New obsession!

as many of you who know us well, know that we love diet mountain dew (Ashley) and mountain dew (Ryan) however, within the last month we gave up buying pop (in an effort to save up money for our down payment on the walnut street duplex) that's right, we gave up buying pop...now that's not to say we didn't put some cans in our pockets when we went to our parents houses to visit :-) so we tried to come up with a good substitute. we thought of water, but seriously, who are we kidding? we knew we couldn't quit drinking pure sugar to nothing. so we opted to try crystal lights...and i gotta say we are now addicted! if you haven't already, give 'em a try!

Pirates of the Caribbean at World's End

to say the least, ryan was EXCITED to see Pirates of the Caribbean at World's End is putting it lightly. we went and saw the movie Friday night with the hendersen's. Ryan bought the tickets on Wednesday night and was getting the "in" from the movie employee about what time we should get there etc... keep in mind we got tickets for the 8:00 show. Ryan wanted to east supper @ 6:00 at the subway right next to the theater so he could scope out the line from there. to make a long story short, we were the first ones in line for the movie, which was GREAT by the way and had even better seats! ;-)

rummikub game!

the other night some new friends of ours (the Lisa & Jordan Damhof) invited us over for pizza and game night. and we played rummikub, our new favorite game. it was a fun night and very relaxing --just what we needed after our stressful week with the duplex!

goodbye to the hall's

so i realized its been awhile since our last post. so here is what we've been up to the last couple of weeks.

last week we met up with our old neighbors Jeremy & Amanda Hall. For those of you who remember they lived below us at Gilbert and got married just a month after us. we would hang out with them, grill etc. well, jeremy finished up with his master's program at ISU and they are moving to Carson city. so we got together with them one last time before they left. we ended up going to Flatheads this tiny little restaurant in st. anthony iowa. its the type of place where everyone knows everyone and they look at you right when you come into the door. had a good time there then we broke in our fire pit with some good ole' smores. it was a good night, and we want to wish jeremy & amanda the best of luck!

mothers day 2007

for mothers day this year it was pretty low key. on saturday night we went to radcliffe to spend the evening there. we brought a pizza and just had a good time talking, visiting with Ryan's parents & grandma and looking at all the work ryan, jon & kathy had done. They had just put 19 windows into a rental the houck's own.

sunday evening we headed to the huhn farm and had a bbq for supper, and talked awhile. then headed over to boppa & grandma's to say hi as well. overall a great mothers day

311/313 South Walnut

the house pictured below is our new duplex. we officially take ownership june 30. We will be moving there sometime in june. both sides are two bedrooms, one bath. we are REALLY looking forward to not living in a "work in progress!" this place will actually feel like a home, and we might actually be living there longer than one year! more pictures to come once we take ownership!

ode to the trampoline, a final farewell

before we took the trampoline to my parents house we had a few more jumps...

A party in our backyard and we weren't invited

so this afternoon we got home from church and heard alot of commotion in our backyard. As we took a peak outside the windows there were 9 children having a party in our backyard...4 playing on the swing, and another 5 on the trampoline. A neighborhood kid party. On the way home we had talked about having our Sunday nap on the trampoline, so we were a little disappointed someone else had beaten us to it. :-) However, a couple of hours later we decided to try the nap venture once more. Success, no kids playing, peace and quiet. it was the perfect day for a nap on the trampoline. just enough breeze, sunny, and a snuggle buddy! However, that didn't last long... as we were napping (or at least trying to catch some zzzz's) two little kids came over and started to swing. this must have gotten boring and the brave little dude came over to where ryan & i were laying.... the conversation went something like this...

"hellooooo?" he said
(no answer, we were trying to play "sleep")
"HELLOOOOOOOO?" he said a little louder with some urgency.

Ryan looked over, with one eye opened and said "hi"

the little kid replied.... "um, we'd like to jump on the trampoline now."

ryan responded "i think we're going to be using it for awhile"

he walked away. ryan and i were shocked at how bold that little boy was! so after our nap we decided it was prolly a good time to take down the trampoline (because of liability reasons & insurance purposes)

a couple of hours later...the heard returned...let me tell you we had some distraught little tikes!"it was just here this morning!" one kid said in total shock. another little tike offered his allowance money to buy a trampoline for the cause.

anyways, that didn't last long until the saw the swing again...in fact their back there right now arguing on whos turn it is. the end. :-)