We had an amazing time in Nashville, we learned a ton!!!  When we got back we ordered lighting equipment and we’ve been playing with it every chance we get, and can’t wait to take it to Mexico with us. Yes, Mexico, I will get to that in a minute.

First I want to show you a cool photo Ryan took with our new strobe:

No one was home, so he used the tractor for a model.  He is adorable!

So, like I said we are going to Mexico. . .

It is a much, much needed break!

I can’t wait to be sitting on the beach enjoying this weather:

And a cold beer, of course!  ;-)

We will have limited internet access during our trip. We were hoping to prepare some posts ahead of time to and have them publish automatically, but time got away from us.

You want to see what else we’ve been up to??  We haven’t done anything with our Nashville photos yet, but we do have a couple other events up if you want to see!

Brace For Impact Show:

Tina’s Bridal Shower:

Tina’s Bachelorette Party:

We are preparing for a long trip to Mexico, followed by a short visit in Denver, and another long trip later this summer to Montana, a really wanted to find something a little “cooler” than our big hiking boots.

This is what we got:

Vibram Five Fingers- $80/$85

We LOVE them!!

They are the most comfortable shoes we have ever worn, next to just being barefoot.

And -

No, surprisingly they do not make your toes feel uncomfortable, although the first time you put them on your toes really don’t have a clue what to do, but after that – It’s Cake!

WE RAN OUT OF SERVER SPACE!

We have gotten it under control and moved to a better host, and the site is now up and running faster than ever!

Thank you for your patience!

This isn’t a very good photograph, but I love it anyway!

Ryan mid-air trying to get a perfect ten on his jump, with very strict judges all under the age of 10.

Beer Cooler

We had the opportunity to see how our tractor would do pushing snow.   Before we purchased the tractor, we saw You Tube videos showing the impressive power that it had pushing snow; but we had never tested it ourselves.  It was great!

Ryan got the tractor out first thing yesterday morning to clear out a spot for Sport to use the bathroom.  As you can see in the Photo of the Day, he could barely walk in the snow, much less squat

Later in the day, we both went out and took turns working on clearing the drive way.

The little orange tractor did great!

I moved all of the snow from the driveway into a little snow mountain!

I love our little tractor!

To see previous posts about our tractor, click here.

Already knowing what we wanted we headed up the hill towards the Scotch Pines.

After walking through all of them, we found two great trees and sawed them down.

Ryan took this photo of me sawing our tree.

He then took the saw, and cut down the tree for Mama Swartz.

Here they are, Ryan and his mama at the tree farm:

There was a young man carrying trees down with a four-wheeler, he picked up one of ours, and Ryan and Mama Swartz carried down the other.

After picking and sawing the trees, the Ostlunds kindly shake the tree, freeing up loose needles and wrap it for the ride home.

They then offer a warm fire and hot chocolate, along with a free ornament for the tree.

We chose a Santa ornament for our tree, to go with the star ornament that we chose last year.

We had a great time picking our tree, and truly enjoy the Ostlund’s hospitality!

I meant to post this photo in August.

This is the top of our wedding cake.   It was wrapped and frozen for a year, then thawed on our first anniversary, August 8th.

I don’t know where the tradition comes from, or what exactly it’s supposed to accomplish, but we did it anyway. . .

we ate one year old cake.

I have recently been horrible about keeping you updated with the events of our lives.

I would like to apologize to you, and then feed you a very long list of excuses. . .

Or, I will just quickly catch you up and hope you forgive me!

So, in the month of September which has flown by I have failed to finish posting about the details of our trip to Myrtle Beach and our honeymoon last year.

I have not posted about Black Water Falls,

or the bachelor/bachelorette party,

or the baby shower,

or our hikes,

or the massive amounts of furniture we have been working on,

or the class that we are taking,

or my birthday for which my adorable husband surprised me with gifts that he wasn’t supposed to buy :)

or the Fortune-Williams Music Festival,

or this awful cold I’ve had that has made ever simple task a chore. . .

Honestly, this is no excuse, we have been busy , very busy; but I am not going to let that hinder my blogging performance any longer!

Oh, and the other pretty awesome thing we have been working on recently is this site:

www.dumbyoungins.smugmug.com

Please give us feedback on what you think of SmugMug!

PS- I do plan to go back and tell you about our adventures in September, please be patient with me!

This is a photograph we took while visiting Black Water Falls:

Today is my birthday. I am 24. Twenty-four on the 24th, my Golden Birthday!

In the picture is, my friend/co-worker, Staci’s grandson, he came to visit us today at work.

Isn’t he precious!

Now,  I have chocolate cake with chocolate icing to devour!

Staci baked the cake for my birthday; she makes sure to feed me delicious fattening food every chance she gets!