A Quick Update...

We have yet to receive our wedding pictures...but once we do we will post them and post a real update with what's going on with the two of us!

Wow!

Wow, lots has happened since our trip to Oregon!! In recent news: Our pet population has expanded! We are now proud owners of 2 gold fish and 1 beta fish. The beta fish we are pet-sitting for our friend while she is in South America. Along with these three fish, we also have two green anoles and 8 hermit crabs!! I (Annah), eventually wants to have two cats and a dog, but that wish may not be granted for a few years!

We have been busy planning our upcoming wedding, August 22, 2009. Wedding ceremony is at Bethel Lutheran Church in Rochester and our reception is at Grampa Ed's in Mazeppa. Its been fun and exciting so far to start planning the wedding and are both looking forward to becoming a married couple!! We just attended the pre-marital seminar hosted by Bethel which was a long but great day with lots of good information!!

On a funny note, my parents treated us for my birthday dinner at Olive Garden. On the way home, after a very delightful dinner...nothing could have prepared us for what happened next...!! I was driving my car and getting closer to my parents house and there was a car stopped at the end of my parents drive way and then we saw a teenager running back to the car and the car sped away. After a few seconds, we realized that my dad's truck cab light was on (which comes on when you open a door), so my mom/dad yelled, "GO" and I sped up and followed the car through the neighborhood (the driver of the car knew I was following him). While I was following the car, my dad started calling 911 to tell him we were following the car. Then the car went onto Highway 52N and that's where I lost the car. The police meanwhile, told us that they'd meet up with us back at the house. By the time we got back and talked with the police officer, my adrenaline was pumping! Nothing was stolen and the cars were fine, it was just crazy to witness it at 7:00pm on a Saturday night!!

Oregon Vacation: Horseback Riding

On the evening of our engagement day I had planned for us to go on a beautiful sunset horse ride on the Bandon beach at the Bandon Riding Stables. I had been to this place in the fall of 2007 when I had gone with my sister, niece, nephew, and my uncle Lou’s girlfriend. That 2007 horseback ride was wonderful and pleasant and I hoped I could provide the same experience for my lovely fiancée!

However, my great plan did not go quite as I had hoped.

We arrived at the riding stables about 20 minutes before we were schedule to leave. We looked around the stables, enjoyed the scenery, and enjoyed each other’s company. Once everyone who had signed up for the sunset rides had arrived, the group leader selected a horse for each of us, helped us up onto the horse, and gave us brief instructions. Our ride started out well with everyone getting used to their horse and making the final adjustments before leaving.


After a short trip down their driveway and along a small section of the road, we made our way down to the beach. After about five to ten minutes we arrived down on the beach. The scenery was absolutely amazing with the sun getting ready to set and so I thought I would get out my camera to take some pictures. I had done this the previous year while horseback riding, focusing on holding onto the mane whilst taking pictures. The horse during the previous year had no problems with this, but within seconds of taking my camera out the horse freaked out and started turning quickly and began running around in circles. I held on, listening to the leader of the group trying to tell me what to do, and I did what they had told me, but within about 5 to 10 seconds I fell of the horse and landed the wet sand. The angle which I landed resulted in my landing on my left hand (in which also had my digital camera) and my lower back (lower spine). As you can imagine I was scared and stunned at what had just occurred, but I gathered up my strength, stood up, and hobbled back to the group.

My body must have been pumping a lot of adrenaline into my body because in the first few minutes after falling off of the horse I was not in that much pain, but it became apparent after a while how much I had been injured. The leader of the group had me get on the lead horse since they did not want me to ride the crazy horse any more. That was quite the experience because the lead horse did not really want to stop ever and so when the group leader(s), who were behind me wanted to stop, it was a challenge to get the horse to stop or even slow down.

At the turn-around point of our horse ride, during the group picture taking, I decided that I didn't want to ride anymore and couldn't ride the rest of the way back to the stables. I had to walk a 1/2 mile to get back to the riding stables while Annah had to ride her horse back with the rest of the group. It sucked, but we were reunited at the end of the ride and we embraced each other and were happy that we were back in each other's arms!

It was quite the experience...but not quite what I had expected. But it will be a good story to tell our children!

Oregon Vacation: Our Engagement

On Wednesday, August 13, 2008 we woke up & ate breakfast at the casino. We were looking forward to a fun day and ending our lovely day with a sunset horseback ride (see next post). Then headed down to Bandon.
When we first arrived in Bandon, we decided to go find the beloved horse stables to see if we could sign up for the sunset ride. After signing up for the rides, we decided to go shopping for some souvenirs (sweatshirts for his sister & nieces). Last year when Jordan and his parents were in Bandon, they brought me back a nice Bandon Coast sweatshirt. At the same store, we looked around and found two sweatshirts that we loved. Jordan bought a black one and I bought a white one of the same style. We needed something warmer to wear during our sunset horseback ride later in the day. After we spent way too much money, we went to Face Rock Wayside with a beach access & viewpoint of the Bandon Coast. I could feel the cold & windy ocean air as soon as we stepped out of the car. After feeling how cold it was, I didn’t want to go down to the beach. But we only a few days left on the coast so I figured I could go see the ocean again. We each grabbed our cameras and started walking to the steps to start our descent down to the beach. About halfway down to the beach, Jordan tells me that he needs to go back to the car to get some Kleenex. I decide to wait on the steps for him. At this point I am crabby and cold. As soon as Jordan gets back we continue our journey to the beach area. We see a gigantic rock (the size of a continent) in the middle of the beach and I think, “I want to climb this”. I wanted to see what view of the ocean I could get from above & I love to climb rocks. Jordan scampers up the rock after me.
We look at the ocean and hug & kiss. Then all of a sudden he gets “shorter” and gets down on one knee. I’m thinking at this point, “What are you doing?” My question was soon answered. He said, “I love you so much and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” I was so surprised!!! I told him I’d have to think about it/let you know my answer when we get back to MN. Haha, just kidding! Of course, I said yes. The ring fit perfectly and glittered in the sunlight. We decided to try and re-capture the moment by putting the camera on self-timer and trying the different poses again!!
On our way down the rock, I was very cautious of my ring and didn’t want to scratch it. I couldn’t help but smile the entire rest of the time on the beach!!


**For the plane ride home, I bought my first bridal magazine!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Dear Friends & Family,
This Thanksgiving I am very thankful for lots of things! First, I am thankful for everyone in my family and everyone in Jordan's family (who have welcomed me into their family). I am thankful for my wonderful Fiance who puts up with just about anything, is very supportive, loving and caring!! I am also thankful for my children & families that I work with and my co-workers. This year we will be going to Jordan's sisters house for dinner and my family will be going to the cities. Yesterday afternoon I went up to the cities to see my relatives. It was nice to see them because I wouldn't be there for Thanksgiving. Our trade off is Easter. Easter is spent with my family.

Christmas is easily arrangeable because Jordan's family celebrates on Christmas Eve and my family the day of Christmas. I am thankful for having two families (almost)!!!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

Love,
Annah

Halloween 2008: Pumpkin Carving and Baked Pumpkin Seeds

This post is a couple of weeks behind schedule, but so is our Oregon Trip post...which will be coming soon in a number of posts which are broken down by day. We are sorry for the delay with our blog posting but we are going to try to update more often. It has been difficult without internet at home, but it's a good thing we have a library in town with wireless internet!

Anyway, on the weekend of October 25th and 26th, Annah and I went to a local pumpkin patch and selected a few pumpkins, and in addition we got some (delicious) jalapeño pepper jelly and we got to play with a little farm kitten, which was fun!

On Wednesday, October 29th we decided it was about time we carved the pumpkins, so after I arrived in Austin we placed the pumpkins on our table, gathered the supplies, and dug in!

Annah had never tried baked pumpkins seeds and it had been a few years since I had cooked up some so I decided that I would gather up all of the seeds, bake a few batches, and see what happened.

Apparently I never took a picture of the finished product, but the batches turned out pretty well. They were a little salty, crispy, and quite tasty.

While I was working on that, which took me a while, Annah carved out her masterpieces and did a fantastic job! I always carved out simple faces after drawing a simple design on the pumpkin, but Annah used a carving kit and made some awesome-looking jack-o-lanterns!

On the actual night of Halloween, I brought my parents' dog Lucy down to help us with handing out candy...she ended up being our doorbell since we don't actually have one installed. We had about 35 kids come by, which was much lower than we had expected, but we had leftover candy to enjoy for the next few months! We both had a great time and hopefully next year's Halloween will be just as fun!

A Trip to Decorah, Iowa

This past Saturday, Annah and I drove down to to Decorah, Iowa to attend the annual Nordic Fest, which I have been attending most years for the past twelve years or so, but I though that Annah might enjoy seeing a little bit of my Norwegian heritage.

Our first stop was at Seed Savers, which is a farm dedicated to collecting, growing, and preserving heirloom seeds so that the genetic diversity of all plants can be maintained. I have been visiting Seed Savers for probably somewhere around 15 years, and they have a nice store (the barn you see in the second picture below), beautiful gardens, and a fantastic collection of plants.

We spent a while in the store carefully picking through the bags of seeds and discussing what delightful plants we could grow in our yard at our new house in Austin. It was fun trying to plan out our own little flower garden and vegetable garden! After purchasing ten bags of seeds, which included tomatoes, snow peas, cucumber, spinach, arugula, borage, morning glory seeds, chrysanthemums, hollyhocks, and silverbeets. we then went out and walked through one of their small gardens where we took some photos of flowers and had fun being with each other!



The Nordic Fest was not nearly as crowded as it has been in years past when I attended it, possibly due to the fact that it was the last day of the event, but it was only moderately busy when we were there. We got to try a few different kinds of Scandinavian food and purchase some lefse, krumkake, and rosettes. It was fun, although we weren't all that hungry, and we didn't have time to check out the Norwegian Museum there, but we will do that the next time we are down there.


Our last destination, and probably the most fun for both of us, was the Decorah Fish Hatchery. There we got to see hundreds of Rainbow Trout and Brown Trout from various stages of life starting from small minnow-like baby trout to adult trout that were several pounds in size. This hatchery allows you to buy fish pellets to feed the trout as you are walking by and all of the fish seem to know this so when you walk by their cage they all swim around frantically waiting for food! We had a great time there and we look forward to going back there someday!