8-Months of Catch-up!!

I've got 8-months of catch-up to do in one post! Yikes! But I promise I will try my darndest to keep this thing up to date from now on! As you may have guessed, our 2009 has been pretty chaotic. Since we have had many requests for house updates, I thought I had better get this thing up to date so I can keep you posted on our house progress and other happenings. I will try to play catch-up and put the past 8 month's happenings into 1 "quick" post. I will do my best to keep the writing to a minimum: )

AUGUST

HOUSE PROGRESS: Slowly but surely, our house is beginning to actually look like a house! I will update pictures in the slideshow at the top of the blog, but also try to post some pictures of our progress throughout the blog as new things happen.

8/11/09 - PRAYER REQUEST: Please keep our awesome new neighbors, Frank & Lynnette Descourouez, and their 11 year old daughter, Alivea, in your prayers. Alivea was involved in an accident that left horrible burns on almost 20% of her body. Please pray that God will bless her with the strength and determination to get through this trying time. She is a wonderful young lady and I can't imagine what she is going through. If you would like to follow her progress, her carepage link is: http://carepages.com/carepages/ALIVEA I don't have a picture of Alivea, but here is one of her Daddy, and her youngest sister, Haley. Haley always makes my day when I hear her standing in their yard yelling "Hi Heidi!" at me. That will never get old: )

8/1/09 - NATIONWIDE RACE: Michael, Rachel, Joel, and I went to the Nationwide race in Newton. We met Blake & Jen and some other friends there as well. We got some good tailgating in before the race, and got to see a heck of a race!

JULY

7/25/09 - KINZE FAMILY FUN DAY: The whole family ventured out to the Kinze Family Fun Day this year, and everybody had a good time. The 3 youngins enjoyed all of the inflatable slides and obstacle courses, sandbox, and waterslides. Nolan was finally old enough to enter the "Kiddie Tractor Pull", and he took home the 3rd place trophy! Way to go bud!!! Denny, Joel, and I cleaned up at the basketball shootout- there was a HUGE line ahead of us, so we thought they'd be out of money by the time we got to shoot... BUT, not a single person ahead of us made any shots, so when we finally got to the front, Denny won a bunch of money making 2 shots, then Joel won a bunch as well, then I cleaned out the rest of the money pot... not a bad day: )

7/16/09 - JODI'S 30th BIRTHDAY: Happy 30th Sissy! We had a great dinner at Texas Roadhouse for Jodi's bday, and then the following weekend, we went bowling for her big 3-0 too! Afterwards, we went to sing karaoke at a bar, but after spending hours trying to pick a song we all knew, and listening to how GOOD some of the singers were, we left without ever singing- lol: ) Next time I'll host a karaoke night at our new house in honor of you sis... that way we dont' care what we sound like: )

7/12/09 - VOLZ FAMILY PICNIC: We had a fun family picnic at the Norway park since Nikki and Matt were back from California. We played lots of fun games with the kiddos, and Grandma even had prizes for the winners. It was a fun day!

7/5/09 - MITCHY MOOSE: Pictures of the Moose in his ball cap. Arguably some of the cutest pictures I've seen.

JUNE
ODDS & ENDS: Just a few more pictures from June that were too cute to leave out...

6/23/09 - BRAYDEN's 4th BIRTHDAY: Brayden wanted a pirate party for his big #4, and boy did he get it! The kids "walked the plank", played a balloon popping game to win their loot, and Jodi made one heck of a pirate cake.

6/10/09 (thru June) - T-BALL : Nolan did a GREAT job at his first t-ball game! He took Jodi literally when she said he had to go after every ball that was hit to him... he was even running after balls that were hit to the opposite side of the field:o) It was so fun watching him! Next year he and lil' bro Brayden will be on the same team!

6/3/09 - GRANDPA'S LIL' HELPER: Brayden came over to help Grandpa fill the bird feeders while Nolan was at his first T-ball practice. They looked so cute in their matching hats that I just couldn't resist a few pictures.

MAY

5/30/09 - MARGENE & JOSH'S WEDDING: A good friend of mine from college tied the knot in Dyersville. It was an awesome wedding!! Margene, you were such a purty bride!! Kelly you're next, right!?! ; )

5/21/09 thru 5/25/09 - LOOK OUT CHARLOTTE!: Ryan, Amanda, Joel, and I set out for our Charlotte trip... a very UNBELIEVABLE Charlotte trip! We had a blast! We not only visited the usual race shops, hit-up some great restaurants, experienced speed street, and spent a lot of time at the track, but this year we got hooked up with GARAGE PASSES!!! We not only got to be down on pit road any time we wanted (even during the race), but we got to hang out in the garages where the cars get worked on, and all of the teams are! We got to meet and get autographs of all of our favorite drivers, walk down the middle of the garages where all the action is at, and be right in the middle of it all! It was truly the experience of a lifetime! We all had SUCH a great time! The race actually ended up getting rained out and rescheduled for the following day, but Joel and I had to catch our flight the next morning, so we weren't able to stay for it. But honestly, after all of the other excitement, it didnt' really bother us. What we got to do was more fun than the race itself: ) I know these pictures look tiny, but if you click on the collage, hopefully it'll zoom in. Enjoy!!!

5/19/09 - NASHVILLE: We flew to Nashville to Ryan & Amanda's house for the start of our annual Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR trip.

5/18/09 - NOLAN'S PRE-SCHOOL GRADUATION: Nolan received his pre-school diploma and got to sport a graduation cap. Congrats Nolan!! Next year it's Bray's turn.

5/13/09 - MITCHELL'S PLAY-DATE: Mitch came over for a play-date with Mom, Dad, Joel, & I. Mitchell thinks it's hilarious to whack Grandpa over the head with a golf club:o) His "cheesy grin" in one of the pictures cracks me up every time.

5/10/09 - MOTHER'S DAY: We had a picnic at the Hollenbeck Farm, did some fishing, and Sable took a dip. Joel's folks have been kind enough to take care of Sable for us until we get into our new house. Joel still gets to see her everyday at work, but I don't get to see her very often: ( Hopefully we don't have to convince Sable too much to move back in with us, but I'm afraid of that because she sure is enjoying the time on the farm!

5/9/09 - FLOWERS: Nolan & Brayden came over to help Grandma plant all of her spring flowers. They even planted the pots on "Ma & Pa's Finch Farm" that the Ballard family made for Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas!

5/1/09 - MOVIN' IN WITH MA & PA: We officially closed on our house on May 1st, and are currently shacking up with my Mom & Dad until we get our house built. Mom packs our lunches every day (I don't know what we'll do when we move out: ) We're enjoying the nice accomodations, but Dad told me the other night that our lease is about up:o)

APRIL

4/12/09 - EASTER: We celebrated Easter this year at Mom & Dad Volz's. The boys are quite the egg-hunters! But best of all, we found out that SHANE AND SARA ARE EXPECTING BABY #2 IN DECEMBER!!! YAY!!!!!! Check out Mitchell's shirt in the picture below that gave us the great news!

4/5/09 - SOLD!!!: In just 2 weeks, our house was officially SOLD!!! Wow! We didn't expect it to go that quick!

MARCH

3/19/09 - HOUSE FOR SALE: Our house hit the market on a Thursday, and by that Sunday, we had over 19 people thru.

3/9/09 - BREAK-IN: We came home from work to discover that our house had gotten broke in to. They stole all of our small electronics (laptop, cameras, etc), and every last piece of jewelry. You can see all the broken glass where they broke in our deck door, the pried apart window frame, and the black dust all over the door from the police fingerprinting.

3/2/09 - JOEL'S 27th BIRTHDAY: We couldn't fit 27 candles in a cupcake, so one had to do...

FEBRUARY

2/29/09 - (Well, technically 2/28) NOLAN'S 5th BIRTHDAY: We were all aboard the Thomas express for Nolan's #5. Jodi and Laura made an adorable train cake for the celebration, and the kiddos had a blast with all the fun activities Jodi had planned.

2/8/09 - COOKIES FOR A CAUSE FUNDRAISER: We baked and frosted a gazillion cookies for Jodi's Heart Month fundraising efforts for the AHA. They turned out super cute, and we raised a lot of money!

2/7/09 - HEIDI'S 26th BIRTHDAY: That's OVER a 1/4 century! Yikes!! Joel got me some purty flowers! (And I thought that ended when we walked down the aisle. P.S., it hasn't happened again since: )

JANUARY
1/30/09 - MITCHELL'S 1st BIRTHDAY: Mitchy Moose's MITCH-A-PALOOZA!!! As you can tell by the frosting on his face, he loved his cake, and all the boys had fun swimming in the pool at the hotel. I can't believe he's ONE already!!