Our latest adventures

Joel and I leave tomorrow morning for California to celebrate our big 1 year anniversary. We are looking forward to every minute of our trip, and getting to see our fabulous fam out there! Since we won't be back until November, I thought I would make perfect use of my lunchbreak here at work to get a few posts up before we go!!!

A few weeks ago our family ventured to Wilson's Apple Orchard in Iowa City for our annual apple picking excursion. I think we were about a week late for everybody's favorite honeycrisp apples (they were a little picked over), but it was fun regardless. This was obviously Mitchell's first year for the orchard, and he loved it (or loved the apples anyway:o) It's something we all look forward to each fall, despite the fact they were all out of apple cider and turnovers this year- grr...

Joel and I also got to have the boys over for a slumber party recently, and it was a joy as always! We had a pizza delivered to our house (beef and green olive of course- they wouldn't have it any other way: ), and they thought it was pretty cool that the pizza man actually brought the pizza to our house and we didn't have to go anywhere to pick it up... I forgot that no pizza places deliver close to where they live (it's the little things in life). We got every toy out that we own I think, and they kept us busy! Joel taught them how to play the Wii as well - I think they would have played the cow racing game for hours had I not distracted them with some fruitsnacks and a few rounds of hide-n-seek. Of course we broke out the air mattress for their stay (although they didn't mention the tent this time... phew! usually we set it up in our basement and sleep in that: ) I had to laugh at Brayden everytime I woke up in the middle of the night because he is such a squirmy sleeper and would be turned an entirely different direction every time I looked... it was funny until I got a foot in the ribs anyway! Then about 2:30 Nolan woke up to go to the bathroom... the little twerp was still half asleep, and the sound of him trickling in the toilet suddenly took on a different tune... he was so out of it, he peed in the trash can! HAHA! It's better there than the floor I guess! The boys stuck around for a good part of the day on Sunday too, so we had all sorts of fun!

Our most recent excitement was last weekend's Iowa/Wisconsin football game. It was great to see the Hawks play so well (let's hope they keep it up!), and we had a great time like usual. This time, Jess, Ryan, Jaden, and Brayden came to the game with us, and we were lucky enough to have Jodi & Teresa along for tailgating this week (but their seats were in a different section: ( Brayden & Jaden (both 3 years old), were instant pals! Whatever one of them did, the other would do the same. Brayden put his mittens on, and Jaden said "Mommy I want my mittens on too so I can be like my friend Brayden." : ) Then Jaden would take his hat off, and Bray would follow suit- too funny! They were so cute to watch both playing catch and bean bags at tailgating, and at the game as well. They were surprisingly interested in the football game (at first anyway; ), and were so well behaved. It was cute listening to them both yell out at herky... too bad we never got close enough for a photo op with herk. They lasted all the way into the 4th quarter (I was impressed!), then Jaden fell asleep and Brayden had to pee, so we decided it would be the perfect time to get the little squirts out of there. It was so much fun having everybody along for the game, and what cute pictures we ended up with! Speaking of the Hawkeyes, go to http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/theheismanvote/?dcc=0.207705374&dcn=1 and vote for Shonn Greene for Heisman!!! Go Hawks!

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