mckenna's one

finally got up to see geri and mckenna and the dogs! it had been a while since i'd seen mckenna and she's changed and grown so much!! she's one now (as of august 2nd) and she's walking and attempting to talk and she's so independent and loud :) she's such a cutie and a goofball.

she also absolutely adores dora the explorer and will ignore everything around her when dora is on. below is a pic of her intranced by dora :)
she does some crazy things with her eyebrows, she's such a goofball
she's such a little person now. she walks around and does what she wants and just babbles and screaches in her loud pitch, it's so funny. i can't not laugh at her.

glad for the fall coming and that i'll have more free time to hang out with her and geri and the dogs. the dogs are good to but a little more left out than they're used to due to them being so big and mckenna being so small, they could knock her over. but she loves them and actually likes to be in the middle of them and pushed around a bit. she also likes to ride them :) she just laughs and laughs.

brutus and his wrinkles

i went over to my friend brittany's house last week and got to meet their bulldog brutus. he's such a brut and so cute with his wrinkles. he's a good boy but still got some puppy in him :) and he's incredibly strong for such a short, stout dog; so much so that he knocked me over playfully.
i love the brindle on him! such a handsome boy :) he's so strong that he has to have a harness instead of a collar so he doesn't choke himself. look at that face

grubby's cabin (minus grubby)

went up to sunset lodge the last week of august for our annual "grubby's cabin" week at the lake. unfortunately, grubby couldn't even come this year (he choose to go on the price is right instead :P) sunset lodge is my favorite resort ever and it's on my favorite lake, potato in park rapids. below is the beautiful sunset on the first night i was there. here's the sunset on another night. they have the best place to see the sunset on the entire lake. it's just gorgeous!!
my mom and lee just before sunset.
this is my buddy jackson. he is the cutest thing in the whole world and i never want him to change or grow up :) he is the best baby and so smily and easy going. he's my favorite!! this is my favorite pic of him too, soooo cute!!
my bro and his little buddy logan. logan turned 7 while we were up at the lake. and my brother kinda looks like screech in this picture :) goofballs
over all it was a great week. got to wakeboard a bunch at the beginning of the week, then the later part of the week got windy. my good friend sarah ended making it up for a couple of days along with her parents!! got to use the moriarty's awesome boat and had good food all around. can't wait to do it again next year!!

curls galore

today i was a model for megan's cosmotology certification. i got scientific brushing, shampoo, cut, facial, makeup, manicure, blow dry and style all for free!!! she spirally curled my hair and i loved it!!! she's the best hair doer ever!!!! (ok so i'm a little biased :P)
side view of the beautiful curls!!!

jodi and matt's wedding

jodi and matt had a beautiful wedding! there were a lot of the football players that i know and their wives/girlfriends there. it was good to see and hang out with them outside of the football arena and season! got to know some of them better! i didn't get any pictures of the bride and groom but they were gorgeous as were the bride's maids.



here is my new buddy brittany. brittany is married to charles who is super funny and britt just kind of goes with it! she's great! and i found out she's a snowboarder too, so i have someone to go with now!! woo hoo!! here's deidra and i. i had always known deidra as a football girlfriend but had never really had a conversation with her. she's great too!! unfortunately, her and nick just moved about 4 hours away... :( we'll miss them!!
me and jodi, i don't know where i'd be in eau claire without her!!! i heart her!!!
here's some of the boys at our table: al, charles, and nick
despite all my attempts to get nick or shane to catch the garter, al caught it.... dun dun dun...
all and all it was a good time with great people! so happy for jodi and matt!! and their maid of honor and best man are next in october!!!!

happy hour + more at rays

al and i met al's best friend (and former roommate) shane and his girlfriend jodi at ray's for happy hour last friday. we are pretty close with shane and jodi and we always have fun with them! well, the happy hour extended all the way until 11ish. we played a lot of games, had the most shots i've had since college, downed two pizzas and had a lot of laughs. we love these guys!

the boys found an electronic bean bags game and played for the first time. they got pretty into it, just as they do with any video game :)
mean while, jodi and i hung back and did a shot :) and made friends with the bartender. jodi is just about done with her crutches and can finally put weight on her knee! she's been such a trooper this summer! so glad she's come to ec a bunch. but now she's started teaching in chaska, afraid i might not see her as much.
at some point, i decided i wanted to arm wrestle shane. i definitely had to use two arms versus his one and it took a while but i did win...
al was telling a way too boring story for 3 drunk people to listen to, so here are jodi and shane "listening intendly" to his story and completely making fun of him ;)
here is my glow in the dark drink. i'd had a complicated day at work and loved happy hour
over all it was a very fun night with very fun people!

mary & travis' wedding

i'm back... finally. i've been soo busy lately and spend a lot of time in my wonderful truck who is amazingly still running after all the long, hot hours spent on the road between eau claire and the cities. the week and next, i have a break from softball (in between summer ball and fall ball) so i am catching up on too many things that have i have fallen behind on; including my blog. i am also ecstatic to get to watch the olympics. i haven't seen them the last couple of times. watching them makes me what to be in them... bad! in anything really. there are so many competitive sports in the olympics that i didn't even know about. i still got some learnin to do :)

this past weekend, we traveled down to st. louis missouri (or misery as i like to say it) for my cousin travis' wedding. so glad on of my cousins finally got married (and another to come next year!!!) and he found the most awesome girl!! mary is one of my favorite people!! she's an all around fabulous person and so fun and so great for travis (and our family!! she's an amazing cook!!) below are some pictures from the wedding.

here is me, my bro and my mom. pretty sad that i'm the shortest.... :)

mary and travis burge!! mary's dress was hand made by travis' grama. it was amazingly beautiful, i can't believe someone can hand make thatal and i using the color feature on my camera which worked well with my colorful dressanother color pic with two of the bridesmaids and my cousins. chelsea, khloe, kayli, and kayli's fiance travis. the bridemaids dress color was clover green and they all had different style dresses, it was cute.

me and my twin-cousin angi. i was so happy to see her, it'd been a while. i heart her!!

my "new" family. my cousin ronda, her fiance kurt, and her daughter chelsea rae!!another couple of color pictures, of the dance floor at the reception