Showers!

Two weeks ago Ryan's Aunt Shari, and sisters Kim and Kari hosted a shower for me in Henning. It was fun, especially the drive up with my sisters in the car! (It is kind of hard to concentrate once they get going!) Katie wanted to constantly know how much longer and when we would be there, Aimee worked on Katie's friendship bracelet, and Danielle just laughed at all of it! They snapped some great pictures, met Toooooobeeeee the dog, and Ryan took dad to Zorbaz. It was a really fun time. Here are all of the girls at the shower!

This weekend our friends Karen and Bonnie hosted a Minnesota Twins tailgate themed shower. There were burgers, brats, hotdogs, popcorn, nachos, peanuts, beer, friends and fun. We even got to sit on the tailgate of my dad's truck and open our gifts. We were blessed to have a beautiful Minnesota summer night

My family with Nannie and Papa.Kids with Grandma P.My SiblingsRyan's Grandma & Grandpa bought us our own life jackets for fishing!Every good teacher has one!!

We are less than a month away and really excited for everyone to come back for our wedding!! Dress fitting this week, finishing up programs, thank you notes, and place cards. Have a great week!

Favorites!

So my sister did a favorites post and it inspired me to do one as well :) Here are some of my favorites from this summer so far!
1. This one is three favorites all in one: our Engagement Pictures, The MN Twins, and Our Wedding Shower with these sweet invites!

2. My friends little babies: The pic is of Anna but Wyatt is super cute too!

3. Reading and Jodi Picoult books.

4. Fishing with Ryan's Grandpa (Who would have ever thought!)

5. Making the slideshow for our wedding with fun pics like those

6. Hanging out with my sister!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7. My new software that I got to make this cool picture :)

Here is to one month from tomorrow!

Baby Wyatt!

It feels like we have been waiting forever (9 months to be exact) for our friends Marty and Mandy to have their baby. Wyatt Jon arrived Thursday morning weighing in at 7lb 1oz. We got to go see him on Saturday and boy is he a cutie!! We are so excited for them and it was so fun to see Ryan in awe of how small he is. I only have one picture today but next week we are going to take dinner over there so I will have a few more hopefully. I am also excited because I got some really cool software for my birthday and Mandy is going to let me make their baby announcement to kind of get my name out there so maybe someday I can make baby announcements, save the dates, or other projects for other people too :) I will post that too as soon as I get the pictures from them! Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful dads out there! PS Aimee is the best :)

Just Keep Praying

God is good and everything is in his time and his way! I am asking that all of you who read this would cover my friend Sara in prayer. Sara is a former teammate of mine. An amazing person: energetic, loving, talented, caring, would do anything in the world for you! She is going to sing in my wedding and called me today to update me on her life in which she nonchalantly dropped the bomb that she has cancer. It is a rare form and was in her arm and she is down at Mayo doing radiation and is going to have surgery. Her calm demeanor really shocked me as I just did not know what to say! Just pray that God would keep her healthy and let her treatment go flawlessly and let her be able to play basketball this fall for her senior year.

Keep praying for baby Reese, her stitches split open last weekend so they did not get to go home but she is healing well and doing well. Brian went home to go back to work and Allie is still in Iowa City. Pray that they get to go home soon and be together as a family again.

"That is all" seems like a crazy thing to say as neither of these is what you would call a small issue but as it says in Philippians 4:6 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

Fishing, Family, and 9 Days!

We spent this past weekend at Ryan's parents house. It was graduation weekend in Henning and he had a graduation party he wanted to go to so we spent the weekend in Henning. Friday we actually stayed here in Alex and watched the awake the lakes festival fireworks. Saturday we drove to Henning and Ryan and Kim showed me how to "golf" in the back yard. (I put the quotation marks because I just don't know that what Ryan was doing was actually called golfing. Dad, we've got some work to do!) We then went fishing with Ryan's grandpa and his uncle. Ryan and I had a bet on the deal about who would catch the first fish and while he won the dollar and my fish was bigger, Grandpa put us all to shame! We went out fishing on Sunday night and while I had a lot of fun I decided that God made me good at a lot of things and fishing is just not one! I like to go out there but I refuse to touch the fish and don't even ask me about cleaning them (I sit inside with Ryan's grandma and eat chocolate chip cookies :). You can see in the picture, Ryan's grandpa is holding my fish (it is the bigger one).

Keep praying for baby Reese, she is doing better but there are a lot of uncertainties with her conditions and as you can imagine, her parents are nervous and it is hard to be patient when all of this concerns your 6 day old baby. Pray for peace and trust for Allie and Brian. God has a plan and he always provides.

9 Days! Report cards, class lists, reading graphs, packing and much more to do but it will get done... Here's to hoping the teacher can contain her excitement as the students get more and more antsy!

God Is Good!

God is SO GOOD! Baby Reese had Surgery today and they determined that it is not Spina Bifida but it is a benign tumor on her spine. They took most of the tumor off and she is doing well. Pray for Allie, Reese's mom, she has not had a chance to rest and recuperate and is in a lot of pain. She is now with her baby but is not able to hold her until tomorrow. GOD WORKS MIRACLES!

Lots of Things!

Lots of updates today! Before I say anything else I am asking for your prayers for my sister's friend (and my friend too) whose baby was born yesterday with spina bifida. Baby Reese was born yesterday and it was discovered after she was born and she had surgery today. Pray for healing angels to surround Reese and for God's grace, mercy, and comfort to surround her parents Allie and Brian.

We had our engagement pictures taken this weekend and they are FABULOUS!!!! Check them out at http://www.chelsiekrafka.com/blog/ We LOVE them and are so excited for Chelsie to take our wedding pictures!

Yesterday was also Ryan's birthday. We both took the day off to relax and accomplish some things that we never get to do because we are only together on weekends. We ran a whole bunch of errands and then came back here for dinner and cake. Here is Ryan with his cake and all 24 of his candles although I think my mom is the only one of all of us that sang him the true Happy Birthday song. . . (I sang my shortened, condensed version which requires very little singing which is a good thing) Ryan helped me seal up invitations last night too so those are all done! I feel like I am accomplishing so much but I know there is still so much to do! 12 days of school and then I am free! May you have a great week with whatever the Lord throws your way.