The First Five Years...

Back in April for our 5th anniversary, I had an idea to create a photo book documenting everything we've done in the last five years. Now that summer is here, I've finally had some time to work on the book. It was neat to look back at all the pictures and remember all of the fun things we've done and places we've gone over the past five years. I thought I'd share a little bit of our last five years.

Got married, April 23rd, 2005
Honeymooned in Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Added Daisy to the family, August 2005
Traveled to L.A. while Tim was there for work, March 2006
Traveled to Washington, D.C., June 2006

Bought a new house, August 2006
Watched the Cardinals win a World Series and traveled to St. Louis for the parade, October 2006
Welcomed Natalie Grace to the Brenneman family, October 2006
Traveled to Houston to watch the Cats play in the Texas Bowl, December 2006
Built a snowman and broke my hand (Thanks Daisy) January 2007
Took ski trips to Breckenridge, Keystone, Winter Park & Copper Mountain
Went to several Cardinal games!

Welcomed Trent to the McClelland family, August 2007
Graduated with my masters, May 2008
Traveled to Europe, Summer 2008
Added a deck to our house, May 2009
Traveled to Orlando and Miami, June 2009
Went to the All-Star Game Festivities in St. Louis, July 2009
Welcomed Emily Kate to the Brenneman family, January 2010

Traveled back to Disney World with the McClelland Family, March 2010
Celebrated five years in San Francisco, April 2010

Winner, Winner!

I've been on a little lucky streak lately.
Our first stop at every Cardinal game is usually guest relations to sign up to be a designated driver. When you sign up to be a designated driver, you fill out your name, address, etc, and they give you a coupon for a free soda. The coupon for the free soda is the only reason we sign up, it usually saves us about $9 each game. Around the 5th or 6th inning the people at guest relations pick one person to be the Budweiser Good Sport of the game, they announce the name and put it up on the scoreboard. We really don't pay much attention to it (we've already won with our free sodas), but last weekend whose name appeared on the scoreboard, MINE, we couldn't believe it! So, after the game we headed to guest relations to claim my prize, I was thinking a cheap Budweiser t-shirt or a key chain, but instead got this really nice Cardinals polo.

This weekend the Cardinals came to town to take on the Royals and guess where our first stop was, yep Guest Relations to get our free soda coupon. And guess who was chosen as the Budweiser Good Sport of the game again, yep ME!

Here are my winnings, a Royals and a Cardinals polo. The Cardinal polo has already be given to Tim (I'm not sure it was ever even mine to begin with) and I'm not sure where they Royals polo will end up. Tim offered to keep it, but I'm not sure it matches the red in his wardrobe (not to mention he told me he'd never be caught dead in any Royals gear).
We're headed to another Cardinals game this weekend, so we'll see if my lucky streak can continue, if it does you might find me at the casinos after the game!

A "Vacation"

Tim has been traveling to Des Moines for work the last few weeks and last week I decided to tag along. I figured Des Moines had to be better than a week home by myself with nothing to do. While I was there, the teacher in me came out and I decided to visit the Iowa State Capitol.
Before I visited the Capitol, I did a little research and found out that it is the second prettiest capitol (I'm not sure what is the first).
Here is a little bit of what I saw...

Here is the front of the capitol, check out the gold dome! It was really pretty!
Here is a picture of the dome from the bottom floor. If you take a guided tour they let you climb to the top, I decided to stick with the first two floors.
Both of the people I talked to at the capitol told me not to miss the library, they were right! Check out the spiral staircase, they had one on each side.
The senate
This was the view of Downtown Des Moines from the steps of the Capitol.

I enjoyed my visit to the capitol, however, don't let this post fool you, I also spent plenty of time here...

This mall was wonderful! It had about every store a girl could need or want, if only I had an unlimited budget!
I also spent plenty of time here, it wasn't quite as nice as Jordan Creek, but was still nice.
I managed to entertain myself in Des Moines for the week and even found some great new back-to-school clothes.

Two Years Ago...

We looked like this...

And were getting ready to embark on our three week trip to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Oh how we wish we could go back. Germany, Austria, and Switzerland we will meet again! Here are a few pictures of our trip, for more info click on the travel label or go here.

Tim in Luzern, Switzerland

Jody in the Ice Palace at the Jungfraujoch
Hiking in the Swiss Alps
Jody at Schobrunn Palace in Vienna
Tim at the border of Poland
Jody at the Berlin Wall

An Old Friend

Since school is over and I've got more time on my hands, I've recently become acquainted with an old friend, my sewing machine. Here is my first bag of Summer 2010.

Hopefully this is the first project of many more to come!

Berry Picking

Last week, my friend, Krissondra, invited me to go strawberry picking with her, her son, and some friends. Picking strawberries was a new experience for me, and not only did I enjoy it, I was rewarded with a sweet treat after-wards. I didn't get any actual pictures of the picking, but here are a few pictures of my strawberries. I picked almost 2 pounds worth of strawberries and I was worried about eating them all by myself since Tim was out-of-town, but I had no trouble, they were delicious!

I loved how little and cute the strawberries were. These were three of my "perfect" berries.

Since I had some store-bought strawberries in the fridge, I thought I'd do a comparison. Can you tell which one is homegrown and which is store-bought?

No sugar needed for these sweet berries! Did I tell you they were good?
This was my sweet treat after an afternoon of volleyball camp!

I think strawberry season is over, but I hope to make this an annual event!
I had no idea such strawberry patches even existed, but it turns out they are more popular than I realize. While I was there, I picked up a map of more homegrown places and found a website, http://www.growinglawrence.org/. Thanks again, Krissondra for the invite!