June 2012 Recap

In a Nutshell...

June has been busy! Between the annual Ropte Summer GTG the first weekend in June, a couple Fridays off work (for Amy) as our daycare provider was on vacation, and a baby shower for our friends Joel and Erin, the social schedule was busy enough. Add on top of that 10K training for Mark and I in some pretty darn extreme temps, and I doubt you'd be surprised to find us a tad worn out. But it has been fun :)

Here are some of our highlights:

Supper with Mandy and Claire (June 5)

Cashel and I made our way to Westbrook to have supper with my college roommate Mandy and her daughter Claire. It was a fun time to catch up, and to see how much Claire has grown!

For a full recap with pictures, Click Here!

Ropte Summer GTG (June 7-9)

We once again gathered at the Ropte farm down in Iowa for the weekend the first weekend in June. It was a great fun-filled 2 full days down there, and while chaotic with so many little ones (we now have 11 under the age of 6!), there are always so many fun memories :)

For a full recap with pictures, Click Here!

Mommy and Me Day with Cashel (June 15)

Cashel and I spend the day in Mankato on a Friday afternoon when

For a full recap with pictures, Click Here!

Strawberry Picking at Schumaker's(June 16)

I picked a measly 7lbs of strawberries this year, largely on account of the berries being so tiny and being alone this year, since Mark was watching Cashel. It was a good time, nonetheless!

For a full recap with pictures, Click Here!

Father's Day (June 17)

We celebrated Mark's first Father's Day as a Dad on Sunday afternoon. After church, Cashel and I took him out to lunch at Godfather's, then rested most of the afternoon before we enjoyed some yummy steaks on the grill with stuffed mushrooms for supper.

For a full recap with pictures, Click Here!

Baby Shower for Baby Girl Walerius (June 23)

AiWen and I threw a baby shower for Erin and Joel's baby girl, due in early August. We had a great time with the ladies who came, and can't wait to meet Baby Walerius in less than a month!

For a full recap with pictures, Click Here!

Baby Shower for Baby Walerius (June 23)

Our friends Joel and Erin are expecting a baby girl in early August, so I joined together with our friend AiWen to throw Erin and baby Walerius a baby shower at AiWen's home in Worthington on June 23.

We decided to go with a zebra-print and pink theme for the shower, which was a lot of fun to work with :) I designed the invites and had SO much fun with them!

AiWen made the lunch of grilled seasoned pork loin chops, corn casserole and salad, while I made some red velvet cake balls as favors and some strawberry pretzel dessert.

The Spread

The Babies

Baby Walerius will be joining Madelyn and Cashel before long, and it was fun to see the little ones interact.

Madelyn at ~3 months and Cashel at ~5 months

The Guests

We had a total of 8 ladies (and 2 babies) for the shower, and enjoyed our time visiting, then had our lunch and dessert before playing a fun game and opening gifts.

Cashel ended up falling asleep with cake ball in hand haha :) It was apparently REALLY important that he hang on to it.

Guest of Honor :)

Opening Gifts

We had a great time visiting and catching up with Erin and can't WAIT to meet her little lady in August!! :)

Where, Exactly, is Chuck?

So I'm searching for a solution to a bug in my code, and I type in "Where", and with the intelli-sense built in, I get a list of suggested topics to search for...second on my list being...

Where is Chuck Norris?

Of course, I was curious to find out, so I decided to follow that rabbit, and came to this google search page:

Again, following my stellar intuition, I selected the first article to come across this:

Bahaha :) I must now heed this advice!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Father's Day (June 17)

We celebrated Mark's first Father's Day as a Dad on Sunday afternoon. After church, Cashel and I took him out to lunch at Godfather's, then rested most of the afternoon. (Cashel slept the whole way through lunch, hence no pictures of him with Mark).

Later that afternoon, we went down to the makeshift "studio" and took a few pictures :)

For supper, I made Mark some yummy steaks on the grill with stuffed mushrooms, which turned out pretty good!

Strawberry Picking at Schumaker's (June 16)

This year I made the annual strawberry-picking trip by myself, since 1) it was a last-minute thing, and 2) it didn't seem like it would be very productive to drag Cashel along, as it'd be more work to keep him content than it would be to just have one less set of hands to help pick.

The berries were SMALL this year; similar to last year's berries. I felt like I picked for a short eternity and ended up with a measly 7lbs of berries.

When I initially looked down at the plants, I could barely even find any berries, until I realized how tiny they were, and that it was going to be a long morning.

I did, however, end up with some delicious berries, tiny as they were, which will be perfect for smoothies throughout the rest of the summer.

At the checkout, I found the reason that I was getting such puny berries: Apparently I am coming too late in the season for berries, so I need to go earlier next year. I'm looking forward to some MUCH juicier, larger berries next year, similar to the ones from 2010!

Until 2013...