...and even more photos

Someday, I'll get this all in order or figure out how to post more than 5 photos. Until then, here are more prom dress, bridesmaid & business suit pics for your enjoyment. I couldn't resist taking lots of photos, even with the bare/boring backgrounds!

more photos...

Here's Kdee & Little B all dressed up--boy will little B regret these photos when he's 17. Kdee is wearing my old prom dress (she added the belt) & Miss St. Croix coronation dress. Little B is wearing a dress my mom made me when I was little (along with some sparkly gold shoes of Kdee's). Love it!

Emotions In Motion...

With a nod & wink to one of my fave KTEL regulars, Billy Squier, I'm finally back with a new post! It's been awhile, that's for sure...I guess there's been just a wee bit of stuff going on lately. Overall, we're knee deep in packing and doing all those little things that need to be done (change of address, finding daycare, etc.). To consolidate time and energy for this blog update, here's some ribclan updates connected to the different emotions going on at our place right now:

Grateful: This goes all over the board, but ribB and I got a night free last Saturday (17th) to pack like banshees, move things in/around our storage unit and even have a "date" out to the Vali-Hi drive-in movie theater (we saw Ironman & Drillbit Taylor--both surprisingly good!). We were up way too late, and had to return to get the kids way early, but it was exactly what we needed all around and having some time to ourselves/moving made a big difference.

Silly: Little B & Kdee played dress up yesterday afternoon, much to our delight. Little B wore a dress that was mine when I was really little. I doubt my mom had visions of her grandson wearing the dress she made for me. Too funny. Kdee put on all of my old prom dresses and coronation dress (Miss SCF...woo hoo!). It was really fun to see her in those dresses and validated the reason why I've saved them all this time. Worth it!

"Uplifting": The holiday weekend included some major lifting for ribB, his sister Chandra, brother-in-law Matt, coworker Matt and coworker Jim, as they successfully took down and moved the playset onto Jim's flatbed trailer. As ribB said, "I seriously wonder how much that thing weighed". I was away helping Ann paint her new townhouse (dang!), but it sounds like I would have had multiple heart attacks watching them lift and move the monster of a playset. Yikes! (THANK YOU to all who helped!)

Stage Fright: Lots of "Guitar Hero" was played this holiday weekend, thanks to the visiting sis & bro-in-law...and, Matt, you reign as the champ. Even Kdee got in on the action--and bragged how she "beat 2 adults at it!". I will never listen to my fave songs the same way again--I have a new appreciation for the guitar magic that happens with each tune.

Fear/Panic/Sadness: Yes, it was the combo of all these emotions. On Saturday we had an appointment in the new hometown to meet with a daycare provider. We were running late (cuz of the playset drama)--but as it turned out, it was a divine late. We were one of the first people to drive onto the scene of a bad motorcycle accident. It was a scary scene--woman crumpled along the side of the road and her bike far away to the left. ribB grabbed his work first aid kit and jumped out to help while I kept the kids eyehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.photo.gifs glued to the portable DVD player. Much to our dread, we found out we knew the victim--it was ribB's friend and coworker who was out for a ride with her husband and her/ribB's supervisor. Long story short, a deer hit her (the deer was literally jumping out of a ditch and hit her off of her motorcycle, which would have been going 55-60mph). The deer hit her so hard that it knocked her helmet off and it took serious looking to find it. Lots of angels stopped to help and fortunately, she is going to be alright. Lots of healing ahead, but so far, no long term problems. We had a chance to visit her in the hospital on Sunday and she looked and interacted pretty well. What a miracle.

Happiness: Let's follow up the previous paragraph with something more light. We were able to still meet with the daycare on Saturday and think this option will work well for the summer, for both kids (when Kdee isn't in summer school & the summer school bus can drop her off there, too). Then, we got to take Chandra & Matt to the new house where the current owners were waiting for us. They wanted to show us around and were the nicest people you'd ever meet. They even took to the kiddos right away and claimed "looks like we'll have a couple more grandkids!". What a nice time. Then we had dinner at the local restaurant, which continues to impress us with lots o' yummy food.

Special: Speaking of yummy...the coworkers & I had dinner at The Bayport Cookery last week. Fantastic! It's the annual morel fest menu and we loved the delicious courses and wines we were treated to. Mmmmm, that morel ice cream is still the bomb!

Overwhelmed: How the heck are we going to pack up our entire house in such a short time? Ok...this thought just goes through our head every now and then. Not all the time, but it's a reality we're dealing with, too, so...

Excited: CA wine country trip with wonderful friends is quickly approaching. I can't even get my head around the fact that I'm leaving for vacation this Saturday! (This also ramps up, and deflates, the "overwhelmed" feeling...he he.)

Bittersweet sadness: It's weird to be leaving the place we've called "home" for 10+ years and as the reality of moving sinks in, I'm looking at everything with different eyes. Even though we can easily come back for visits with friends and loved ones, we will miss our sweet river town even with the blessings to come in our new home.

Nostalgic: Thanks to Chandra & Matt's visit, we made it out again to the drive-in theater to see Indiana Jones! What a flashback and the kids loved watching the movie under the stars (and little B tried to loudly sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" as he fell asleep). What a fun place to go with a group (including their friends who met us there...nice job saving spots, C&M!)

Many thanks to Chandra and Matt for the fun visit over the holiday weekend & the help with the playset and kiddos. I wish we could go out for Mexican and mammoth margaritas again tonight, as well as rock out the guitar hero. That sounds way more fun than packing!!!

Photos this post: The Vali-Hi Drive In...kids wrestling around (complete with drop slam by little B), Chandra/Matt/Katie/Nick & their tailgating beverages, kids pretending to sleep before the movie began, parent portraits...

Weekend fever

Here it is...Friday and the weekend is upon us. Yes! We have received the green light for a closing date--June 6th. Obviously, this is not far away, so you know what the ribclan is doing this weekend--PACKING! My mom is helping with the kids tomorrow, so that is a huge relief...we'll definitely be able to get a lot of work done now! This is especially important since I'm leaving May 31st for a girls trip to CA wine country until June 4th(this was planned a few months ago...ironic timing, huh?!?!). We have lots to do, but as we all know, it eventually gets done.

So far, the ribclan is pretty excited overall for the move. Sure, if one thinks about it too much (namely me), it can freak you (me) out a bit since it's all happening so quickly. That's why I'm just taking it a day at a time. Kdee should be able to do summer school at her new school, so that's perfect and we've gotten some nice recommendations from elementary school staff for little B's daycare (and Kdee during the summer). Things are truly falling into place.

The week has been full of fun, even with moving preparations going on. On Monday night, our family took a spontaneous drive up to the family cabin (round trip=4 hours), to deliver a donated camper. Of course, this was just a day after returning home from a long weekend of driving, but since ribB was on call the rest of the week, it was the best option for awhile. The next day, I had lunch with my friend & Kdee's Godmother, Jessie, to celebrate her upcoming birthday. It was awesome to catch up with her and hear her funny stories (especially the one about Ilee dressing herself--let's just say it's fun to wear 2 pairs of undergarments). ribB started his softball season again and played this week in the rain and cold. Thank goodness it's warmed up now! Later in the week I had dinner with a couple of coworkers--time flew by that night as we chatted on and on--and before I knew it, it was 12:30am!

With warm summer breezes finally gracing us northern-ites, here are a couple of fun things to consider:

*The SATC movie opens May 30th...woo hoo!
*Tazo® Passion Shaken Ice Tea Lemonade at Starbucks--yummm...summer in a glass!
*Coldplay's new album drops June 17th (pre-order at iTunes!!!)
*visit my old work, The Drive-In, in Taylors Falls...homemade root beer in frosted mugs, poodle skirts and awesome burgers...(root beer "shots", Michelle?)


Pics: SATC gals, Tazo tea lemonade, Coldplay, outside of The Drive-In,a funny pic of Linnea's son eating spaghetti--I love how she emails me silly pics!

SOLD...

Wow, talk about a whirlwind month and a half. On Saturday morning, before we headed to Janesville for our family wedding, we signed an offer to sell our house. The crazy part? The potential buyers want to close by June 10th...so, needless to say, we are still reeling from the whirlwind of everything. Our biggest surprise on the offer is that the new owners don't want the playhouse...but want the weather vane (which most people don't even know is there). So, anyone who wants to buy a playhouse (price very negotiable!) and handle the removal/take away of it, let me know. Who would have thunk it?

The timing of all these events is pretty amazing, really. Kdee's last day of school is June 5th, and summer school at the new district starts June 9th. There is a chance that she'll be able to participate in summer school and not be such the "new kid" at the start of the school year. That would be great!

Needless to say, we're going to be busy packing and making runs all over NW Wisconsin!
More stories to come from our household...but obviously, this is the big one right now!

Pics: New house, New Lake, Playhouse 4-Sale!!!!

DREAM COME TRUE

I am about to cry right now. Tears of joy. This morning, Heather made mention to me (as we prepped for our new Sweet Dreams Bookclub) that "wouldn't it have been awesome to be a model for the Sweet Dreams books?". Well, thanks to Trace' and her photoshop skills (see also Lexie the dog in a previous entry), our sweet dreams have come true!

Here's "our" Sweet Dreams book covers!!!! We are laughing so hard right now, we can barely stand it.(Yes, that's Heather as a long-haired brunette...wow! And, double yes, that's my image from the 80's rollerskating night...very handy with this 80's book cover!)This is a fabulous day!

a REAL bookclub!

Alright, enough of all these frou frou bookclubs. Heather and I have created our own summer bookclub...it's awesome. We plan to take lunch breaks outside and read from a particular series of books. If you'd like to join us, please do. If you grew up in the 80's, you might recognize our book series selection. No, these aren't "Oprah" recommendations, nor will you find them just anywhere. They are just that special.

The book series we have selected are the "Sweet Dreams" books. I'm willing to bet good money that at least many females reading this blog read these books. They are like old friends! Heather and I will begin with the books from our home libraries--"I Can't Forget You" (mine) and "The Two of Us" (Heather's). We also plan to acquire more, for a full summer of light, perfect reading. I have to believe this is the way bookclubs should be.

As far as the ribclan goes, we're still recovering from exhaustion. Kdee had her spring concert last night, which was a fun break for all of us. Kdee did great, even after she told us earlier in the week that she "gets headaches from standing on the risers for so long" and that the boy next to her "is gross...he spits and has allergies". Ah, the drama of it all! She is looking so much older lately, I just can't believe how fast she is growing up. She's gotten even taller, too! She is almost as tall as my collar bone, and I'm 5 8 1/2! Wow.

We have an exciting weekend ahead...a family wedding and visits with good friends. Can't wait. We also have 2 showings today at our place, including a second showing to the folks who came on Tuesday (yes, the showing we prepped for after the carpet install!). Cross your fingers! Say a prayer!

Pics here include overall "Sweet Dreams" selections, including our books (via a bad cell phone pic...sorry!)...

Ok, we're exhausted...

Let's just say it's been a crazy few days at the ribclan house. Our projects have included, but are not limited to:

*ripping out carpet & padding (both upstairs & basement)
*painting trim on outside of house & playhouse
*sanding/priming/painting bathroom
*installing new hardware in bathroom
*putting up new walls/siding on the playhouse (dang squirrels!)
*repairing drywall (small areas) in basement...dang child gates!
*prepping a couple of floors for re-carpeting
*planting potters for front of house
*washing house & windows
*re-organizing garage for furniture storage
*tearing down computers, entertainment stuff, etc.
*packaging up extras for future move (right? :-)
*moving furniture out of upstairs, basement
*moving furniture into the house or garage
*organizing the laundry room for storage
*cleaning our house for a showing today (that was tough after a long day--THANK YOU, ANGIE FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP WITH THE KIDS & MOVING LAST NIGHT!!!!! YOU ROCK!!! Everything was put away as of this morning and ready to show!)
*trying to "entertain" the kids as we did the above projects

We are so exhausted...late nights, lots of lifting, balancing kids and projects, etc. It's been a lot for us to manage, but the light at the end of the tunnel is SO close! And that feels great. It also feels great to look at everything that has been accomplished by the two of us! Of course, we'll feel even better after some sleep and downtime.
Tonight Ann is coming over to help with the kids, so ribB and I should get a bit of a break and we are THRILLED!

Pictures to prove the above projects...furniture & stuff everywhere (there was a good chunk of time yesterday, during the carpet install, where we didn't have any furniture on 2 levels of our home); ribB as we tore out carpet in our room; the old carpet before installation--ribB gave Kdee a marker and let her draw all over it (see her "welcome home" mat in front of her door; she also started to write "idiot" in front of little B's door (yes, we stopped her) and wrote "pink lover" with an arrow pointing to a spot that ribB was standing. What a silly girl!)

...and a couple more photos

Here's some more silly shots from the last week...

Under Pressure

So many projects, not enough time in the day. We're re-carpeting the entire upstairs/basement of our house (so, yes, pulling & hauling carpet away, too), painting, staining, repairing...you name it, we're busy trying to finish it. Luckily, we're in the last stages of getting our top priority projects finished. Of course, there will be more projects to do if we feel inspired, although I don't know if we will!

I think the kids are tired of crabby, stressed-out, tired parents. Overall, they've done really well with our distractions and taking turns entertaining them while the other person works on a project. It's truly tricky to do house improvements with little kids (which is probably why we don't most everything after 9pm at night...yawwwwnnnnn!)We've been getting a great amount of interest and some good showings, so we're motivated to keep going despite the tension and demands.

We have squeezed in some promises with the kids, namely Kdee. Her reward for the week was a couple of hours with me and using the camera. We went up to a town park and it turned out I took more pictures of her--she does love posing! Also, she and I had some "make-up/hairdo" time on Wednesday night--aren't the results gorgeous? I don't think I've ever had so much hairspray in my hair! Kdee would hold the can up next to my head and spray and spray and spray. We had a blast making these creations on each other.

Little B had a playdate with his best buddy, Brennan. They loved running around outside in our playhouse, as well as playing "geo trax" inside. They are so cute together!

We found a home for Ms. Louise and it sounds like she is doing really well there. It was a hard decision, but for many reasons, we knew it was best all-around. The fact that she's doing so well and settling in brings us a lot of peace of mind, that's for sure. Ms. Chantal is LOVING her status as "mistress of her domain". She's truly a diva cat, who somehow is always the dominant cat (despite her lack of fighting skills or street smarts, which are still necessary for an indoor cat). This picture of her here was taken by Kdee and just makes me giggle--it reminds me of those senior pictures in the 80's, where the fake background included lace curtains (this is actually the netted tent above Kdee's bed :-).

On a side note, I did go to a super cool Prayer training at our Church last weeked...I loved it! (A big thank you to ribB for managing kids, preparing for a house showing and transporting Louise to her new home...wow!)