My Party!!!

...my party was Saturday. Matt did a great job cleaning the house all day Friday! I did a couple things but according to him, I didn't clean so I'm giving him all the credit-thanks Pretty for your help!

I think I ended up having 15 people from all my walks of life! Some were from work, some blogger friends, some college friends and some family. My friend Jenny couldn't remember which house was ours. She knocked on the door and someone said, "Come in!" So she did and then realized she was at the wrong house! My neighbor pointed her in the right direction and told her to tell us hello. HA! I only snapped one photo of the evening-oops!
OH! I totally forgot to take a picture of all the food! I was worried we wouldn't have enough but we ended up with plenty, Matt was a very happy camper when he got home on Sunday from the farm to all the leftovers.

We had the 31 lady in the basement, she was the "quieter" side of the party because really people just went down there to place their orders. My friend Stevie ordered all 9 of her bridesmaids (including me!) tote bags with our initial on it. I can't wait to get mine...in April 2012!

Haley was there as the waitress. She did a good job taking everyone's coats and getting them a drink. After everyone arrived though, she got an earache so she went to my room to lay down. She wanted Emma so I brought her upstairs but Emma only wanted me so she cried. Here's a picture I snapped of them, as you can tell Emma was NOT happy.
She was passed out sound asleep by the time they left. Overall, I would have to say that my third party ever at my house (the first being 5 years ago and the other being outside when we had the pool) was pretty successful. I was kind of bummed though because I didn't get much time to chat with anyone individually and some of the girls I hadn't seen in FOREVER!!! Oh well, the good thing (well depends on how you look at it!) is that all the 31 stuff comes to me so I'll have to deliver it to the ladies and hopefully have a chance to visit and catch up then.

Thank you everyone for coming and ordering! I'll do a follow-up post when I get the stuff I ordered. What'd everyone else order or what'd you do this weekend?

It's FRIDAY!!!

…the week is over! Whew! Where has it gone? Well, I was off work Monday and today, so with a three day work week, I’m not surprised that it flew by. Some random stories throughout the week:

*I went grocery shopping last Friday and was super stoked about a bag of oranges for $3 and they were HUGE too! I love oranges so it was great. Then I got home and realized they were grapefruits. FAIL!
*Tuesday at work, I was driving the big huge 15 passenger van when BAM! I hit a mailbox. I had scooted over so there was room for both a big delivery truck and me on a narrow road. Sigh…FAIL!
*Matt and I are both off work today so we’re cleaning the house from top to bottom for the party tomorrow. I’m so worried about seating and what people will think of our house. It’s nothing fancy so I’m just warning you all now.
*I’ve done really well on my diet that past two weeks, both eating and exercising. I haven’t really weighed myself but pants are fitting looser so that’s exciting!
*I’ve come home late two nights this week and Matt had dinner ready for me. This was super exciting (and both meals were delish!); however, Matt tends to add ingredients that I don’t and that add calories! I’ve had to politely tell him to just make mine plain and I’ll add what I want. He tries though and I appreciate that.
*I’m so ready for race season to start!!!
*I might be helping with the 5k Training Program at work. By no means am I an expert or have the knowledge but the group ranges from people who want to run sub-30 5ks to people who just want to walk a 5k. Being a slower runner, I know what it’s like to be at the back of the pack so I said I’d help out bringing up the rear. I’m excited about it so let’s hope it warms up so we can get some outside runs!!!
*Sensitive, yes that’s me, I’m sensitive. Matt can say “yes” the wrong way and I’ll start questioning why right away. Sometimes its certain issues that make people upset but the point of this rambling is that in this blog land and in my IF blog land, people have written certain posts that have upset other bloggers. Long story short, yes I’ve been on both ends of being insensitive and being over-sensitive but what it boils down to is that everyone has their own cross to carry. Just because we can’t have kids doesn’t mean I have it “worst” than a mom who is having trouble with her child going through the terrible twos. I guess what I’m saying is that blogging is for “ourselves,” our outlets to talk about whatever we want. I don’t think any of us write things setting out to be mean or hurt others feelings, I think we all just write for ourselves.

I know this is all jumbled and all over the place today but that’s how my mind has been this week if you can’t tell by #1 and #2 bonehead things I’ve done this week. I’m looking forward to my party tomorrow night and even bought my favorite bottle of wine to enjoy a glass or two, Lord knows I’ll need it! Happy Friday all!

Grocery Thursday Part II...

...week 2 and we stuck to the food plan! The meals:

Monday-Tacos w/ deer burger
Tuesday-Pork Steaks & Baby Potatoes
Wednesday-Fish & Green beans
Thursday-Chicken & Rice
Friday-Spaghetti w/ deer burger
Saturday-Bacon & tomato sandwich & baked Chips
Sunday-Ham & Mashed Cauliflower

Okay, so this week's grocery bill was a bit more expensive because 1. we needed pork and 2. we ate at home every night (except for Sunday because of the church's annual sausage supper). Grand total: $70.33 BUT keep in mind that $22.97 was for a 50 lb bag of dog food so if you subtract that, then I spent $47.36 on groceries for the humans. I bought pork chops instead of pork steaks because they were on sale. The pork chops were an eight-pack so I can freeze those and not have to spend as much next time I go.

Honestly, this week I LOVED every meal except the bacon and tomato sandwiches; I overcooked Matt's bacon and undercooked mine. I even made some meals ahead of time when I had to work in the evening. I was totally bummed because I REALLY want to try the mashed cauliflower!!!

Tastefully Simple & 31...

...I'm having a Tastefully Simple & 31 Party this weekend! I'm super excited because I love both. My sister and neice are helping me throw it. I told Haley that her job was to walk around, smile and say, "Hello. May I get you a drink?" When I told her this, she sighed and said, "But their all strangers!" LOL-she's so funny!

Tastefully Simple has so many good things like Key Lime Cheesecake Ball, Spinach & Herb Mix, Beer Bread, Potato Cheese Soup....I could keep going but I won't! Tonight, Mattie and I are having potato cheese soup-yum!!! So tell me, what are your favorite items from Tastefully Simple or 31? I need some ideas!!!

Egg in a Basket & A Tweet-Up!!!

...this past Saturday, we had a Tweet-Up at Trailhead in downtown St. Charles. We had decided to meet up at 1pm so first things first, I had chores to get done in the morning! Matt was headed to his grandma's to work in her yard and I was baking cakes for the Sausage Supper at church on Sunday. As I was baking, I only had one egg left so Matt asked if I would make an egg for him. Sure no problem! But being me and seeing no fun in cooking just one egg, I decided I would try to make him an "Egg in a Basket" AKA "Toad in a Hole." Basically, you use a cookie cutter to remove the center of the bread. Then cook the egg inside the toast. I made it, served it and you would have thought the sky was falling!!! He was freaking out!!! Ahh...men! They're so hard to please!!! I should have just made the egg, I didn't know he'd flip about some toast around it! Anyways, long story short, I made him breakfast, baked two cakes, ran with Emma (mainly to burn calories from sampling cake batter!), did dishes, laundry, showered, iced the cakes AND got ready all before lunch-whew! I finally got to Trailhead to meet up with the Twit-Gals, (left to right): Meg, Jen, Cece, Della, Jenn and me

It was a great time! However, every time I looked at Meg, "it turned into sex!" Conversation that is but that's not how it came out! We shared lots of laughs, lots of calories (that didn't count bc they don't count when you're with friends, right?), lots of stories and we can't wait until next month! Hopefully, we'll have lots more of these meet-ups plus I'll be seeing some of these ladies on the race course.

A New Baby, a Walk and a Missing Gallbladder...

...Whew! What a day!!! Last Friday, I was off work so I decided I'd make my rounds visiting friends. First off though, on Thursday night, Jen and I had a great workout but when I went to bed, I could not turn off my brain. The last time I looked at the clock was 3AM and I finally drifted off to sleep. At 6am, Emma was whining to go out so I was up and at 'em. I started my day off early.

First stop-Christina's!!! I got to visit almost two-week old (1 day shy) Baby Matthew. He's so tiny and precious!!! Here's mom and son:
His brother Brutus wanted in the picture too. I seriously LOL every time I see this pic!

After I left Christina's, I headed over to Angie's. We took Nick on a walk around Francis Park which was two miles. It was a GORGEOUS day out and a great way to visit with a friend. Angie along with some other bloggers (Cece and Jen and me) are doing the Delta Gamma 5k in May. She'll rock it!

Then I headed back out to St. Charles County to visit my friend Stevie who just had her gallbladder out. We looked at wedding decorations and decided what the different speeds for the tealights meant you were either a partier or not. Here's Stevie minus her gallbladder:

After I left her place, I went to have our taxes done. I found out that IVF would count as a deduction-woohoo!!! We also counted our medical miles and I was shocked! I thought we lived fairly close to our clinic compared to other women but after I added it all up, Matt and I drove 868 miles to and from there!!! After I left there, I went grocery shopping, came home and made dinner then we headed to the nursery to load mulch. Once I got home, I had to figure out our IVF expenses and med miles and WHEW! Ladies, I.was.exhausted!!! I was in bed by 8pm but I loved every minute of my busy, busy day!

New Game Plan...

...okay, so I had created this elaborate plan for Jen and I with our half marathon training starting on January 3. We did okay for a couple weeks then fell off the wagon. I'm trying my bestest to get back on it. I've decided to reevaluate and regroup so here's my new plan.

From now until my birthday:

Monday/Wednesday-Group Fitness classes at work
Tuesday-Swim
Thursday-Run on the treadmill
Sometime Friday, Saturday or Sunday-run outside

Group Fitness-My work has started offering free fitness classes on M/W at 1pm. "Alyssa, you work at a gym-what's the big deal about that?" Well, 1. it's in the afternoon which is our slower time and 2. it's a much smaller class with people you know. So far it's worked me REALLY hard and it's been fun.

Swim-For the past 2 years, I've been trying to make the Swim Mileage Club at work. My goal was to always get a shirt (25 miles), I always failed. Apparently so did everyone else. The guy in charge changed it to 15 miles which I know I can TOTALLY do! This past Tuesday, I decided to swim. I thought I'd just do a half mile. I did and it wasn't 30 minutes yet. So I thought I'd swim at least 30 minutes then I thought just go for it! So in 38 minutes (nothing impressive) I swam a mile!!! Now only 14 more to go!

Run on Treadmill-Just trying to get back my endurance and build up my mileage.

Outside Run-Friday/Saturday/Sunday, two days will be my rest days (or maybe small walks around the neighborhood). One day though, I'm going to just run outside...no set mileage, just run. During my training last year, I did the majority of my training on the treadmill and there's a HUGE difference between that and running outside on a race course.

Starting March 14, we'll be 8 weeks out from the Indy 500 Half Marathon. I'm following a different yet similar training plan I followed last year. I'm going to try out the Intermediate Half Marathon Plan from Fitness Magazine (printed March 2010). If it's too hard then I'll go back to the trusty plan I did last year. My goal for this training is to do ALL my long runs outside.

So I've regrouped and recharged and now I'm moving forward!

Grocery Thursday Part I...

...okay, so I'm trying to eat better, save money, blah blah blah-you all know what I'm talking about. SO I took some time and made out 4 weeks worth of meal plans, that's 28 dinners and I tried not to repeat. It was REALLY, REALLY HARD!!! But I did it! I tried to have each protein only once a week, a few weeks I had to double. I'm going to post my weekly meal plans every Thursday along with how much I spent on groceries. So here we go, Week 1 Dinner Meal Plan:

Monday-Chicken w/ Italian Dressing & Green beans
Tuesday-Eggs, Sausage & Hashbrowns
Wednesday-Easy Roasted Pork
Thursday-Fish & Corn
Friday-Deer burger muffin cups
Saturday-Bacon & yogurt Baked potato
Sunday-Homemade pizza

Along with each of these meal plans, I also made a grocery list. Literally all I have to do is print this off each week, check off what we have from home, add anything we need for breakfast/lunch and go to the store. This first week, I only spent $25.31 at the grocery store because 1. We didn't eat at home Wednesday or Sunday and 2. I had stock piled on green beans and corn.

I bought Gorton's Herb and Butter filets (only 90 calories each) and ugh...won't be eating that again. I'm not a huge fish person so it might take a couple trial and error to find something I really like. So Thursday night was the only night I was really hungry because I let Matt finish off my fish for me.

We plan to rotate these 4 weeks for about 2-3 months then trade out some meals that we don't like, it's getting old or its not the season (umm...chili really isn't something we want to eat in July). Share some of your favorite meals so I can mix-up my meal plan!!!

Kitchen Addition...

...we got an over the hood microwave!!! I'm so flippin' excited. We've had this monstorous microwave that sits on our counter since I've lived here. It was actually my sister's microwave that I took to college then to my apartment in SC and then to this house. Whenever I would cook, it was such a pain because I had NO counter space.

My MIL came over before Christmas and we got to talking about the house and what needed to be updated and such. She picked up on me complaining about the microwave so for Christmas, her and my FIL gave us $300 for this project.

Perfect! But like any project, you get nickeled and dimed so the microwave was under $300 but then we have to buy white metal for the backsplash (or whatever it is) and that was a $100 then the electric box had to be installed then all this little stuff. Oh well...bottom line is that it's done! Ta da!!!
While Matt cleaned up his mess, I scrubed the whole stove since it was out and every side was easily accessible. Then we put everything together and just look at that extra counter space!

Only down side is that there isn't a lot of room between the stove and microwave so you have to bend a little to see the knobs and clock but it's worth it! Plus now all the ugly brown paneling from the old stove is gone!

Matt's been off quite a bit last month but he's gotten a TON of updating/renovating done. We've added ceiling fans in our bedrooms, FINALLY finished the hall bathroom (kinda) and then this microwave thing. Luckily, we'd purchased the projects over the past couple years so we didn't spend TOO much money all at once. I'll try to post about the other updates around the house.

Thank you pretty! I love the microwave and I'll do my best to keep it clean even though you let your BBQ baked potato explode in it over the weekend!

What We Did for Vday...

...a quick recap of our Valentine's celebration. I had to work on Monday evening (I volunteered so everyone else could be with their lovies) so we took the weekend to celebrate.

On Saturday, we did the Truffle Shuffle. He wanted to make sure everyone knew I was taken! He's a nerd but I love him! I've been dying to try out this new bakery and I know Mattie loves chocolate so I got us a Triple Chocolate Mousse cake. Not on the diet but totally worth it!

Sunday night we went on our annual date to Shogun. Yummy deliciousness!!! However, the lady on the other side of Matt kept talking to him. I said, "Hey! You're on a date with me, mister!" Sorry for the lazy, drunk eyes, I hadn't been drinking, I was just anticipating the flash!

After dinner, we went to Yo My Goodness-LOVE IT!!! Did I mention that we threw our diets out the window on Sunday? We were good again on Monday though.

We spent Monday morning hanging out, took Emma for a walk and took Shadow to get a bath at Petco. Everyone loved him there-of course!!! OH! Matt also washed my car for me on Sunday. Then Monday afternoon he showed up at work with three roses, chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate covered pretzels!!! I love chocolate covered pretzels!!! Don't worry, I ate the serving size then put them away. (Another shot of my high school lockerish desk).

Yes, I had to put my name on the strawberries so no one would steal them! It was a pretty great celebration for us even though I had to work. I must say, I really feel like I got spoiled this year. Heart you Pretty!!!

Truffle Shuffle...

...this past Saturday, Matt and I ran/walked in the 4 Mile Truffle Shuffle by Big River Running.
WOW!!! I was nervous going into this race bc let's be honest...I haven't trained at all but I REALLY shocked myself!!! This was the 4 Mile Truffle Shuffle by Big River Running. We started the race and as soon as we crossed the start, Matt looked at me and said, "Good luck pretty! Love you!" I told him the same and he took off. I was a bit confused on the course bc it was BACKWARDS what the video on their website showed. Oh well! My goal was to at least run the first mile and I did AND SOME!!! I walked a bit until we got on the trail, which was like a skating rink in parts but I survived and didn't bust it.

At mile two, I found my competition: 'Ole Blue and Tights. The three of us kept trading places for all of mile 2-3. 'Ole Blue was making it obvious bc she'd glance over her shoulder at me and if I was walking then she was, if I was running, she was. Between 2 and 3 was a much needed water station BUT NO CUPS!!! I was totally bummed bc I REALLY needed some agua. Oh well, keep on. I ran to the next main road and then I walked the STEEP hill knowing I wanted to save up my energy for a big finish.

A little after mile 3, the STEEP hill ended and I started running again. I turned back into the college where the finish was. At this time, 'Ole Blue was behind me and Tights was ahead of me. Then Tights started walking!!! I got to her and looked over at her. I huffed and puffed these words to her, "Hey...we're going to finish running. See those two ladies? We're going to pass them." She nodded okay, walked a bit more then told me she was ready. So the two of us took off and finished strong! I beat Tights across the finish line with 'Ole Blue behind both of us. I walked over and high-fived Tights then Matt was there to tell me good job and the other couple that did the race with us.

Matt ran it in 38:20! I'm so proud of him-that's under 10 minute miles!!! He also said he didn't walk at all and he's super stoked for our annual 5k if he did this well in this race. Great job Pretty!!!

When I saw the time on the clock, my eyeballs about popped out of my head!!! My goal was under an hour and I was just barely over 50 minutes!!! WOOHOO!!! I would say I probably ran 80% and walked 20% so I DEFINITELY liked that. Not my strongest race but it felt good to know I could still do it and to get a race under my belt for 2011. Not to mention the chocolate medal that was given to me as soon as I crossed the finish line-that was a bonus!!!

We signed up in the Sweetheart Division so we had to wear these bibs that said "Taken"
If you beat Cupid's time then you won a bottle of wine. Cupid is the new store manager at Big River's O'Fallon store. His time was like 28 minutes. Here's Holly and I with him:
We finished!!! Definitely wore WAY too many clothes but I'd rather be warm than cold. After Snowmaggedon, it was a perfect day!!!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!! Hope you spend it with people you love...spouses, puppies, kiddos, parents, siblings, freinds! I'm working tonight so we celebrated last night with dinner at Sho-Gun so tonight Matt's home lovin' on the pups!

Snow=Forgetting How to Park...

...I'm sure you all heard we had Snowmaggedon here last week. It really wasn't as bad as we were expecting although my work did close early and open late for the first time in history!!! Anyways, Snowmaggedon must have made people forget how to park.

See how intimidating the snow in the parking lot is:
Oops! We can't pull all the way into our spot, so instead of finding a different spot (two away, an extra 12 feet to walk), we'll just block half the lot so cars have about 2 inches to spare on either side.
Or better yet, I'll pull in behind a car that pulled too far through and just block them in. Yes, people all three of these cars are parked-no drivers around:

But you know what would be REALLY awesome, I'll just park in the middle of the lane and not worry about it:

Yes, people, these are all real situations and yes, this was all in the SAME parking lot. Come on spring!!! People forget how to park and drive in the snow, we need the spring weather to get here ASAP.

Little Bitty Lovies...

...my little Hay Hay, my neice, turned 7 this past weekend!?! That's bananas, I still remember driving through the snow storm across the state to be at the hospital when she was born, the time I babysat her at 4 months old and was giving her double water to formula-oops!, holding her to meet Fred Bird while she was screaming, me about to pass out from his B.O. and my sister crying because she was laughing so hard and all those memories are just from her first year!!!

So what do 7 year olds want for their birthdays? This 7 year old wanted a word search book and a towel wrap! Word search book-check, that was an easy find. The towel wrap I had no idea where to start so I decided to head over to Etsy. I found this great lady, whose actually in Missouri too, who made the cutest towel wraps! She makes tons of cute things other than towel wraps, if you want to check her out, her shop's name is Little Bitty Lovies.

One thing I love about ordering from Etsy is that the packaging is always so, so cute!!!

The final product! Tiffany blue towel with hot pink ribbon. She embroidered her name for free.

I just told her what size clothes H was wearing and then I think she just cuts down a regular towel to size.

I absolutely LOVE it and I'm sure H will too!!!

Daily Mile 2011 Team...

...last week, I got an email from Daily Mile saying that I'd qualified to apply for the 2011 Daily Mile team. All I had to do was submit a video and then it was up to the members of Daily Mile to vote. Here's my video:



Yes, it's only 45 seconds but that's what I wanted. In the email, they said that over 300 people qualified!?! To qualify, you had to leave 800 comments (!!!) in the last 6 months. Wow-I guess I really do "talk" a lot! Anyways, I figured if half of those people applied and each person had a video 1-2 minutes long...well, I'm not math major but you'd be at your computer for a LONG time watching applicants. If you're on the team, you help blog (hello! I would be GREAT at that), organize meet-ups, encourage others, etc...Sounds perfect to me!

So let me know what you think! And if you're on Daily Mile then one-please friend me and two-pretty please vote for me! To those of you that have already voted-THANK YOU!!! And a big thank you to Joe for all your help with the video-I think it's fab!

Harry & David...

...a couple Saturdays ago, I got a package on the front porch. I didn't really read the box and just opened it. This is what was inside:
I looked in all the boxes and everywhere and could NOT figure out who it was from. I was so excited, I had a secret admirer!!! Then I got out the box it was shipped in and saw that it was from my co-worker who had just moved to KC. We always watched their dog when they were out of town and it was a thank you gift.

Here are all the contents: truffles, pairs, jam cookies, cherry chewie things, mixed nuts and chocolate and carmel popcorn.

The truffles...melt in your mouth delicious!

The popcorn (horrible picture) was to die for!!! I LOVED IT!!! The chocolate pieces were my favorite and I didn't share them with Matt.

The boxes were from Harry & David. Apparently, a lot of people had heard of them before but this was the first time I found out about them. It was pretty fabulous if I do say so myself! Thanks Shell-we'll miss you guys!

Nerd Berd...

...my great blog friend Maggie opened her Etsy store Nerd Berd. I asked her to make me a blue hat to match my peacoat and I absolutely love it!!! Check it out:
From the side:

Maggie makes hats for kids and adults (you have to check out her Etsy site to see the Owl hat-so flippin' cute!), iPhone covers and cowls! Everything is fabulous, I know you'll love it so go check it out!

My Review of Night Stand/Accent Table with Drawer and Cabinet Storage in Antique Walnut

Originally submitted at CSN Stores

Features:

• Night stand/Accent table
• Antique walnut finish
• This night stand is finished and sanded in multiple stages to distress the piece and give it the look of a well-loved antique
• Solid and composite wood construction
• Includes one drawer and a ...

Night Stand/Accent Table with Drawer and Cabinet Storage in Antique Walnut

Nice End Table;tough to put together

By Aly the Blogger from St. Peters, MO on 2/4/2011

 

4out of 5

Now that the end table it put together and in my living room, I absolutely LOVE it!!! However, it was a little tought to put together but my lovely hubs helped me out. It looks exactly like it does in the picture. We had to use a drill to get everything together and tight. Still love it though!

In use

Ta-da! Finished!!!

(legalese)

Tracks...

...last Thursday during our hike, Matt pointed out lots of tracks to me. I thought I'd share. Here's our trip in tracks...

Matt, Shadow and Emma lead us into the woods...
First tracks I spotted-deer!
Matt drew the arrow for us so we'd find our way back, he's a smart thinker!

Look at all those rabbit tracks! We saw and heard a few guys out rabbit hunting.

Tractor tracks, the drove the Christmas trees to the graveyard...sad!

Gobble, gobble-turkey tracks!

Woof! Woof! Puppy tracks, Emma tracks to be exact!

My tracks!!!

While I may not be a cold weather person and not enjoy the outdoors as much as Matt, its still fun to go out with him sometimes and I always learn something along the way too. Now if only he'd go the theater with me!

My Jockey Mini Briefs...

...A couple weeks ago, if you were a "fan" of Jockey then you had the opportunity to win a pair of mini briefs. I had no idea what they were but I'm always up for free! I quickly became a fan and saw the rules. At exactly noon, the first 250 people to click on the link would win. I didn't think it was that big of a deal but apparently it was!!! People were SOOOO pissed that they didn't win and the link posted like 30 seconds early.

So...I won!!! Which is crazy, insane because Jockey has over 65,000 fans AND the 250 free pairs were gone in 5 seconds!?! YES FIVE SECONDS!!! How bananas is that?! So about a week later, I get them in the mail. First off, let's look at how huge the package is compared to the actual mini brief:
Second, what the heck am I going to do with this? When I saw what it was, I thought it was 1. smaller and 2. plastic. No, it's a key chain with like a small pair of briefs on them...real cloth.

I hung them on the cabinet knob in the kitchen to see if Matt would notice. He did and his response was, "WTH are these???"

LOL-so any ideas what I should do with these???

An Afternoon with the Fam & Hiking...

...Last Thurday I got off work early. Matt is really trying to help me stay with the exercising and encouraging me. Since I was off work, we decided to head out to Busch Wildlife and hike. We were gone for an hour and it was a really good workout and lots of fun! We drew arrows in the snow to make sure we knew our way back. I'm going to do another post later this week about all the tracks we saw but for today's...my pups led the way:
We found one of the frozen lakes. After checking for thickness, Matt and Shadow braved their way onto the ice. Matt showed me where others had already been there to go ice fishing.

Along the way, Emma found something really interesting in this stump. Glad she didn't find out WHAT it was.

Quick pic of Mattie and I in the Christmas Tree Graveyard:

We finally got back to the truck and Shadie was ready to go, can you tell?

We were ALL wore out and sleep VERY good that night!!! Oh, I also wore my Red Wing boots and my feet weren't ever cold!