Our New Lake House!!!

A long, long story short....Brad and I have been looking at buying a camper for a few years now with the thought of a lake house in the very back of our minds. We stumbled upon this property on a romantic lake side drive a few weekends ago and the story has been wrote since. We put in a bid this past weekend, the seller accepted and threw in most of the furnishings you see and we signed the purchase agreement today! We should have the keys to our 2nd house in a few short weeks!!!

 The back side of our cabin

 The view from our dock :)

 The living room, front door view

 The view from the front of our cabin! Did I mention we 

are on a dead end road with only 3 other cabins and 

NO MOWING because the owner before river rocked

everything! YAY!!!! Plus the 3 other cabin owners are 

grandparents so all should be calm on our block :)

 The living room, it has 2 bedrooms also

 Sitting on our patio, dock view out into the lake!

 Kitchen!!! Everything you see is included :)

 Yes, that's our large patio included with our dock!

The previous owner did $2,000 worth of landscaping

around our dock, deck, sitting area that looks very nice

in the hot summer sun :) All furniture included too!

Saving the BEST for last!!!! The screened in 

front porch that seats a least 30 comfortably 

and is as wide as our trailer is perfect for the summer

night fun we hope to have for many years to come 

with friends and family!

All are welcome! Please come visit! Our summer months

include April-October and ice fishing in the winter months :)

Catching Up....

This picture makes me happy but it also makes me very sad. The past couple of months it has been hard to keep up with the blog with all that life is giving us to handle. With the passing of my mother-in-law I have found there are more important moments to bask in instead of being on the computer or stopping a moment to grab my camera. I guess we have all just been living for the moment and only that moment. This picture was taken Christmas day, it was such a great day but such a sad, lonely day for all of us. We miss Cyndy so much and the boys talk about her almost on a daily basis. One of them will see something that reminds them of Grandma or just think about her and make a comment. From there their conversation usually goes like this...

Grady will say "Brycie you know Grandma Cyndy is in heaven and we can't see her any more"

Bryce "I know...she lives in God's house but she's in our heart too"

OR

Bryce "Grandma Cyndy is sitting on Jesus' lap but she's in our heart so if we talk to her she can hear us"

Grady "We can go visit Grandma but she's not in that box she's in heaven looking down at us making sure to keep us safe"

I could go on and on with the things they say about her and perhaps writing this is helping me in some way say that it's ok to move on with our lives but it has been so very hard. I'm just thankful that my boys remember her and talk about her in such a Christen way. We have always said what a spiritual little boy Grady is and how some of the things he says sounds like he's been to heaven. I'm thankful for the memories my boys have and for all of the times we all got to spend with Cyndy. She was an amazing Grandma and did so many fun things with our boys, they were so lucky to have had her. I felt like she was my second mom as we spent almost every day with Greg and Cyndy living so close to one another. It's always hard to lose a loved one but we do have to move on and in time I know it will get easier

 This picture was taken last Christmas. Her boys were her life and then when we had our boys they quickly became her life. She lived for making her grand kids feel special and doing fun things with them!

We miss her so much and will love her continuously, may the Lord never let any of us forget.

Christmas Day Cousin Fun!

Christmas Day all of us were at my parents celebrating the holiday! The kids needed a little outside time so we suggested sledding! My mom and dad's front ditches proved to be a great spot for them to try it out!

 Grady

 Gracie

 Bryce, Gracie, Taylon and Grady

 Whee!!!

 Whoo Hoo!!!

 Everyone say "Cheese" Bryce was crying because he didn't

want to take a picture he wanted to GO!!!!

 And of course I thought I had to try out some snow boarding

I stayed up for awhile :) Probably not the best decision but

the back surgeon had cleared me for all activities! 

1 year since my back surgery almost to the day, guess

I thought I needed to celebrate!!! A little liquid encouragement

might have also persuaded me to think it was a good idea :)

Ice Fishing with Uncle Brian

About a month ago I suggested to Brad that we all take a trip to see his cousin Brian (Uncle Brian the boys call him) who lives in McCook just to get away for a weekend. It was just after Christmas so we packed up our ice fishing gear and headed West. I told him I wasn't going if he didn't buy an ice fishing hut for me to sit in and be warm in all day so a few days prior our departure we went to Cabela's to purchase one :)

 The boys practiced casting with weighted fish because that's 

what they are used to in the summer time. It was hard at first 

for them to understand just to drop their line in the hole and 

watch and wait....hard for mama too!!!

 Bryce loved it and got SO excited when someone caught a fish

 Grady on the other hand spent most of his time chasing these

 two geese around the lake! There were a few other kids his age

 with our group so the kids kept themselves pretty entertained!!

 I bet those geese were tired at the end of the day!

 Brian caught the first fish! Not the biggest but it was the first!

 I always try to get one picture of me on our outings as I'm the 

one always behind the camera and looks as though 

I'm not part of these fun-filled days!

 Brycie finally caught his very own fish and reeled it in by himself!!!

Note the wardrobe change, he stepped into one of the ice holes

and was snatched out after being waste deep in the water

 for a few seconds. Brrr!!!! He was one cold little boy, good thing

 we had a heater to thaw him out!

 The next day Brian borrowed a neighbors snow mobile and 

took the boys for a ride! They loved it :)

Such a fun time, can't wait for the next time we vacation with Brian!

Special Olympics Bowling

This school year I took on a new position as the Life Skills Teacher at Ravenna Public Schools. I am the teacher of the children who are not able to be full time in the regular education classroom due to their disabilities. I LOVE my job, the kids are WONDERFUL and make my day complete just being with each of them! Below is a picture of the kids I currently teach along with the paras that help make the teaching of these kids a success! We took on Special Olympics Bowling this year and have been practicing for a few months now! The kids Love bowling because we got to practice twice a week during the school week! The regional competition was on Feb 1st at the Big Apple Fun Center in Kearney. All of the kids bowled three consecutive games that day placing them in 1st-3rd according to their cumulative score! Each of our kids either placed first or third in their division qualifying them ALL for STATE Bowling!!!!! How proud all of us were for each of them to be so awesome and the majority of the kids parents were there to share in this amazing fun-filled day :) State Bowling will be in August just before school starts so we will be looking forward to some practices this summer!!

For those of you that were at our wedding almost 8 lovely years ago, Marissa the girl with the walker was the flower girl at our wedding. She learned to walk by herself just weeks before our wedding day!!