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.

Our New House

It is official! We moved into our first house this weekend. We rented a u-haul and had a few friends that helped us move everything on Friday. We said goodbye to our apartment.............

and hello to home ownership..................

I will post some pictures soon of the inside of our new place. We have been busy trying to unload boxes and get settled. We learned fast that old houses have lots of quirks...the first night I swore there was a squirrel trying to crawl into our bedroom through the air conditioning vent. Jon took the vent apart the next morning and found a small wooden fisher price dog that was rattling around in the vent........

We already made our first trip to home depot and will have ongoing projects for a LONG time, but we enjoy it and will keep you posted on our house projects.
I will send out an email soon with our new address.

The Oregon Gang in the Midwest!!

Our dear friends from Oregon, Grant, Nicole, Tom and Donna arrived in Omaha the last week of July. They made the drive from Eugene with stops in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Grant and Nicole got engaged in the Grant Tetons just a day before we saw them, and we couldn't be happier for them. We hung out in Omaha for a few days and our fellow Duck Alumni, Brett, who is now an assistant professor at Kansas State drove up to Omaha too. We checked out Omaha and UNO for a few days..............

and then drove to Kansas City for a Royals Game. We saw Sammy Sosa hit a home run, a rain delay x 2 and some great laughs...........

and to go to Worlds of Fun. It was about 100 degrees and humid, and after 5 roller coasters we were not feeling so hot. This is the last roller coaster we tackled before the sickness set in......

We had such a good time with everyone here, and it was so hard to say goodbye when they had to start the drive back to Oregon. We miss you guys and can't thank you enough for making the long drive so we could get together. We will post more pictures when we get copies from Nicole, so check back to this post within a few days to see more.....

Here are some more pictures....