July Updates, House Pictures & A Special Event

It's hard to believe that July is almost over, but it's been a pretty good month overall. Ken and I took a trip last weekend to Minneapolis to see the Twins/Rangers game. It was good game and the Twins won. It's always nice to be at a game when the home team is winning, especially when you really don't care which team actually wins. After the game and a late-night trip to bail my nephew's car out of the impound lot in downtown Minneapolis (the short story is that he and his buddy parked in a bad spot and got towed for a grand fine of $280), we spent some more time in and around the city.

We also hit the Mall of America on Saturday followed by a trip to the Como Zoo (which of course included animals, cotton candy and more fabulous summer mini-donuts). Then off to a lovely Italian dinner in a small town outside of the big city. On Sunday, we went to Niagra Cave (picture is of me in the cave though it's hard to actually tell that I'm in a cave. The bad hair is blamed on the 90% humidity and the water dripping from the cave ceiling.) and then made our way back home by way of Burr Oak, IA where we decided to check out the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum (not very impressive I must say). We were going to hit the Beanpod Candle outlet store in New Hampton, IA, but made it there 30 minutes too late and they were closed. We'll have to save that for another time.

Oh, and I finally had a chance to get some pictures taken of our place. Here is the front and side.

We have a 1-stall garage and a driveway that conveniently allows us to park side-by-side. In the other picture, you'll see our garage (note all flowers were planted by a former renter not us). At the very back of the yard, it slopes downward toward a little creek. We even have ducks!

The other pictures are of the inside of the place. As you can see, the living room opens up into the kitchen and is divided by a bookcase/bar. We had wanted to get some bar stools to sit there, but we just haven't done it yet. We really like how open the whole main part of the house is. It's so much easier to see and talk to each other, not to mention it makes the whole place feel bigger. Ken was busy relaxing on the couch.

In other news, this weekend, Ken and I had some guests from Illinois. My friend (and former boss) Lisa from the Heartland TTC and her husband came through with some donations for the Kleins in CR. They brought several boxes of kids' things that I'm sure will be very useful. After a quick lunch at Peppers in Cedar Falls, they were off to head back to IL and enjoy some of the scenery by way of HWY 20 and Galena.

Friday night was a rather special night as well. Ken and I went to dinner at a Japanese Steakhouse up the street from us called Tokyo. This was a major event considering that Ken doesn't eat Chinese food or Japanese food, but he was a trooper and really enjoyed the rice, steak and chicken. He even ate some of the miso soup. I was very proud of him!

Afterwards, Ken really wanted to go mini-golfing, so I said ok and off we went to Airline Highway's mini golf center in Waterloo. There, on the 4th hole, I received my engagement ring, a beautiful 3-stone ring in white gold. For those of you thinking the location was an odd choice, you should know this was the site of our first date (oh so many) years ago in May of 2001. As is our fashion these hot summer days in Iowa, we grabbed ice cream on the way home and had a lovely evening overall!