy it since we LOVE dance.

Mark Ballas sang a few original songs with his guitar in between songs to kill time for the dancers to change. Derek came out to sing with Mark and said that while mark plays, "does anyone want to dance with me?" A bunch of little girls started screaming and he went down and picked one, brought her up to the stage and danced a bit with her. Rodd turned to me and said, "That should be you up there."

He brought her back to her seat and came up our isle. Rodd turned his phone light on and put it in front of my face and I put my arms up. He came right to me and said, "Do you want to?" Of course I said yes! We ran up to the stage and danced some swing for a minute or so... He was surprised that I was able to follow his lead and had fun. It was awesome. Needless to say after that my body wasn't hurting from sitting with all of the adrenaline rushing through it! It pretty much made my whole night.

We had a great time and enjoyed the show. Vibe did a really great job putting everything together and it was very entertaining. They have some very talented choreographers. Afterwords i was able to get a picture with him because Rodd said, "This is going on the blog, and we need a picture to go with it." He's such a sweetheart. :) This show was probably the push I needed to make the decision to start taking classes again. I just miss it too much... especially watching others dance, it just kills me.

With this also comes a re-commitment to post more often... I'm averaging once a quarter, or so... Sad, but we are doing well. :)