It's been a long time!

A couple of Friday's ago we celebrated my dad's belated birthday. Our immediate family went to one of my dad's all time favorites, Jack Stack BBQ. We decided to try out the Plaza location this time. Of course, the food was delicious! Most everyone else had already given dad his presents so we headed back to our house for one more present, cupcakes, and hanging out. Russ and I got mom and him tickets to a show in Branson for their upcoming trip. That afternoon I tried out my baking skills and made homemade vanilla cupcakes with a cheesecake frosting. Yum! Funny story.... my dad had told me that afternoon that maybe we could watch an action movie after dinner. He SPECIFICALLY said, "No dumb movies please!" So, what did we end up watching? Jack Ass Part II! I have to say we were all laughing pretty hard though! Happy belated birthday Dad Passman!

Here is a picture of our pretty much finished hardwood floors next door. What a job that was! They look great though. We just need to haul away the old carpet and do some touching up on the trim, etc. Oh the joys of having rental houses!

Last night Russ and I went to dinner with his mother, Grandma Betty, and Aunt Kay. Kay and her husband are sailing around the world and had to come back into town for her sick mother. :( But, we were still glad to see her! It is always so interesting and exciting to hear about their travels. She said they would like for us to come with them on the next part of their trip to Singapore. Wow would we love to but I think we would need to start taking up donations! That one just might not work out :( It's always good to spend time with family and eat good food! PS... will post pics later

House Renovations

This last weekend we worked our behinds off at rental house #2 refinishing hardwood floors. We started by ripping out the carpet in the living room and the second bedroom. Then Russ and the neighbors pulled out nails and staples. Then the really fun part, sanding! I didn't even do that much sanding and my hands hurt so bad! I can't imagine what everyone else's hands feel like! We are so lucky to have our awesome neighbors, Max and Liliana helping us out. We defintely couldn't have done this without them! Yesterday they finally got to the staining phase. It looks awesome. This project turned out to by alot more work than Russ and I expected but will be well worth it in the end. We are always thinking about re-sale value! Maybe by the end of the week it will all be done and we can move onto the next project! :) Poor Russ is so exhausted!

Fireworks Show

Our friends Josh and Mindy invited us out to a Fireworks Show in Lonejack, MO. this last weekend. It was freaking awesome! The pictures can't even do it justice! Josh's dad puts on firework shows all the time for places like Corporate Woods, etc and all these guys get together each year and put on a show of their own stuff. When I say their own stuff, the loudest, coolest stuff you will ever see! Stuff you could never experience at a standard show. Some of them were so loud, it was like a sonic boom that shook the earth! They even had a water bomb that looked like there was a monster or something in the lake. The ground shook under my feet! I'm going to try and post a video, not sure it will do a very good job depicting what the real deal was like though. I was very impressed by the whole thing and can't wait to go again next year. Thanks for inviting the new bee's! :)

One Year Anniversary

It's hard to believe that we have been married a year already! We went to Chicago this last weekend as a gift to each other for our anniversary. We did a ton of fun stuff like going to a comedy club, shopping, having lunch with friends on the Navy Pier, riding bikes through the city, going to Wicked, shopping (oh did I already say that?? There was lots of that!) and eating at good restaurants. It was a whirlwind of a trip but a blast! We stayed in a great hotel called Amalfi, no complaints there!

Monday August 25th was our actual anniversary. I brought Russ some lunch at his work from the Mixx, one of our favorite places. We cooked a nice dinner at home including Filet Mignon, spinach salad with warm shallot dressing, and coucous. We tried a piece of our one year old cake topper. It still looked pathetic but tasted surprisingly good. We even shared with the neighbors! We topped the night off with a chocolate fondue at the Melting Pot, another favorite of ours.

It has been a wonderful year and I can't wait for many more. I am so lucky to have this guy in my life! :)

Boulevard Brewing Co. Reception

On Saturday, Kevin and Jenny had their KC wedding reception. The space was so cool and the reception was so much fun! We got to enjoy lots of difference Boulevard beverages on tap and eventually dance the night away. I never knew some of the dance moves some of these people had been hiding! :) Jenny's parents had this really cool poster made for them from their destination wedding in the Dominican Republic. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed hanging outside on the deck while catching up with old college friends. They had delicious cupcakes instead of a traditional cake and they were wonderful! I thoroughly enjoyed my strawberry cupcake! We've had a lot of fun celebrating with Mr. and Mrs. Macfee this summer and wish them the best in their new marriage!

Finally, At Last!

Many of you know that Russ and I have a couple of rental houses. Well, conveniently they both became available at the same time in June. We got super lucky with the Independence rental and found a couple pretty fast. They have been working out great! The house in Waldo had been sitting empty for a couple of months though. It was getting frustrating for many different reasons. IE: The money, time spent on showing the house to potential renters, cleaning, etc. Well, patience and hard work paid off because we just signed a year lease yesterday! Yahoo! Plus, we couldn't have asked for better renters. I guess things really do work out the way they are supposed to in the end. So, we can breath a little easier now that we were able to take the For Rent sign out of the yard and can take the add off of Craig's List. We just can't wait for the day that the market gets better and we can sell these houses.

Family Time

After Camp was over we spent the rest of the weekend with family. Russ's Grandpa Russ (yes same name) passed away and his services were this weekend. We are saddened by his passing but rejoice that there will be no more pain and suffering. Some of the Graham clan even made it down from Wisconsin and Iowa. Sunday we went to Sue and Mark's church to hear Sue share her sermon. Russ and Carolyn played in a praise band at the memorial service Sunday afternoon and they recieved many compliments on their wonderful music. We were able to go over to Aunt Lynda and Uncle Gary's house for dinner and then to see Batman with just our immediate Pearson clan. Busy weekend! This morning was the service at the graveyard which included a few honorary NAVY members shooting their guns in honor of Grandpa and his service to our country. I had never seen that before and it was quite touching. Now we must get back to our everyday lives but hold memories dear to our hearts.

Here is a picture on Grandma Elva with most of her children. We have our angel Diane watching over us and Steve was unable to join us. Having a big family has brought them so much joy and their family gatherings are so much fun!