Rocking around the Christmas Tree with the Meenderings

We left my parents house on Sunday night and made a late night drive to the Meendering's to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Sam, Nick and Ava were home and we also had the extra special treat of spending the holiday with Grandma Merrill and Aunt Cindy, who were nice enough to drive to visit us from the black hills. Here are some pictures from our few days of fun as a family.

Four generations...


Ava opening presents...


Nick and Ava taking a cat nap...

Playing games...

Uncle Jon & Ava - Checkout Ava's first ponytail!


Ava favorite saying to Grandpa Meendering "NO NO NO"

Jingle Bells with the Gee's

We got to spend 2 fun filled days with the Gee Family on Saturday and Sunday. Both of my sisters and their families were home so my parents condo was filled to the max. We had a great time playing with the kids and enjoyed a day with my grandma Gee and my uncle Larry. Here are some pictures of the highlights. Unfortunately I don't have all the pictures from everyone yet, so I will upload more when I get them from my parents and sisters.

My mom and Ali playing with her favorite new game "perfection" and her new Dora mermaid.........


George having fun with uncle Jon.......


Rita and I posing with her new blanket from her Great Aunt Rita...


All the kids playing a very LONG game of littlest pet shop monopoly... (check out Sophie's sequence cheerleading outfit!)

What a Wonderful Thanksgiving

The Meendering family came to Omaha to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. It worked out great because Randy and Sue live in Huron SD and Sam, Nick and Ava live in Cedar Rapids IA, so we could meet in the middle and no one had to have a terribly long drive. This was especially good for Sam and Nick because their drive to Omaha was quite an adventure. Ava got sick a few times on the drive and a drive that normally takes 4 hours took about 7!

Once everyone got to Omaha we had a great time. We relaxed and ate a lot of great food on thanksgiving day. The girls went out shopping on Friday and the boys did a few house projects. We also took in a UNO hockey game. We really enjoyed having everyone at our house and it was sad to see everyone go! We are already looking forward to Christmas.

Here is everyone posing for a family picture .....

GO DUCKS

We had a great Saturday night watching the Ducks beat Arizona State! As we watched the game on TV we kept reminiscing about all of our fond memories of Duck Football games with our friends. We were thinking of you guys at the game and wish we were there with you! National Championship here we come!!

Here are a few great memories.
Our first UO football game together Fall 2002.....

Checking out Autzen Stadium when the Meendering Family came for our Masters degree graduation Spring 2004.....

Watching a game with mom and dad Gee Fall 2005.....

Inside the Ducks Locker Room with Sam, Nick, and Ava the day before a Duck Football game Fall 2006.......

On the field after the game with Sam and Nick Fall 2006......

Operation New Windows

Mom and Dad Meendering came down last weekend and helped install new windows in our house. I was really freaked out about just taking out our windows and having a big hole in our house, but jon ensured me that it would go smoothly. It took a full day of hard work, but we got 6 of the 7 windows installed. Our house still had the original single pane windows from when it was built in 1930 with counter weights in the walls. They were difficult to open and many panes had small cracks. We figured it would be a good investment to put in new windows before winter, plus I was not a big fan of the old aluminum storm window from the exterior of our house, so the new windows were a great update. Here are a few pictures of our hard work.

Before......



During......


After.....

Minneapolis to Omaha

This past weekend the Moran family came to Omaha for a visit. It was so nice having them in town. Seeing Julie, Joe and the kids is always a joy. We only wish they could have stayed longer. Surprisingly our little house handled the increased occupancy very well.

The highlights of the trip were the Henry Doorly Zoo, Playing in Elmwood Park and enjoying meals around the new table from Mom & Dad Gee. The table formerly graced the dining room of Grandpa and Grandma Stassen. It was one of their wedding presents. Mom and Dad did a great job refinishing it for us - thanks!































Quote of the trip: "shoe string tackle-like his shoes were untied"-Harry Moran

HOBO DAYS

We went back to Brookings, SD last weekend for HOBO DAYS (homecoming at South Dakota State University; the university I went to for my undergraduate degree). My sisters came home too and all the kids. Connor, Julia, Alison and Jen surprised me with great birthday desserts on Friday night. On Saturday we went to the parade and football game and carved pumpkins. Thanks Mom and Dad for a great weekend!

Playing with my god daughter Sophie....

Everyone enjoying the Hobo Day Parade.......

Rita and Sophie opening candy at the parade.....

Jon taking care of George.....

Carving pumpkins....

Happy Birthday

It was my birthday on the 18th and Jon surprised me with some beautiful flowers and a cheesecake! We didn't get a picture before we dug in, but here is a picture of the aftermath....

Thanks Sam, Nick, and Ava!!

We grilled out on our first real grill tonight thanks to Sam,Nick & Ava! They bought us a grill as a house warming gift and we love it!! We have been so excited to get it, but it was too big to haul home in our car, so it was sitting at LOWES for a few weeks. One of Jon's friends from work finally helped us haul it back to our place over the weekend and we broke it in for the first time tonight. Jon was totally embarrassed that I made him pose for picture with it, but we wanted to show Sam and Nick that we finally got it home and how much we appreciate their gift. You guys are the greatest!

Here is a picture of Jon with the grill.....

Here is one of our favorite pictures of Ava...Thanks for the grill Ava!

Painting Fumes.....

We had high hopes of getting two bedrooms and the bathroom painted last weekend. We learned that painting and old house is harder than it looks! It took us Friday night and all day Saturday to get the walls prepped and ready to go. It involved lots of scrapping, filling and sanding. On Sunday we got the ceilings done and the base coat done in the bathroom and one of the bedrooms. We choose a color called oatbran for the hallway and a color called willow wind in the bedroom. We will keep working on it at the end of this week and hopefully have them finished by the end of the time the weekend rolls around! Jon is also working on making us a mirror for the bathroom because the original was very floral and totally not our style...I think you will be able to see the mirror about half painted in the pictures.

Here are some pictures after prepping but before painting.....



And here are some pictures with the base coats of color.....

Home Improvement

Although we have not been home a single weekend since we moved into our house, we have still found a little time to start some small home improvement projects. We really wanted a patio furniture set, but had no idea how EXPENSIVE patio furniture is. Anyway, we ended up buying a set off of Craig's List. It was a horrible bright green color when we bought it, but we spray painted it a metallic brown color and it turned out pretty good. We lucked out because the colors in the cushions actually match our orange colored concrete patio.


Our yard was really overgrown when we moved in, so we have also been working a lot on our yard, cleaning up the basement, and last night we took down the big build in mirror that was mart of our fire place. It was totally 80's and we were not big fans of the mirror. We were scared that the wall behind the mirror may not have the same plaster texture, but it does! It is a different paint color and their are two holes with electric (where we thin6k their used to be wall lighting) that we will have to patch, but other than that, a good paint job should make it look brand new.
Here is a picture with the mirror down.... (if you look back to our previous house posts you can see a picture with the mirror above the fireplace).....

Fun with Dear Friends

We drove over to Peoria, IL to spend the long labor day weekend with Rachel and Sam. It felt so good to see the town they live in, their home, school, and work places, and to meet their friends. We love that we can now picture them at those places when they tell us what their day was like and think of their friends when they talk about them and know who they are. It was hard to leave on Monday for both of us because we always have such a great time with them. There is such a comfort of being around old friends.

One of the highlights of the weekend was looking through Rachel's middle school and high school year books. We were all laughing so hard we were crying! Thanks for a great weekend guys...we miss you already! The pictures are of us by the Illinois river on our tour of Peoria!

Storm Lake

We went to Storm Lake Iowa this past weekend to hang out with the Quam family. We hadn't seen Rachel and Sam since they drove to Omaha to help us move into our apartment in January, so it was great to spend some time catching up with them and seeing the rest of the Quam family, Erika, Erik, & Brody and Rella and Larry.

We relaxed in the lake........

Celebrated Rella and Larry's 34th wedding anniversary.........

And goofed around and laughed a lot.......

We are missing them a lot this week because we had so much fun with them over the weekend, but we are excited because we are leaving Friday to spend our first weekend in Peoria with Rachel and Sam.

House Pictures

We have been in our house for one week today! We have been busy unpacking and doing some work on our yard. It has been fun so far and we have realized that we have a lot to do. Our house will definitely be a work in progress for the next few years. As promised, here are some more pictures of our place.

The outside....


One of my favorite things is our front door....

The entry way....

Check out the entry way tile. It is original from when the house was built in 1930!

The view from the entry way into the house.....

Our living room.....


Our dining room...(no table yet)....

The kitchen....


Two bedrooms and a bath on the main floor....

The master bedroom and bath is upstairs. We haven't moved anything up there yet because the floors have never been finished and we are hoping to finish them this winter before we move our room up there.


The basement is totally unfinished. We have our washer and dryer down there and all of our unpacked boxes! We can't wait for all of you guys to see it! You are welcome anytime.