Happy Fourth of July!

We spent Fourth of July weekend in Chetek at the cabin. Other than a little rain and a thunderstorm on Friday night, the weather couldn't have been better! I feel like I'm finally starting to some color on my skin and summer seems to be half over already :(

Saturday I spent the day on the pontoon with Jeremy's cousin's, aunt's and uncle and grandma while he helped his dad work on the cabin. I did a poor job of taking pictures this weekend (probably because I was too busy reading on my kindle) but here are a couple from our tubing excursion!

Jayne was struggling to get up on the tube with Cole but she made it up there and afterwards I joined her for a ride.

Drea and I before going tubing.


Sunday we made the jaunt down to Eau Claire for Jenny and Storm's wedding. What a beautiful day for a wedding! Again...horrible at taking pictures this weekend. I didn't have my nice camera with me and I just couldn't get a good shot of them! Either way, Jenny was a gorgeous bride and I loved the color combination they had. Plus she had some amazing shoes on! :)

Sunday night we were able to watch some fire works over the lake and made smores over the campfire! We had some of those enormous marshmallows, but they were way to big for a smore, I stuck with the normal sized ones.

Our actual fourth of July wasn't kind of quiet. Jeremy and I went boating with Derek all afternoon and then we headed home. We got home and unpacked but treated ourselves to a little ice cream treat from the blast :) Sadly we didn't watch any fireworks...we were both a little tired from the weekend and we couldn't see them from our house.

Where does the time go?

For the last few weeks I've been hoping to get on here and post about the few things we've done over the past month and a half but I've struggled to find the time to write my own post! I catch up on other blogs that I follow and then something comes up and I don't have time to write my own, well...I'm playing catch up today!

So I haven't posted about anything since early May, which is crazy! The second weekend in May my good friend Katie whom I work with got married! She made a beautiful bride :)

Katie and Brandon Weir!

I can't remember when this is from, but Maple is apparently pouncing on something!! What a goof.

Memorial Day weekend we went up to the cabin and did some fishing!

A northern that I snagged...literally. I caught him with a fly towards his tail. Lucky I guess!

There was a fishing tournament in Chetek that our group entered and Derek's fish was a $50 fish! He won the smallest fish award :)

Maple can't get enough of swimming in the water! She kept me pretty busy over the weekend trying to swim after geese and running all over the place! Here she is swimming with Maya.

The weekend after Memorial Day Jeremy went up to the cabin to do some fishing and helped his dad do a little work up there. I stayed home studying the whole weekend, but it paid off as I passed my test! As I stated in my last post, two more to go. What a relief, except now I have my books for my next test in August and they are daunting...after having a couple of weeks of from studying, I'm really struggling to start back up. Maybe I'll read a little today...probably not though!

The second weekend in June we went back to Altoona for Jess & Tony's house warming party. Apparently I didn't take any pictures? Weird but I don't have any on either of my cameras! I had a nice lunch date with Lindsey while we were in town and had fun breaking in the Magur house! Thanks for the fun party guys :)

Beautiful flowers and card that Jeremy got me for my birthday. I'm now closer to 30 than 20 and it's a little depressing. I haven't really felt "old" per say until lately.My brother is going to be a freshman in high school and I've always thought, man I'm going to be 30 when he graduates from high school, now that's only four years away! It's amazing how once you get back 21 or 22 you don't really pay attention to how old you are until your birthday comes around. I'll just forget about my age again until next year :)

With my yummy Hyvee birthday cake :)

Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes, cards and gifts! My new love is my kindle which I got as a birthday gift. I've finished my first book, Water For Elephants, which was amazing! Can't wait to watch the movie now :) I'm onto my second one and as soon as I finish it I'll probably have to take a break from reading fun books to reading my insurance books...soon enough I'll be able to read for pleasure more often!

Last weekend we went to Cambridge for Matthew's confirmation. On Saturday Jeremy and I took him to Noah's Ark and spent the day there enjoying all the rides! Jeremy had never been there before and it had probably been a good 12+ years since I'd been there so what a great reason to take my little bro. The weather wasn't the best but I feel like that's been our summer. It wasn't raining so that was a plus and the lines were a little shorter probably due to the cooler day. Overall we had a great time! If anyone hasn't been there recently, there is a new ride called the Scorpion Tail which is the scariest water ride I've ever done! Matthew and I were freaking out the whole time we waited in line, but we survived and went on it again before we left! It's a single person water slide ride but you start by standing in a capsule. They shut the door and the capsule counts down, three, two, one...the floor drops out from underneath you and off you go! The tube doesn't take you completely upside down, but very close! What an adrenaline rush!

The family after Matthew's confirmation. My mom put on a nice little party for Matthew after his confirmation with lots a good food!

This past weekend Jeremy and I stayed home but took a day trip up to Valley Fair yesterday. I guess it's been a couple of weeks of firsts for us because I'd never been there before. If you couldn't tell from our trip to Noah's Ark, I'm kind of a chicken when it comes to scary rides! I must say, I was proud of myself at Valley Fair. I was afraid to go on a couple of the rides but I did them all! And they were all fun :) Again, weather was a little bit to be desired, but it was fun nonetheless. A little sprinkles here and there never hurt anyone and the lines weren't long so we were able to go on a lot of rides!

We had a little surprise last night when my dad stopped to visit on his way home from working in the Nevada/Utah area for the past year. We went out to dinner and we all crashed!

Phew...that's our past month and a half in a nut shell! Other than the weekends, we've been busy with softball and I joined a new workout facility that just offers classes. I've recently become obsessed with kickboxing and zumba. Now I knew I liked kickboxing workouts from all of my Turbo Jan and Turbo Fire workouts, but I had no idea I would love kickboxing with the mitts and a partner so much! It's a great stress relief and very fun :) Zumba is such a fun/dancy workout that I really enjoying doing as it always seems to put me in a good mood when I'm done. If anyone has a chance to try a Zumba class, I suggest it! I know they are all different as the instructors do the choreography, but I'm sure they are all great!

I'm so looking forward to the three day weekend next weekend for the fourth of July which we'll be spending up in Chetek at the cabin. Hope everyone has fun things planned for their holiday weekend!

Hopefully I'm able to stay more up on my blog so it isn't such a mumbo-gumbo of things all in one next time I post!

Free time

I passed my 6th CPCU test today! Whoo hoo. 6 down and 2 more to go. The plan is to take my next one in August and the LAST, that's right everyone, my last one in November. Assuming this is the case, that puts us on a trip to Washington DC next October.

With my free time the past two nights I decided to update our blog with a new background and header. As usual everything I used was from the Shabby Shoppe, love that place :) Now I just need to find time to blog about the past few weeks...

Professional Bull Riding

Now for anyone reading this, if you were like me a few months ago, you didn't know much about Professional Bull Riding. Well, the story for me has changed! Jeremy and his cousin Derek and become almost ridiculously obsessed with PBR. It's amazing how quickly they got into this and at this point, all I can do is smile and laugh :) I'd rather Jeremy be obsessed with this than other things I guess...

So onto our trip to Iowa to watch the PBR! I get the joy of watching PBR two nights of the weekend and the weekend of May 7th and 8th we road tripped it to Des Moines with Derek to experience it for ourselves.

As much as I've been making fun of it, it was actually a pretty cool experience and fun to watch in person. It is such a dangerous sport and I can't believe how close to serious injury the riders can be when they fall off!

Jeremy and I before heading into the stadium. Only two pictures with the good camera as they wouldn't let me bring a "professional" camera inside :(

Jeremy and Derek.

Somebody riding a bull...wish I could tell who.

After the PBR, we went to a bar called Miss Kitty's were a handful of the bull riders showed up! Derek had the guts to walk up and ask for the first picture with one of them and then we followed :)

Me with Luke Synder - for anyone who knows anything about PBR, he was the last cowboy standing this year!

Jeremy with Luke Synder.

Me with J.B. Mauney - he's a stud rider.

Our first PRB experience was fun and the boys are already planning the next trip. It's too bad they didn't go to the cities so we wouldn't have to drive so far! At least it looks like the next closet one is in Milwaukee. If anyone is bored this weekend you can catch the PBR on Versus. :)

Let's Dish

Last night I went up to the cities with two of my friends from work to go to a place called Let's Dish. Let's Dish is a meal preparation store. So what you do is pre-order the meals you want to make before you go and then when you get there, you prepare the meals you order and someone else cleans up the mess for you!

They have little stations set up throughout the store and they have all the ingredients lined out and the recipe right there for you to follow. You put all the meals together in either freezer zip lock bags or tin pans and then put them right in the freezer when you get home! There is little work to do once you are going to cook the meals and I can't wait to try one :)

I ordered 8 meals and got a free dessert!! The meals make 6 servings so being that it's just the two of us, I cut each one in half making 16 meals!!
Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Stuffed with Mexican Cream Cheese
Chicken Empanadas
Parmesan Chicken Fingers with Waffle Fries and Seasoned Sour Cream
Pecan Crusted Tilapia
Beef Lo Mein
Herbed Flank Steak with Blue Cheese Butter
Baked Ravioli Lasagna with Garlic Toast
Bourbon BBQ Pork Tenderloin with Spoonbread
Sopapilla Cheesecake

I think I might start with the Beef Lo Mein next week!! It was so fun putting all the meals together and if the food is as good as I think it's going to be, I'll be going back again!

Circus Juventas

Last weekend we took a trip up to the cities to watch my cousin's Sammy and Mandy at Circus Juventas. Circus Juventas is a performing arts circus school for youth. It's kind of like Cirque du Soleil, which I would love to see someday!

My cousin Mandy is in two acts, Globes and Unicycle and Sammy is in Vault-Mini Tramp. The whole show was around 20 acts and I am still in awe of the things these people can do and how their bodies can bend!

Mandy on the globes.

Jump ropping on the globe.

Sammy on the mini-tramp.

Sammy again on the trampoline.

Mandyon her unicycle.

More unicycling.

One of my favorite acts - Triangle Trapeze.

Jeremy and I with the girls.

I can't wait to go see the girls perform again!

Easter Weekend

We went back to Eau Claire for Easter weekend and spent the weekend with Jeremy's family. It had been about three months since we'd been in Eau Claire so Maple and Maya (Jessica & Tony's dog) finally got to meet! They spent the weekend playing together and getting to know each other. Maple was a little protective of her space but I think once they see each other a couple more times they should be best friends!

Saturday night we went out for pizza and took Maple, Maya and Cali to the dog park. They had a blast running around and playing with each other!

Walking at the dog park.

Maple and Maya running around!

Maple and Maya with toys on Easter.

Maya.

Cali.

Jeremy and I.

We hope everyone had a Happy Easter!