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!