Who caught the shark?

The day after the wedding we got up bright and early to do some deep sea fishing! We were to the marina by 8:00 am and again we had a beautiful day! We caught a ton of fish and a good variety too. Our captain started the four hour tour off with a little Gilligan's Island tune :)

Jeremy caught a lady fish, jacks and sea trout. Matthew caught a huge catfish and some trout. Eric caught the first fish, well it was a sting ray actually and he also caught sea trout and the only flounder! I caught four of our five keepers which included spanish mackerel, sea trout and in addition to the keepers I also caught a couple jacks and a catfish. Mom was the one to bring in the bonnet head shark!! Did I mention she caught a shark?

The marina.

Sun peeking through the clouds.

Eric pulling in the first catch of the day, a sting ray!

Jeremy's lady fish.

Matt's huge catfish!

Mom putting up a fight while reeling in her shark!

Mom with her bonnet head shark.

Matt holding her shark.

Me with one of my spanish mackerel's.

Mom and I.

The group after getting back to marina.

After fishing we took our five keepers into a restaurant right at the marina and they cooked them up for us! The fish was so yummy :) Glad I could help feed everyone lunch with my four keepers!! ;)

Jeremy and I at lunch.

Eric, Mom and Matt at lunch.

Jason & Kayla Ausman

The main reason for our trip to Florida was for Jason & Kayla's wedding! The weather was amazing in Florida and it was perfect for the wedding. We flew in to Fort Meyers on Friday and landed around noon. Once we checked into the hotel it was straight to the pool for us! We went to the rehearsal dinner and had a little family gathering back in one of the hotel rooms afterwards for a few games of quarters!

My not so little brother Matthew and I!

The poor bride got a swirly from her soon to be brother-in-law's & Uncle Gary!

The beautiful bride being walked down the isle.

Husband and wife.

Mr & Mrs Ausman!

Sweet little Lexi :)

Jeremy and I.

Family picture.

Notice the extra piece of cake in Kayla's left hand??

Cake war!

The aftermath! Was Kayla the winner?? :)

We are so glad we were able to be part of your special day and we're so happy for you guys!

Sanibel Island

We took a mini vacation to Florida for my cousin Jason's wedding. Our second day in FL we went to Sanibel Island and it was so beautiful! It was fun walking on the beach and Jeremy enjoyed picking up sea shells :)

One of many birds on the beach.

An awesome piece of driftwood on the beach. Wish I could have taken it home!

A school of sting rays.

Beautiful view of the beach.

A shark that a fisherman caught off the pier.

Diamond Jo's Casino

Now we aren't huge casino go-er's but everyone once and I while we like to take our $20 and hit the slots! We were supposed to go to Diamond Jo's back in December for Jeremy's birthday but instead we got hit with a huge snow storm and had to stay in town. The first weekend in April Jeremy's parent's and his grandma came to visit and we decided to take a little trip over the Iowa border to the casino!

I stuck my $20 into a penny machine and hit the button. It started dinging like crazy and I won $25 off my first spin! I didn't play much longer than that. I lost $5 of what I had won and finished out my playing $20 ahead :) Jeremy played a couple of machines and walked away up $5.

What fun is a casino if you don't eat the buffet? So we walked around the casino and played until the dinner buffet opened up and we stuffed ourselves with delicious food!

Life in Owatonna

I'll start off by saying I haven't had much to blog about lately and I guess that's because we haven't done much other than stay in Owatonna! As I said in our last post we had stayed in Owatonna for a few weekends and we haven't really traveled anywhere any of the past weekends either! We've made a couple of day trips here and there, but that's about it!

We've had a couple of visitors during our time at home, my mom and Matthew came to visit a couple of weekends ago and we spent the weekend hanging out and doing some shopping! This past weekend Jeremy's mom & dad and grandma came to visit. We took a little trip down to Diamond Jo's Casino in Iowa which amazingly is only about 45 minutes from our house. Yes, we live that close to Iowa! It's so nice to have people come and visit us :)

In other things life has been pretty uneventful. Volleyball has been over for a while so my weeks have been oddly open! I've been able to meet up with a couple of friends, see a couple of my friends with their new born babies, took another camera class with my friend Stacy and I've been able to watch my TV shows when they air instead of on DVR later on!

As for Jeremy, he's gotten into PBR (Professional Bull Riding) thanks to his cousin and that's been consuiming our lives lately. So much that we're going to a rodeo in Iowa in a little less than a month. Jeremy is missing opening fishing for it so for anyone that knows Jeremy, that means he must really like this PBR! I'll admit it's kind of fun to watch, but why do all the sports he like have to last 10 months out of the year. Give me a break! :)

One positive thing over the past few weeks is that I'm proud to say we've found a church! It was hard for us to try out churches because since we've lived in Owatonna we've been lucky if we actually stayed in town for more than one weekend a month. Not now! Now we were able to try out a couple of churches and we found the one we like! It's amazing how finding that one thing can make it feel like more of a home here in Owatonna. I'm loving it!

I think that's about it for now, other than it's back to studying for me. I started studying for my next test yesterday and I've got just under two months to prepare for it. I know the end of my studying is in site so that will help me get through it. Three more days in cold, rainy Owatonna before we head to Florida for my cousin's wedding! Then I will have something a little more exciting to post about. Yay :)