Mav's latest project...

Mav has been working on building us a mantel shelf for our fireplace and last night he finished it and placed it above the fireplace. It looks soooo awesome and he did an amazing job! We found the design on the internet (mission style - our fav) and he built it from a picture he printed off. He is so talented and I am so lucky to get to put his beautiful woodworking pieces around our house!

Papa's Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday Mav and I went to Papa's Pumpkin Patch with our friends. It was gorgeous out there and they had tons of pumpkins! They had all sorts of fun stuff for the kids to play on and Mav and I had a fun time picking out a pumpkin. I love the fall season!

Stormy Weather

Check out this massive cloud from the storm that went south of Beulah last night. It didn't storm here much at all; just some distant thunder and lightening. But as it got darker last night you could see that this was a pretty wicked storm.

ADOPTION news!!!

Mav and I had our final meeting yesterday in Bismarck with Julie. We have a few things to wrap up over the phone but we are finished with our home study portion of the process!!! We are soooooo excited! We need to finish our profile pages, which is a very daunting but also exciting task. These pages will represent us and aide the birth mother in choosing a family. We are so ready for this point in the process! :)

Surprise Birthday Party!

My fabulous husband planned (with the help of my mom and Jess!!) an awesome SURPRISE birthday party for me last week! I can't believe he kept such a good secret! He took me out for a steak dinner while everyone arrived and when we got home I was so shocked to see all my friends and family there in my house! Jess made me the cutest birthday cakes (of course with my all time favorite cake) and we had a ton of other goodies to eat. I had such a fun time visiting with everyone and was humbled by the gesture of love from my friends and family!

Mav and I are so excited as we have another meeting planned with Julie! We are going to Bismarck on September 9th to have another visit! Depending on what we can accomplish, this may or may not be our last meeting. We will keep you posted!!

We went south of town to watch the coal mine for Mav's plant move their dragline from the East side of HWY 49 to the West side. What a huge piece of machinery!!! It moved very slowly and will take days to move into its new position.

Sailing

Greg and Pat sailed down to Beulah this week! Mav and I met them out at Beulah Bay and they took us for a sail. It was so awesome! The wind picked up shortly after we got there so we had really great wind for a sail around the lake. We even helped raise the sails. Sorry Greg-I can't remember the correct terminology! :) We loved being out on the lake and had a great view of the sunset.

Beulah Bay

We headed out to Beulah Bay yesterday with some really good friends. It turned out to be a beautiful day to enjoy the lake! The boys went wakeboarding and Jess and I hung out on the "beach" with the kids.

Mav and I had our home visit yesterday and we both think it went really well! We had a really nice visit and the time flew by. We mostly talked about our relationship and how we relate to one another--all so that Julie can get to know us better. We are awaiting the results from our personality and parental inventory tests before we meet again. That meeting should be really interesting as these tests are read by a psychologist!! Mav and I each took two tests for the personality part: one to describe ourselves and one to describe the other person. We will see how well we did!