October 2012 Recap

October was one crazy month for us. However, as I sit down and write this recap, I'm thinking to myself that it doesn't sound busy at all. Then, I remembered that we spent 2 full weekends in Sioux Falls, a few trips during the week to Sioux Falls, the third Saturday in Sioux Falls, and took a trip down to Humboldt. So yes, we were busy!

NWC Homecoming (October 6)

I met up with 4 of my college roommates from Northwestern College. We enjoyed lunch at Pizza Ranch, some time hanging out at the RSC and hanging out at Pumpkinland before calling it a day.

Click here for a full recap with pictures!

Mark's Dad's Accident (October 6)

The evening after I returned from my fun morning and afternoon in Orange City for homecoming, Mark's Dad had a very serious farm accident involving a tree falling and hitting him while he was trying to knock it over with a bucket on the tractor. This began one crazy month and a half of hospital visits in Sioux Falls, and lots of emotional ups and downs with his recovery process.

Click here for a full recap with pictures!

Catching Up with Friends

While we were in Sioux Falls visiting Mark's Dad during the month of October, we were so glad to be able to break away for a bit while we were there and catch up with some friends.

For a full recap, Click Here

New Car (October 11)

If you read the recap I just posted above, you would also see that we purchased a newer vehicle in the midst of all the craziness of the month. We sold our Grand Prix to Mark's Step-Brother Tyler, so we had to scramble a bit to find something else. We decided to go with a Silver 2012 Chevy Impala, as it had the space we needed while still being sporty and in our price range.

31st Birthday in Humboldt

We took a break for a weekend away in Humboldt to celebrate my 31st birthday with my family there. We had a wonderful time, including a fun ladies' afternoon in Fort Dodge with my Mom and sister, lots of fun games, good food, and great conversation :)

Click here for a full recap with pictures!

Catching up with Friends (October)

While we were in Sioux Falls visiting Mark's Dad during the month of October, we were so glad to be able to break away for a bit while we were there and catch up with some friends. One of my best friends from college and her husband welcomed us into their home the second weekend we stayed there and even made us breakfast Saturday and Sunday mornings. It was so nice to have some time to catch up with them, as with our busy weekend schedules, it's hard to break away sometimes.

We were also able to catch up with our friends the Larsen's and Walerius's over lunch at HuHot that second Saturday afternoon, which was so nice :)

The third weekend we were in Sioux Falls, we met up with a bunch more friends for supper at Chevy's - the Graber's, Breuker's and Slocum's. I failed at getting a picture at that gathering, but in light of all the craziness of the month, it was nice to see some familiar faces :)

Thanks to those of you who were able to get us away to clear our minds before they turned to mush from all the hospital jargon.

Humboldt / My 31st Birthday (October 26-28)

After a whirlwind of a month, we decided to keep with our plans to make our way down to Humboldt for the weekend to celebrate my 31st birthday with my family there.

It was a fairly low-key weekend, but so very nice to get away with my Mom and sister Amanda on Saturday for lunch at Sister Sadies' Tea Room and a little shopping.

It has been ages since we've been able to get away with no distractions, just the 3 of us, for a day like that, and it was so nice :)

The rest of the weekend was filled with good food, lots of games, great conversation...

...and some crazy, crazy kiddos :)

Of course, it wouldn't be a birthday celebration without some cake, so we celebrated by grilling out on Sunday after church and had some cake as well.

While year #30 was full of a lot of changes, these guys are pretty well guaranteeing that year #31 will be full of a lot of fun challenges and lots of love :)

It's always such a great time visiting my family down in Humboldt, and we're looking forward to the big Thanksgiving we have planned the weekend before Thanksgiving with 36 of us (the immediate Roptes plus a bunch of the Cole family coming from out of town).

NWC Homecoming (October 6)

It has been years since I've seen many of my college friends, but this year I decided to call up some of my old roommates (er, uh, FB message them) from Sittser Cottage for a fun day at NWC's Homecoming.

We met up at Pizza Ranch (in a new location than we were used to) for a buffet lunch there with all our kiddos, which was really crazy, but fun :)

After lunch, we all met up at the newly-remodeled (well, a few years ago) RSC to check out the bookstore and visit for a while so the kids could roam.

Of course, we had to check out our old house (Sittzer Cottage) before heading out to Pumpkinland :)

It was a great day of catching up, and we definitely cannot let it go so long before we all catch up again! I certainly can't believe it has been 8 years since I graduated! Love you guys!

New Car and Housing Update

I know I posted a picture of the car we were getting before, but this is the actual one we bought!

We were torn between the 2011 and 2012 models, but found we liked the performance of the 2012 one better, so we went with it instead.

We love it!

I also mentioned that we would be looking at 2 homes this past week, and we did. The first home wasn't even close to what we wanted, and was much smaller than it appeared to be. We were glad to have it narrowed down to 1.

The second one was almost exactly what we were looking for and I was pretty excited about it. But once again, it brought us back to reality when we started talking about how much it would cost to make the 2 changes we wanted to make to it: 1) adding a master bath and walk-in closet to the enormous master bedroom, and 2) adding a fence around the back yard.

It's not that with the price of the house that this is going to break the bank or anything, but we don't see the point in soaking that much money into a home in the neighborhood it is in, as it would drive our investment much too high for resale some day. Unfortunately, in our city, the way the housing is laid out, this tends to trip is up regularly :(

So it's back to the drawing board. We're content where we are for a while still, so we'll put the stresses of home shopping aside.