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 :)

Spring Fever!

Is winter over with yet? I am so ready for spring and with that I decided it was time our blog got an uplift with a more springy design! Everything I used was from The Shabby Shoppe and I love the two kits I used, so cute :)

After living in Owatonna for over three years now, I can honestly say we've stayed home more weekends in a row now than we have any other time and we're loving it! It's been 4 weekends in a row with both of us home and we've just been enjoying our new basement and each other.

Maple has enjoyed being home and playing in the snow!

Up until Wednesday I was extremely busy studying for my 5th CPCU test. I studied a ton and it paid off when I passed my test on Wednesday! 3 more to go. I've already signed up for the next one and I have a goal set to finish by the end of the year - it will be so nice to take a long break from studying at that time!

Friday night we had a few friends over to break in the basement and it was really fun! We love having the new space and it was great for hanging out in.

To pass the sad winter days I had a Stampin' Up party a couple of weeks ago and got some awesome stamps and papers. I spent the good majority of yesterday afternoon and evening making cards. I think I made 10 cards so I don't feel as bad about consuming my day with it!

Being home as often as we have has been great and we have finally had the time to find a church! We're really enjoying the church we found and it's been really good for us too.

Now that my post has jumped all over the place I'll end with bring on the 40 and 50 degree weather, we're ready for softball season!

Our newly remodeled basement!

So I've been posting pictures on facebook as our basement remodel has taken place but I figured I'd wait until the end to make a post about it. Jeremy did an amazing job and completed the remodel from start to finish in about 5 1/2 weeks! Did I say amazing?

We'd nonchalantly talked about redoing the basement in the past but started to talk more about after Christmas and when we got hit with some really cold weather and Jeremy was going to be off of work for a couple days at a time we figured it was a perfect time to start on it!

We officially started the project on January 20th and finished it on February 27th. Let's just say Jeremy worked on the basement pretty much every waking minute over those 5 1/2 weeks!

What better way to describe the project than to show the progress through some pictures! I realized after we had already started that I didn't take any pictures immediately before we started so these before pictures are slightly out dated as they are from when we moved into the house 2 years ago but you'll get the picture!

This is the main living space when you walk down the stairs.

Living room space at the bottom of the stairs.

The back portion of the basement that we did the remodeling of!

Another shot of the space before hand. 1/20/11

After moving pretty much everything out of the room.

Framing up the walls.

Insulation! Hopefully we'll notice some more warmth!

Maple hanging out with a bone.

Drywall is up!

Framing up the soffet.

Drywalling the soffet.

Paint! Amazing how much a difference a little color can make :) 1/27/11

Pre-ceiling.

Ceiling while being put up - thanks for helping Derek!

Finished ceiling and antler light fixture. 2/5/11

Pine being put up.

Pine is all up and new carpet! 2/21/11

Completed basement! Here is what you see when you walk down the stairs. This is also my new workout area because the area we remodeled is where I used to workout.

Old living space is now open and more organized thanks to my cubes!

The new space!

The couch fit perfectly, we couldn't have lucked out more than that! Crazy how different the furniture looks when it's actually put together as one piece.

I love having the TV hung on the wall and the entertainment stand is actually a fireplace as well! Another source of heat for our chilly basement.

Just another view of how open it is with the wall knocked down.

We still have a few minor things left to do in the new space like hang things on the wall and things like that and we have some plans for the old living space as well! Eventually Jeremy is going to insulate the wall where the pine & hollow concrete block are now and then everything that's white will be painted to match the other room as well. No time frame on that, probably just whenever Jeremy feels like working on it again!

I am currently studying for another test that's next week and I can't wait to be done so I can enjoy the basement a little more and relax on the couch with my hubby! Jeremy did such a great job and he deserves to take a break from house projects for a while with how much time and effort he put into this one in such a short time frame! Gotta love having such a handy husband!