#18: Meet Up with College Roommates Mary Ellen and Gladys

Two years ago for Labor Day weekend Trevor and I met up with my college roommates Mary Ellen and Gladys and Gladys' husband Josh in a cabin in Arkansas.  We decided we had so much fun that we should try to make it an annual event.  Last year we couldn't make it happen since Alexandra was due around that time.  So this year we made sure to clear our calendars months in advance for a Labor Day Reunion.

We had a great time hiking, kayaking, and just spending time talking together and catching up.  Oh, and taking pictures...lots of pictures.  I mentioned in my post about my goal to learn more about photography that Gladys and Mary Ellen are both into photography.  So needless to say, I didn't pull out my own camera the whole weekend.  They did both let me play with their cameras though.  So I actually did take some of the following pictures.

So this is definitely going to be a "picture post"...

Our cabin

Saturday evening we headed up to White Rock Mountain.  We asked this old man for directions and I tried out my photography skills on him. :)  He had a very interesting face.

   

The boys were scouting out the cliffs to see if there was a place that they could rappel and climb.  The thought of them doing it made me VERY nervous.  Gladys and I were pretty happy when we finally saw a sign that said "No Rappelling"!

Since the boys couldn't climb at the White Rock Mountain cliffs, they decided to stop at some rocks along the road up to the mountain.

Trevor and Josh showed off their climbing abilities.  Josh and Trevor actually were friends and climbed together before Trevor and I even met our Freshman year of college and long before Gladys and Josh started dating Sophomore year. (Here's the real story behind the pictures that appear like they are hanging off a really high rock.  Gladys did some magic with the camera!)

On Sunday we headed to Lake Fort Smith to do some kayaking.  It was a beautiful day and the surrounding mountains made for an amazing setting.

The boys got out of the kayaks near some cliffs to check the water depth so they could dive off of them without killing themselves.  Do you think they like adventure?!?!

While they were doing that, the girls were bored and did this....

Trevor flipping off the cliff!

Jumping together...how cute!

(Later the park ranger came by and said he had reports of people swimming.  Apparently we weren't supposed to get out of the kayaks.  Oops!)

Mary Ellen's amazing photo that captured the beauty of the day.

After the kayaking, we headed over to Devil's Den State Park to do some hiking. This picture makes me laugh!  Gladys looks like the paparazzi hiding in a bush to get the picture above this one of me and Trevor on the bench.

Mary Ellen had told us she had a surprise for us all weekend.  She brought us out these awesome gifts right before we left the cabin on Monday.   If you click on the pictures to make them bigger you can see that she took pictures of everyday objects that look like letters of the alphabet and spelled out our last names.  They're so cool!  So we took advantage of the props for our final photo shoot.

Our "Goertzen" picture frame!

I'm always amazed how it can feel like we've never been apart when we get back together.  I'm so glad we've made the effort to stay in touch.  Love you girls! :)

(And yes, I promise I'll see you again even though I have now crossed you off my list!)

Alexandra is One!

This weekend we went up to Nebraska to celebrate Alexandra's first birthday.  I can't believe it's been a whole year since I wrote this post and this one.

I don't have a lot time tonight to write, but I didn't want to wait weeks until after her birthday to post this.  So....it's pretty much just going to be a picture post!

 Not quite walking yet, but she's getting good at standing up and gets excited about it.

Victoria came out during the day with this Spanish Dictionary and said she was looking for Dora.  Not sure how she put that together!

It's fun to be one! (Read her shirt- I didn't make that up)

Victoria got right in there to "help" Alexandra open her gifts!

 

Victoria made Alexandra this card and picked her out a Jack-in-the-Box. 

After all the gifts were opened, it was time for cake!

Alexandra's Birthday from Stephanie Goertzen on Vimeo.

What a mess!

It's always great to get to see family and I feel lucky to be able to be close enough to get to watch my nieces grow up.  It was also fun to get to see Kim & Justin's new house for the first time.  It's beautiful!

 

#81: Eat at 5 New Local Restaurants (1/5) - Jardine's

Trevor and I celebrated our five year anniversary last Friday and he took me out for a nice evening. We hit up a local restaurant in Kansas City's Midtown called Jardine's Restaurant and Jazz Club. It was great food and the music was lots of fun! They have live jazz bands every night. Some of you may not know that Kansas City is famous for its jazz. After dinner, we walked around The Plaza while eating some ice cream.

Trevor and I don't eat out all that much since we have a relatively low dining-out budget. I hate to feel like we are eating at the same chain restaurants all the time, so I wanted it to be a goal to eat at more of Kansas City's great locally-owned restaurants.

We didn't get one picture of us on our actual anniversary, but Trevor's Mom took this one at her house the Sunday after.

I feel so blessed to be married to such a great guy for five whole years!

#64: Try 30 New Recipes (10 of 30) - Luscious Slush Punch

Last Saturday a group of us girls threw a baby shower for our good friend Jenn.  We decided on a brunch and I was assigned to make a punch.  I didn't really have a punch recipe and I thought I should try to find one that was a little fruit-juice like so it would work with breakfast food.  I found the following recipe online.  It turned out well!

	___________________________________________ Luscious Slush Punch
	Ingredients:
	-1 ½ cups white sugar
	-6 cups water
	-2 (3 oz.) packages strawberry-flavored gelatin mix
	-1 (46 fluid oz.) can pineapple juice
	-2/3 cup lemon juice
	-1 quart orange juice
	-2 (2 liter) bottles ginger ale
1	In a large saucepan, combine sugar, water, and strawberry-flavored gelatin. Boil for 3 minutes. Stir in pineapple juice, lemon juice, and orange juice. Divide mixture in half, and freeze in two 1-gallon freezer bags.
2	When ready to serve, place the frozen contents of one container in a punch bowl, and stir in 1 bottle of ginger ale until slushy. ___________________________________________

This recipe takes a little bit of pre-planning since you have to freeze the mixture overnight.  It does make your prep work on the day of the event very easy though!  I found that it worked best to take the freezer bags out of the freezer and place them in the refrigerator two hours before the party and then break them up with a potato masher before mixing with the ginger ale.  I really liked the way the whole punch stays slushy and keeps it cold during the event.

Here's some pictures of the shower...

Jenn with our decorated table.  (Didn't Rachel make the cutest sign??)

Jenn with all of the hosts

We're all excited to get to meet baby Olivia very soon...she's due  to arrive on September 1st!

#86: Watch a Sunrise

After writing the last post about photography tonight, I realized I left you all hanging on what Trevor and I did early on the Friday morning of our South Carolina trip. I'm sure you were dying to know. :)

Before we left for the vacation, I had thought it would be neat to get to see a sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. Good thing I'd expressed this to Trevor, since he helped nudge pull me out of bed at 5:00 AM the last day we were on Edisto Island. (Have I mentioned I'm totally not a morning person?)

When we got to the beach we plopped ourselves down on some towels and sat in the dark. As it started to get light, this is what we saw....

...a big ol' storm cloud right in the way of our expected sunrise!

I have to admit I was a little ticked that I'd gotten up early and was maybe not going to get to see the sunrise, but God moved that cloud out of the way just in time.

See. A nice camera would have been GREAT for this - the pictures just don't do it justice!) Anyhow, here's the progression of the sunrise...

The few times in my life that I have gotten up (or stayed awake all night!) to see a sunrise, I am always struck by the fact that we take it for granted in the hustle and bustle of our daily life that the sun will rise every day.While watching the sun rise above the mighty waves of the ocean, I was 100% convinced that there is a God. I am continually amazed at God's design of this world he made for us. It is through the design evident in nature that I think we as humans can know that there IS a power out there that is much higher than us.

"...so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
men may know there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other."

Isaiah 45:6

#98: New Goal - Learn About Photography

I was supposed to have this new goal determined by July 1, and I've been thinking about it a lot since then (I just haven't blogged about it!).  I really want to get a nicer digital camera and learn more (ok, something-I don't know much now!) about photography.  Two of my good friends from college, Mary Ellen & Gladys, are both kind of into photography and when I see what great pictures they take, it makes me want to learn how.   My two vacations this summer really made me realize how I would love to be able to fully capture the beauty around me.

I considered making the actual goal "Buy a Digital SLR Camera" or "Take a Photography Class", but I didn't know how all those would work out budget-wise.  So I'm leaving this a little more open-ended.  I may just read a book about photography, follow a blog about photography,etc.  A friend from church, Emily, just started her own photography business (check out her photography blog here - she does an amazing job!)  She volunteered to show some of us girls some tips.  She said that you can do a lot of great things with even a point-and-shoot camera when you learn about lighting and composition.  So I might just take you up on that sometime Emily! :)

So, maybe, you'll see some photos improving on the blog sometime in the next year or two!

(If anyone out there has suggestions on cameras, classes, etc., I'd love to hear them!)

#85: Don't Watch TV for an Entire Week

Well, we've hit this goal out of the ballpark!

When I decided to put this on our list, I knew that even though we weren't watching an exorbitant amount of TV (compared to some people), that we were probably still watching more than we should. During certain times of the year we have a lot of shows that we record and watch faithfully - The Office, 24, American Idol, Pushing Daisies, Here Come the Newlyweds, and a few others. It started to feel like it was getting a little out of hand. So I decided to make it a goal to go an entire week (gasp!) without watching TV.

If I had known about this "International TV Turnoff Week" back in April, I would have tried to have turned it off for a week with the rest of the world!

However, instead of just skipping TV for a short time, two and a half weeks ago Trevor and I decided to cancel our satellite. That means we have no TV right now. We bought a digital converter box when they were giving out coupons for the digital transition, but we still haven't bought the antennae that is necessary for it to work - so we have nothing but static now.

There were quite a few factors that played into this decision.

1. Our contract was up with DirecTV in May and they had just raised our cost up from the introductory price. On top of that, I haven't been that impressed with how often our satellite goes out in stormy weather.
2. We had been talking about canceling service for the summer (when our shows weren't on) to save some money.
3. A new cable company just moved into our area that is much cheaper than the only cable option we had before. I also like that they don't require a contract. We have been thinking of switching to them anyway.
4. Our DirecTV had been spazzing out for about a month before we canceled it. It would cut out all the time, even in good weather. Since we didn't pay the monthly fee for a warranty, they would have charged us $75 to even come out to just look at it. When we threatened to cancel if they didn't come out for free, they didn't budge.
5. A lot of our friends actually don't have cable and they always talk about just watching their shows online. It seems like that is now easier than ever.
6. We've been very busy and out of town a lot this summer.
7. SO WE JUST DID IT!

We'd been talking about it for awhile and I don't think I'd hardly even watched TV since we went to Canada over a month ago since we were gone so much and the picture was cutting out all the time. It seemed like a waste of money, so we finally just canceled it before we left for South Carolina. So it's been a whole week and a half since we've been back from our vacation and we haven't watched one ounce of TV. Well, I take that back. Trevor has been having withdrawals from this....

...so I think he's been watching it online! :)

I actually don't feel like I've missed TV at all. We've been pretty busy and haven't been home that much, so that helps. We have had a few moments where we feel lost without it, because sometimes all you know to do when you get home from a long day is just plop in front of the TV so you can space out. It's been good though to feel like I have more time to read and get other things done that I know I need to do. The other night we were sitting at the table eating dinner and we were saying, "When was the last time we've done this?!" I have to admit we've been pretty bad about eating in front of the TV. So I think this is a very good thing for our marriage, spiritual well-being, and productivity!

I did find this book when I was searching for some pictures for the blog...

...I guess we can always consult this if we can't think of anything to do!

Honestly, I'm not sure how long we'll go before signing up for cable again. Most of our shows are actually on network television, so I don't know that we'll need cable. I'm thinking either way, we'll probably get a TiVo or something after we get the digital converter box set up to get the basic channels. We did get too accustomed to being able to record shows and watch them when we want when we had a DVR with our satellite!

I have a sneaky suspicion that the one thing that might get us back on the cable bandwagon is this..

...I can hardly wait!!! 30 days and counting. Go Huskers!

Nebraska football was our number one concern with getting rid of the satellite. (Do you think we are loyal fans or what!??!) We think we can make it through a good part of the season though by watching the games that are televised on the basic channels, going to sports bars, and watching at family/friends' houses.

But for now we have really enjoyed "Turning off the TV and Turning on Life." I challenge you to do it too!