thanksgiving in illinois

went to illinois for thanksgiving this year. first we went to lee's parents house in atkinson until friday and then headed over to rockford to see our family. i needed some better pictures for our christmas card so we took some pictures out at the ledford's cabin by their personal lake. here is mom, tyler and i on their outdoor swing. luckily we had a gorgeous day!me and my bro with thier lake in the back groundtyler had to get on his knees to dance with lee's mom fran :) mom, lee sr, lee jr, and fran (in green mode)

my bro and his sweet new truck in yellow mode :) this pic could be a dodge ad i think.

lefse making

we had lefse making at my uncle wayne's house this year. it was just as fun as always with family, games, fun, etc. below is torie and tylerplayed some cards (lee, mom, ronnie in the background being the dj, and polly) the girlies that were there making kissy faces :)

here's a cool pic of some family playing wii in the living room with the red feature on my camera.

a weekend full of babies

i visited geri and mckenna this weekend. mckenna is now 15 months old, i can't believe she's so big already! she has such a personality already. she's so independent. below is a picture of her dad, mike, after he was chasing her and had caught her. she loved that game with him. and when she ran from him, she swung her arms out and about all crazily; it was so cute and funny and had geri and i cracking up!here is her stop-taking-pictures-so-i-can-play face; goofball! :) i love some of the faces she makes!! especially when she uses her eyebrows.

walter and mckenna just hangin out.

something was very funny! geri in the background.

also this weekend, my best friend from high school megan's older sister jenni had her first kid. a daughter named liliana mae. she weighed in at a petite 6 pounds 5 ounces and 19 inches long. can't wait to meet her. congrats to jenni and matt, and to aunties megan and shannon!!

halloween 08

went to throwbacks in woodbury for halloween. there was a great band playing and had so much fun! below is a group shot of all us softballers! manda the beer wench, johnny the red neck, kunde the senorita, tyler as ricky bobby, me the cheeto and meg the fat stripper.

me and my bro!! i was so glad he came out for a bit!

me and my girls! (doin the "vanessa") i love these chicas!!!!

so i decided to dye my hair all one color because i was sick of the blonde at just the bottom. so i picked a light brown dye and this is what i got. a little darker then i was expecting but it'll do. then i decided to try the whole bang thing. we'll see how that goes... :)

i'm hoping it will eventually fade to the color i actually wanted but it is fall and time for darker hair color (just ask gina) :}

grama's birthday

this weekend we went up to good ole silver bay to celebrate my grama's 91st birthday. it was so cold but a good trip. below is grama and her gowgeous cake!!my bro actually came with!! it was good to get to spend some time with him. yeah, we're the coolest!!!

a good picture of mom smiling big (in green mode on my camera) my grama's favorite color is green if you can't tell :)lee finally smiled good for a picture!!!

duck was so ecstatic to find a skate park in silver bay.

below is bailey, my bed partner. she took up the entire bottom half of the bed... ;)

the fall colors were already gone up there, but it was still pretty in duluth and around the lake. had some good food and some good games of cribbage.

al and i carved our huge pumpkins tonight. i love carving pumpkins and it was al's first time. there's nothing like pulling out the goo and seeds with your bare hands and seeing the final project all lit up! can you tell which one is mine and which one is al's? :)yes, my pumpkin has ears! (they were originally meant to be vikings horns but we had really crappy, dull knives so now they are ears)


i also had my one year anniversary with menards this week. it's crazy that i've already been there a year, does not feel like it has been that long at all! but i enjoy my co-workers and it feels good to have a solid, secure job that is not in retail or customer service!!!
that also means that i have been in eau claire for a year. crazy that i've been away from minnesota that long and it wasn't for college. although i'm ready to go back to minnesota, eau claire has been pretty good to me. i'm thankful for all the people i met here and all the wonderful friends i've met through ec. below is a picture of the infamous water street where i have spent some crazy, fun nights. also, here's picture of one of the university buildings and the river. i love the rivers around here and the trees are gorgeous this time of year. i need to get out and take some pictures of the beautiful leaves before they freeze.

can't wait for snow and to go snow boarding (except that i need to get new tires on my truck before it snows...)