Visit to Minnesota

As has become one of my summer traditions, I spent a wonderful week in Minnesota spending time with my grandma, my sister, and many friends! My week included many trips to Caribou Coffee (yes, I went every single morning, and my favorite drink is still the "Mint Condition")...and many games of Scrabble!


I had a wonderful time with my Grandma Dolores. She loves pictures as much as I do, so we spent a lot of time looking through old scrapbooks. I truly love my grandma so much and feel so blessed that I was able to spend so much time with her this past week.

Other highlights of the week included...

...a trip to Covenant Pines (the camp that I attended as a student and later worked as a lifeguard & counselor) on Wednesday. Being at camp always brings back so many wonderful memories. Some of our friends, Nick, Katie, and Andrea, are working there this summer, so it was wonderful to see them! We spent the day going to chapel, helping with the canteen, hanging out with our friends, and enjoying the gorgeous weather.....as much as I love Texas, I do miss the pine trees, lakes, and cool weather of Minnesota (but not the mosquitoes!--both Emmy & I had terrible bug bites after our day at camp!). ;)



...seeing lots of family! Emily & I had dinner with our cousins Krista, Seth, & Heather...plus, I also spent time with my aunt Gail and cousin Anna! (Anna & Krista are both coming to Texas this week, too!)

...visiting Emily at Regis, where she is doing her marketing internship (and running the Hair Extension Hotline!--ha!).

...breakfast with Summer, a friend from Redeemer (the church where we attended in Minnesota). She is also an elementary music teacher, so we had a great time talking about our classrooms.

...a fun day hanging out with Audra & Israel--we walked around Lake Calhoun and also read a few books! :)

...coffee with my sweet high school friends Aili, Gloria, and Audra--we had so much fun catching up!


....my friend Meg's wedding! She and Jake were married on Saturday, and I am so glad I was able to go to her beautiful wedding!

Kodaly Conquered!

I have spent the last 3 weeks in all-day class at UNT taking my Level III Kodaly certification. Kodaly is a method of teaching music based on the philosophy of Zoltan Kodaly, a Hungarian musician, composer, and teacher.

My day was divided into conducting, musicianship (solfege), pedagogy, & folk music courses. Our conducting & solfege teacher was Lenci Igo, a Hungarian music professor who comes to America each summer to teach in Kodaly programs around the country. Trust me: there is nothing quite like 4 hours of solfege class each morning with a true Hungarian--yikes! I have learned so much as both a musician & teacher through my three summers of Kodaly courses, and it is somewhat bittersweet to think that I am now done with all my Kodaly certification. Now, the next step is to see the Kodaly program in action at its birthplace--Hungary!

This is a picture of the Level III class along with Lenci at our final concert.

This is the Level III group with our American instructors at our banquet on Thurday.

Mamma Mia!

Jenny & I went to see Mamma Mia on opening night! We went to see it on stage at Fair Park 2 summers ago, so we were really excited as soon as we found out a movie version was coming out this summer!

I had never gone to a midnight opening night show before, and, even though we didn't dress up in ABBA style (much to my sister's dismay!), we still had a fabulous time! The movie is so fun, and everyone in the theater sang along with all the songs--though Jenny & I may have sung louder than the others!! ;)

Swim Party

After church on Sunday we went swimming at my parent's pool with some of our friends from Keystone! We had so much fun swimming & hanging out together!


The boys loved this inner-tube and kept wanting rides on "the donut." :)

I think this is such a sweet picture--I loved swimming with Aiden & Jimmy...that is, when we could get Jimmy to get in the water! He'd much rather run around the pool deck trying to "catch" the beach balls! ;)

~Alan & Stephanie, Tiffany & Audrey, Corrie & Mark, Jenny, Joel, & Caden~

~Caleb, Todd, Dave, & Sandi~

EBI Family Day!

We enjoyed another great Earth Builders Family Day on Saturday! We brought Noah and Caleb, our sweet friend Heather's 2 oldest boys, who had a blast! They loved launching water balloons, riding the horses, & driving the equipment. We also had delicious BBQ & bakery cake from Sweet Memories (our favorite cake place!). Here are a few pics of our fun day!

Dave taught Noah & Caleb how to drive the skidsteer. He also gave them "adventure rides" on it, which included a wheelie! (Who knew construction equipment could be so exciting?)

Daniel, one of the supervisors, brought his horses, and the boys loved riding them!

They also thought it was hilarious to take water balloons up in the manlift and then pelt them at the people standing below. :)

Fourth of July Weekend

On Friday afternoon, we drove down to Lake Granbury with Kimi, Rob, & Lake. We had a blast hanging out together, skiing, wakeboarding, and tubing! We also jumped the water to cool off and swim around for a bit, which was a lot of fun until we saw a snake swimming not too far away! (Trust me--I nearly leapt into the boat at that point!)


Around dusk, we boated to the part of the river by downtown Granbury, where we had an incredible view of their fireworks display! It was such a fun Fourth!
On Saturday morning, Dave hung out with the D'Amico boys while Heather & I went to have some much-needed pedicures!
Apparently Dave wore the boys out with a long, hot visit to the park, because when we got back, Jimmy was fast asleep! (Dave's also quite relieved that Jimmy--a.k.a. "Bogey"--didn't wipe any boogers on him this time!) ;)
We also had a lot of fun swimming with Mom, Dad, Jon, & Nate on Saturday night. My parents got a new volleyball net for the pool, so we had several "intense" games of water volleyball! It was so wonderful to have a 3-day weekend to spend time sweet friends & family! We hope you all had a great Fourth of July weekend, too!

5th Anniversary Vacation!

We got back on Sunday night from an amazing vacation to Jamaica to celebrate our 5th anniversary! Our friends Amber & Jason gave us an awesome recommendation on where to stay, and from now on, we will definitely take their travel suggestions! :) We couldn't have asked for a more amazing week together!

We flew into Montego Bay and then rode about 2 hours east to our resort in Ocho Rios. (Side note: driving in Jamaica seems to be a sport! There were several times Dave and I were completely holding our breaths, convinced we were about to crash!!) As soon as we (safely) stepped on the Sans Souci grounds, we couldn't believe how gorgeous it was! This was the view from our balcony--we loved waking up to this every morning!

Every morning, Dave went scuba diving while I started my all-day tanning marathon on the beach. :) He had a great time diving and was able to see 2 sea turtles, a 9 foot nurse shark, an eel, and lots of sea slugs. As soon as he got back from diving, he joined me on the beach, and laying on the beach and reading was DEFINITELY my very favorite part of this whole trip. We both got through several great books throughout the week.
We loved eating at the different restaurants. The food was so incredible, and we were never left hungry! One of the restuarants was on the beach, which was so fun! Some of our favorite foods from the week were banana porridge, Blue Mountain Coffee (grown and roasted in Jamaica), fresh mango, and lots of scrumptious desserts!

Of course, we spent hours playing Carcasonne, Scrabble, and our new favorite...Scrabble Me!



And, when we needed to get out of the sun, we loved relaxing in the hammocks that they had all around the resort.
(Funny story about this picture: Right after we took this picture, a large bird flew into the palm tree that was above this hammock. Dave immediately said, "I really hope that bird doesn't aim for me," and as soon as he said that, the bird made Dave's eye his target! It was horribly disgusting, but we couldn't stop laughing!!!!)
Dave took a sailing lesson one afternoon and became quite a good sailor! I went sailing with him several times, and we never even capsized! :) It was really fun being out on the water together.
The sun set around 6:40 p.m. each night, which seemed really early to us (though it rose at 5:30 a.m.!). Everybody would go to "Sunset Beach" in the evening to take pictures of the gorgeous sunsets. They were breathtaking!

We truly had the best week together! Since Dave travels so much, it was absolutely wonderful to spend nine days straight together ~ that is a luxury to us and the best anniversary present we could have! Though it might not be for awhile, we can't wait to return to Jamaica again someday!