Blog "Award"....

So, several weeks ago, my friend Holly awarded me, along with many other women, an "Honest Blog Award." I have never really thought that my blog was all that honest--not that I am lying, but I don't always put my true, raw emotions on it. We started our blog when we were first pregnant as a way for our family & friends to keep up on the news of our family...and, while life definitely hasn't happened how we planned, we still love posting pictures and updates.

However, as for this award, I am to post 10 honest things about myself. Here we go...

1. I am very strange in that I will *not* drive Dave around. I believe this is because my dad always felt like it was improper/un-chivalrous for a man to let his wife drive when he (the husband) was in the passenger seat. The only times I have driven with Dave in the passenger seat are when we were coming home from the hospital after Dave's knee surgery and on very long road trips to Colorado and Iowa (and, even then, I only drive for a few hours at the most!).

2. I am OBSESSIVE about ironing--in the last year, life has been busier than ever, so I have "cut back" on my ironing in that I don't iron t-shirts anymore. But, all other clothing in our home is ironed! (If you have ever met my mom, this shouldn't surprise you in the least!)

3. According to Dave, I am "above-average" when it comes to being emotional. If you know me at ALL, you know it is not strange for me to cry once, or more, every day. While I was growing up, my parents said several times that they thought I would "grow out" of crying so much. Well....that didn't happen! However, if I do cry around you, you should know that it just means I feel comfortable with being my real self--emotions, tears, and all!

4. I will not do dishes unless I have gloves to wear. So, if I don't offer to do dishes at your house, it's probably because you don't have gloves by your sink! My friends *love* to tease me about this....but secretly they're just jealous of my pink dishwashing gloves!

5. I grew up without a TV. However, when I was in junior high, my parents did get a TV, but it stayed (unplugged) in our basement. The only times we brought it upstairs was on winter weekends. After all, it was Minnesota, and there wasn't much to do during the long winters. However, even when the TV did come upstairs, we were only allowed to watch videos--never TV programs (besides the Olympics--once!). As a result, Dave & I don't have cable/satellite/anything in our house either--just rabbit ears for us. (No, I'm not joking.) This is another thing our friends love to tease us about!

6. I sometimes get carried away with reading other people's blogs. Dave finally made a rule for me that I can only read other people's blogs that I have actually met in person....I have "stretched" this a few times to people I have seen (though never spoken to or met) in person. :)

7. I am absolutely petrified of 3 things--high-speed rides, heights, and snakes! This is unfortunate for Dave in that he LOVES roller coasters and really wishes I could get over my fear of them! I am so afraid of heights that I get nervous going on escalators...and don't get me started on glass elevators!

8. I absolutely LOVE "Gilmore Girls," and Dave gave me the whole series for Christmas last year. Since then, I have watched it 2 more times completely through. After I have watched a lot of episodes in a row, I start talking about Lorelai and Rory as if they were my real friends....and then Dave has to remind me that it's "just" a show. (Side note: while Dave might act like he could care less about Gilmore Girls, he insisted that I save the series finale for a Friday night when we could watch it together...and he was just as glued to the TV as I was!)

9. I am certified to deep-water scuba-dive....and getting my scuba-diving certification is probably the biggest thing I could have ever done to show Dave how much I love him. We have been diving together in Cozumel & Grand Cayman. But.....during our last trip to Jamaica, I "let" Dave dive while I laid on the beach! (He said this was better anyway since I am such a nervous disaster when I dive with him!)

10. I majored in music education; but, if it hadn't been for that, I would have studied English (I am such a dork that I loved diagramming sentences in high school English class) or elementary education in order to teach kindergarten.

So....there you have it--10 random/honest facts about me!

HONEST BLOG AWARD is now awarded to:
Sandi, Tiffany, Holly, Kelly, and Audra! Can't wait to see your "honest" lists!

And, for a good laugh, read Kelli and Heather's honest lists!

Christmas Celebrations

Merry Christmas! We have packed several different Christmas celebrations into the past few days. Our merriment officially started on Sunday with our annual Christmas lunch at Mac's after church! (If you've never been there, you must go and try their delicious Sunday brunch--especially the cinnamon rolls!)
On Christmas Eve morning, we celebrated Christmas with my family. After a delicious breakfast of Swedish pancakes, we opened gifts. We all tease my mom about how the only "spices" she uses when cooking are salt and pepper....so Dave made her a "spice rack." :)
And, here's mom, Em, and me modeling our new house slippers that Grandma Dolores made! After a fabulous Christmas Eve service at Keystone (where we saw Heather, the boys, & lots of other friends), we headed to the airport to pick up Dave's parents, Tim & Susie. We are so thrilled that they came to Texas for Christmas! From the airport, we went to Kym & Bernie's for Christmas Eve dinner. All the Texas Bergstroms & Sorbels were there, so we threw Dave's poor parents straight into the middle of my wild family. ;)

This is the first year that we have celebrated Christmas in our own house, and we had so much fun on Christmas morning. Dave made his mom's homemade pecan rolls for breakfast (from scratch, something I thought was unheard of!), and after breakfast, we opened stockings and presents! Dave surprised me with a beautiful end table that he made for our family room, and (better yet!), in the top drawer was a gorgeous necklace & earrings from James Avery! And, Dave was really psyched about his new XBOX360, as well as money from his parents to use toward new woodworking tools.
After all the presents were opened, we drove up to my parents for Christmas dinner. I am so proud that this year I successfully made the 7 Layer Rinn Christmas Jello...it has been unsuccessful in past years, so this was very exciting! Dinner was followed by more presents and lots of games. Dave finagled enough people into playing Axis and Allies (another new present!) with him...after FOUR hours, here's how the "war" was playing out:
Once again, we are so thankful to be surrounded by wonderful friends & family who make this time of the year so special...especially when the holidays can be an especially difficult time of the year for us. We truly have so much to be thankful for! And...we're thrilled that Dave's parents are here until next Tuesday!

Christmas Cookie Exchange

This morning I hosted a Christmas Cookie Exchange at our house! It was such a fun morning filled with delicious treats & great friends. Several girls from church, my school, and support group came, along with my mom and sister!
My sweet friend Tiffany--so fun to see her right before her miracle arrives! Mary Jo & Corrie filling their cookie containers:
Only one word to describe this: YUM-O! I'm not sure who was more excited about the cookie exchange, Dave or me!--he is SO happy to have so many different kinds of cookies in the house! We decided this will definitely have to become a tradition!

Christmas Party

On Friday night, we had our Christmas Party with our sweet friends from Keystone! It was such a fun night of great food, singing Christmas carols, and a very funny white elephant gift exchange!

EBI Christmas Party '08

We had another wonderful Earth Builders Christmas party last Saturday night. As always, the highlight was SPOONS! Here is a funny pic of Dave & Mom in a semi-final round...I love how intense Mom looks while Nate tries to distract her from behind!
In the 3 years that Dave has worked for Earth Builders, there has always been a Rinn in the championship round...and this year, it was me! Here we all are in our orange safety vests...where else, except at an EBI party, would you wear safety vests indoors? I ended up as the 2nd runner-up...not quite as good as Dave's showing last year, when he beat ME for first place! ;)

Thanksgiving 2008

This Thanksgiving was very special to me because we were able to spend it with my grandparents/uncles/aunts/cousins + kids that I haven't seen for at least four years! So we drove up to New London, IA (13 hours and a completely different story!).
It was good to see that my grandparents are both getting around pretty well for being in their late 80's.
We arrived on Wed. night and had a huge Thanksgiving feast with Grandma and Grandpa, aunt Dinah, uncle Kevin & aunt Gail, uncle Randy & aunt Avis, my cousin Matt and my second cousin Jim. It was a great evening as Bethany hadn't met Randy and Avis who left us all in stitches and shared some interesting information with us (see poll to the left).

Here's me with my cousins Matt and Ben. I haven't seen Ben since I was in middle school!
Ben and his wife Holly arrived on Thanksgiving night with their two kids Anna and Zach. Zach was a typical boy; bashing, tackling, smashing and punching everything. Here we are with "Hulk gloves" duking it out. At least it kept him from his favorite target- his sister!
Anna couldn't be more of a little princess and Bethany can DEFINITELY relate to that. The only physical contact in their memory matching game was when Zach tried to kick the memory cards all over the place... We discovered that BOTH of the princesses can TACKLE!
Another game we enjoyed with my grandpa and Dinah was Skip-Bo. Dinah won both games, of course. She loved to ask everyone, "I'm the winner, right?"
A trip to Iowa isn't complete without plenty of my grandma's sourdough pancakes! Bethany insisted on a trip to McD's BEFORE this ritual for her own breakfast. (She's not the only one who doesn't like them, though; sourdoughs seem to be an aquired taste in my family.) Here is grandpa and me pounding down just a few. I think I made it up to 8. Grandma still won't tell grandpa my record... which even I've forgotten from many years ago, but some things grandparents never forget.

Bethany was our navigator for the trip, and she somehow found the ONLY Caribou coffee between Ft. Worth and New London. It's in Kansas City just off of I-35 for any of you northerners desperate for it on a long roadtrip down south.

The Twins!

We stopped to visit our dear friends, the Pattersons, on our way out of town on Tuesday night, so Dave could finally meet the twins! Kimi said that Dave wouldn't have the "full effect" of the boys unless he was holding them both at the same time...and so, before he knew it, they were both in his arms. :)

An Early Thanksgiving!

After church on Sunday, we got together with many of our sweet Keystone friends for an early Thanksgiving! We don't know why we didn't think of this several years ago, but we definitely have a new tradition! Since Thanksgiving is usually a holiday focused on family, it was fun to have a Thanksgiving feast with friends! Here are a few pictures of our time:


With these three guys, you never know what they are up to...though they're probably discussing the economy or, more likely, XBOX 360. :)Here's Ryan demonstrating how to carve the perfect turkey!
Love this sweet picture of me kissing on Caden! The kids were all attracted to the stairs, so we spent a lot of time there after dinner. :)
Such sweet friends....unfortunately, we realized too late that we hadn't taken a picture of our whole group, but here are the girls, minus Tiffany!

Women's Fall Dinner

Our church hosted a wonderful fall dinner on Tuesday night, "Thankful for the Journey." There were so many small details and touches to the evening that made it amazing! Each table was decorated differently, and I wish I would have taken pictures of the others, but this is the table that Jenny and I decorated. Actually, Jenny decorated, and I just supplied the linens and dishes. I am so thankful for our church that provides these amazing events where we can connect with sweet friends & the Lord. l - r: Holly, Jenny, me, Kimi, Alicia, & Ann Marie

Family Pictures

We had been wanting to do family pictures for quite a while now, but since we always assumed we'd be pregnant "just next month," we never had them done...until a good friend of ours encouraged us to have family pictures done now, even though our family looks nothing like we imagined it would at this point in our marriage.

So, on Saturday afternoon, we went down to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens where our dear friend Jenny did our pictures! She also edited them, and we are so pleased with the results! Here are a "few" of our favorites! Thank you, Jesus, for the sweet times You give us together, even when life is hard.

Halloween!

My team members and I dressed up as dalmations for Halloween on Friday at school! A lot of our students asked us if we were cats(?)...but at least we thought we were cute! You can't see in this picture, but we also had adorable tails!