Sunday, August 28, 2016

Back Porch Revival

So Friday we didn't have daycare for Piper, so I stayed home with her. After my day with Presley I decided that having NO plans is probably a better idea than trying to make something happen. So we slept in a while, she ate breakfast while I walked on the treadmill, then we got ready and got things packed for the weekend. About 11:30 we decided to leave the house, got gas, got cash and then SHE wanted El Mariachi and who am I to tell her no on our girls day together?! :) We ate a quick lunch and then got home about the same time Steve did. We packed up the car and headed to drop Piper at my parents house for the weekend! Mom was able to pick up Presley from school so that we could get on the road to Iowa City.
 
We got the tickets to this concert almost a year ago and one of our friends is basically the one organizing it so sometimes it pays to know people and we got the hook up with the hotel, the preparty Friday night, good seats at the concert!!....overall it was just a perfect weekend (besides the complete lack of sleep).
We checked into the hotel right downtown and walked to Brothers to have a drink or two before the preparty at Kinnick Stadium started. We were the oldest people there and the waitress didn't come to our table ONE time the entire hour we were there. Doesn't she know that old people will tip her better than those damn college students?
 Ashton Kutcher (left in the Iowa hat), our friend Kyle next to him and then Dallas Clark in the red on the right. Ashton and Dallas are the founders of the Native Fund organization and it was so cool to have all the contributors to this event in one area.
 A view of the stadium from the pressbox at Kinnick the night before the concert. So cool!
 and yes, Mila Kunis was there too....pregnant and cute!
 Dallas and his highschool friends with Ashton and Mila. This is the group we ended up hanging out with until 2 am (minus Ashton and Mila)
 They spoke about the Native Fund.
 Ashton is a really good speaker!
 Hunter Smith played. He was a punter for the Colts when Dallas played there and he also was one of the openers for the concert on Saturday! Very cool to hear him sing for the 100ish people in the room.
 Cari, Steve, Dallas, Me and Todd
 After the party we all headed out to a restaurant to get a bite to eat and then we ended up tagging along with Dallas and his friends to another bar....where we shut down the bar! Do you know how long it has been since we have been at the bar at closing time? Notice the lights on and NO one else around, yeah, b/c we were the last ones out!
 The next morning we were slow to get up, but we got ready and headed to find a bite to eat before heading to Kinnick for tailgating before the concert. We had the prime tailgating spot, right outside the entrance b/c we had parked cars there the night before after the preparty! :) We had such a good group of people, mainly Steve's highschool friends and it was so nice to see people that we haven't seen in a LONG time! The weather ended up being perfect too!
 We went into the concert at about 5 and found some people that we knew who were sitting right by us. Thanks to Todd and Cari for letting us use these awesome seats in row 1 of the bleachers!
 Dallas and Ashton talking before Big and Rich taking stage


 Big and Rich did a great job!


 Thomas Rhett took the stage, man I love him! So many good songs and so hot!
 Kyle and Maggie relieved that the concert was going smoothly and everyone was having a good time!



 Thomas Rhett in a Hawkeye jersey :)
 and then Blake Shelton played. He is just so funny and so personable. He talks to the crowd, he is sarcastic and JUST like he is on The Voice. And he has SO many good songs, the guy next to me was probably irritated that I was singing every song as loud as I could.




After the concert we were able to join another private party that Kyle and Dallas organized, free pizza and drinks...and again, it was 2 in the morning before we headed home. We are too old for that but you only live once right?
 
This morning we struggled to get up and on the road, mainly just exhausted (and maybe slightly hungover) but we powered thru. We picked up the girls about 11:30, headed home, unpacked, showered, ate real quick and then headed to Boston's 6th birthday party! Again my sister outdid herself with his cookies! Amazing!! Happy Birthday Boston Tucker!
 
We had to leave his party a little early b/c Piper had 'Meet the Teacher' for her new classroom from 2-3 pm. We got there about 2:45, found her room, her locker and headed home. The girls were grouchy ALL weekend for my parents and even the same for the short amount of time we were around them so we warned them that all 4 of us were having quiet time at 3 pm. We got home, got them settled in their rooms (playing with toys, an ipad, whatever as long as they are apart from each other and can't fight!) and then about 4 they came out of their rooms and 4:30 we slowly got up and started moving. Piper then had soccer practice at 6, so Steve took her to that and it ended up getting rained out.
We were all tired so we did our bedtime routine earlier than normal and both kids were in bed at 7:30 and asleep about 8....just what we all needed!
 
Thank you to my parents for taking our kids for the weekend! And sorry they were naughty! :( They even took Piper to her first soccer game! The cuteness is too much for me to handle!!
I guess she did a lot of watching, while on the field and said she doesn't want to do it anymore. So we'll see how the next couple weeks go!

Thursday, August 25, 2016

First Day of School

Because I'm rebelling against posting 1st day of pictures on FB (b/c there were so many it was a little overwhelming), I will post them here!
Here is Presley on her first day of 2nd grade and Piper's last day of being a Junior at Generation.
I love this picture except the owl in the background kind of spooked me. 
So we changed picture angles.
Presley had an awesome drop off, basically it doesn't faze her anymore, just another day!

Hump Day.

I took Wednesday off to hang out with Presley before school started. I got up and walked on the treadmill and showered before she got up at 9:45! She was in a TERRIBLE mood! Super snotty so I left her alone until she decided that she could be a normal human being.
Finally we headed out for lunch at Legends...where she refused to eat outside and didn't eat any of her pancakes. Oh well, we had fun coloring and playing game after game of tic-tac-toe.
We had a really hard time getting one descent picture!
We were going to go roller skating...she had talked about it for weeks. We drove to Skate North right before they were about to open and she changed her mind. Really child? So we drove ALL the way back near where we ate lunch and got pedicures. She loves this pampering!
We got home about 3ish and she just wanted to hang out. I tried to get some things done, did some reading....and might have snoozed for a little bit and then it was time to head out for gymnastics! Steve picked up Piper and headed there too since her class starts about 1/2 hour after Presley's.
She was SO excited and SO cute!



And again, this girl is not afraid to just jump right into something. And she has no problems speaking up and asking 'Now what do I do?' as loud as she can, while the coach is helping another kid. She had a smile on her face the whole time! 
When Presley's class was done we watched the rest of Piper's class.
Presley in her new leotard...she wanted a red, white and blue one after watching the Olympics!




So fun watching them!  I don't know how parents leave or get on their laptops while their kids participate in these things. But this is all fairly new to us, maybe in 5 years we'll be tired of watching them too.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Summer is over

The week before school is always a little different for us (and I'm sure most families). KTC is closed for the 3 days before school and then Generation is closed for Piper on Friday, so that is 4 days that we have to adjust schedules. Thankfully my parents are amazing and agreed to take Presley Monday and Tuesday for us. She had a great time going on hikes, finding all sorts of cool rocks and just lot of time outside. I'm so happy that they get to have this time with just her b/c it doesn't happen often enough.
 
Tuesday we had "Meet the Teacher" for Presley. I left work early, picked her up from my parents house and then headed to meet Steve at the school. We found her room, met her teacher (who is young and goodlooking, so Steve is thrilled), found her desk and got her comfortable with her surroundings there. Quick and easy....unfortunately Presley was not easily agreeable for pictures. So I got one in front of the new school sign and that was it. She refused to have her picture taken with the 'dragon' outside, which seems to be a tradition in Johnston (at least for most kids).

Monday, August 22, 2016

THE SHED

It started with a dream (and thousands of pinterest and google searchs and ideas) about 2 years ago. Last April he measured laid ideas out in the yard and got started on this in May. Between May and October he got 90% of it done and doing 90% of it all by himself (the only thing he subbed out was the roof)(and he had good help with the concrete and framing!) and it looks great, but of course Steve can't stop there, he must push on to make this THE ultimate shed.

This year he stained the concrete, which turned out amazing. Built the fence/seat/planters and stained it and got the rock put in around the perimeter! So now we can say it is 100% done.
I think it turned out almost exactly how he had planned and we are all happy with it!

And not to mention the playset that he got off of Johnston swap for cheap....got some guys together to take apart, move to our house and put back together....and THEN he stained it along with our deck!













This is from the south side of our yard to the north side where the playset it. (see the shed garage door on the right and our deck way off to the left)

This is from the north side to the south side! We love our yard and how open it is with no trees of our own! :)

So what I'm really saying is that if my husband has a dream he usually works to make it come. Basically he rocks! Love you and thank you!o