Houston, Texas and PartyLite!

On July 25th I headed to Houston, TX for the annual PartyLite Conference. Here is a photo of the city from the Toyota Center Saturday evening. Candy, from Fargo, joined my team in May and this was her first conference. She had a blast and took it all in. There are some awesome new scents and the last Snow globe of the series!


These are the Roommates! Allie and Dawn are from St Peter, MN, then me and Candy. You cannot see the skyline of Houston very well behind us. We tried. We had a great time. Thanks everyone including my parents for watching the kids and Pat for holding down the fort!

Old Friends and New Friends

On July 13th, we packed up the van for a First time family get-away since the restaurant opened! Friday night we stayed with our friend Ron and our old friends/neighbors stopped by. Craig and Brenda along with Rollin and Diane. IT was so nice to visit and see you all.
On Saturday, friends Pat went to school with in Montevideo have a lake cabin on Buchanan by Ottertail and invited us to stay with them. They live in St Cloud, so it has been a while since we have seen them! It was so good to catch up! Here are the kids, Jaci and Julieanna and then Kaitlyn, Matt and Zach. We had a great time. Thanks guys!

Then we headed just a couple miles down the road to Blanch lake. Marlow and Janet are firends that live in Rapid City SD and stay for one week on the lake in MN. They invited to stop by and catch up. Pat worked with this gang at JC Penney's years ago! (sorry, I was still in Junior High!) Marcy (origianlly from Underwood) and Jeff live in Texas, Darcy (originally from Battle Lake) was a roommate of theirs and DeeDee (originally from Elbow Lake) also worked there. It was nice to see them and meet some of them for the first time. Amazing how it all worked out to meet on the same weekend!
We headed back to Fergus Falls and stayed with Ron and headed home early monday morning. Thanks Shawn for holding down the fort!

Camping time!

Zach is enjoying a stroll along the river. On Tuesday we were able to spend the night camping (for the first time) along the river. We spent the whole day together on the 4th and the crew did a great job at the store with out us!
Sunset on the Missouri
The bonfire with sunset and Pat and Uncle Jerry in the background. We all had a great time!

Growing Princess

Jaci poses for mommy. She has been under the weather lately. She contracted a virus that attacks her mouth with sores. She has been pretty miserable. We have been taking it easy. She is on the mend and today is back to normal after about a week!

Summer Fun!

The Missouri River divides Bismarck and Mandan. South of Bismarck is an area where the marine corp of engineers allows people to use sand trails and the river for recreation. We put in Pat's brother's jet ski and had some summer fun. Here is Pat and Zach enjoying the river!







Dakota even had his time for fun!



Jaci and Zach had their chance at "Chicken" with my cousin Jen and her friend Stefania.


The scenery along the river is amazing. This is looking over to the mandan side.





The sand trails are used by all types of vehicles. Mostly 4-wheelers, but also by dirt bikes, sand buggy's and decked out trucks!

Birthday Party

Thank you Auntie Trisha for the Skateboard cake! Present time is always enjoyed.

All done with a day of Fun! Taylor is into the movie.

Baseball Stud!

Thank you Grandma Mert, Auntie Lana and Cathy for the Better Batter Baseball set that you gave Zach. The neighbor girls think that he is pretty cool!