Beth and Jesse Tie the Knot

Our friends Beth and Jesse got married this past Saturday! They had a beautiful outdoor wedding in a park and had perfect weather. What a great day!! Congrats Beth and Jesse!


Eating dinner- VERY tasty homemade Italian food! Hey Jesse- how does your tongue end up sticking out in every pic?


The four of us pals from high school- Ang, Beth, Nicole and Jenny, minus our other friend Jenny whose flight got cancelled- we missed you, Jen!


Beth and Jesse had a bunch of lawn games at the park- SO much fun! Here's Jenny playing some Wiffle Golf...look at that form!


Joel preferred the "beer in one hand, hit the ball with the other" technique.


And Ryan managed to hold his wine with his teeth while maintaining beatiful form...or not so much...


Sparklers!


More sparklers



At the bar afterwards...sorry Jenny and Chris, we just HAD to put this in.



The Girls


Joel and Beth



Beautiful bridesmaids Carolynne and Andrea chatting with the bride.





Sunday Nicole's mom and stepdad Tom had their annual Harvest Party. Good food and company was had by all. Here are Sean, Alex, Amy and Greg grilling some tasty burgers and brats.



More grilling


Amy and Brenda!

It was definitely a fun-filled weekend. Also, last weekend we got the great news that Nicole passed her CRRN (Certified Rehab Registered Nurse) exam! Nicole was definitely relieved, as it took 2 months to find out...she was on pins and needles for a while. She is now an official CRRN (it's basically a specialty certification in her field in addition to her RN degree)- woohoo! Lots of hard studying paid off.
Next weekend- Gopher football game and the State Fair!

Just call us Uncle Greg and Aunt Nicole (soon)!

Well, we've had quite the eventful couple of weeks, with the BEST news being that we're going to be an Uncle and Aunt!! Yaay! Nicole's brother Sean and sister-in-law Brenda are going to have a baby, and they're due in February! We could not be more excited. We were all out for Nicole's mom's birthday last week, and Sean and Brenda told us the news by giving Mom a birthday card that said, "Happy Birthday, Grandma!" Nicole's mom started happily screaming, and then Nicole read the card and started screaming- it was pretty exciting! We cannot wait to meet our new little niece or nephew.

We also had 2 weddings this weekend- Natalie, who Nicole works with, and Jason's- of which we only were able to make it to the ceremony and didn't get any pictures, and Scott and Jennifer's- enjoy the pics below!


The groom and bride- Scott and Jennifer!


Greg, Scott, Nicole


The guys


The girls


Scott doing the robot





Scott and Jennifer had a photo booth at their reception- what a blast! On the top is Greg, Nicole, Kendall and Shantell's creation...on the bottom, Greg and Nicole. Awwww, isn't that nice??


And, we had to throw in a couple of cute animal pics....here is Lux, Kendall and Shantell's new puppy that came over to visit a couple of weeks ago. He's SO tiny- about the size of your foot!


And yet another Poster lounging pic...sooo comfy.

That's about it! We also had some heavy storms come through last weekend...CRAZY heavy where we thought the house was going to blow away. We grabbed the cats, ran down to the basement, and listened to the wind and hail...our power also went out for about 12 hours. Fun stuff...but, everyone was OK, and the house was OK...we were just a little spooked.

Next weekend, Beth's wedding!

Time to Reflect

Wow, aside from the last bridge post, it's been a while since we've added a new entry! I (Nicole) suppose we've still been busy and carrying on with our everyday stuff, but I think the last week since the 35W bridge collapse has kind of gone by in slow motion. It sounds cheesey, but we've really just been reflecting on a lot...being thankful that our friends and family weren't hurt, but feeling grief and praying for those who were. A lot of us around the area have had or have heard of "close calls' with driving over the bridge just minutes before it collapsed. We feel so blessed to be safe- but it really brought forth the reality that it could have been any of us on that bridge.

Anyway, we decided to go see the bridge for ourselves on Sunday on the way down to my Dad and Kathy's house. Greg had already driven by it, but we just wanted to go check it out more closely and kind of pay our respects in a way. During the time that we were there, all roads and bridges around the area were still tightly closed off, so we just got a partial view off of University. Unfortunately, an hour or two later after we left, they re-opened the Stone Arch Bridge to the public, which we missed, so we'll have to make another trip back soon. Here are our pics of the damage to the North side of the bridge:





It's hard to see a lot, but you can obviously see the stranded cars and where the bridge is buckled. It's true when people say you just have to see it for yourself- all the news pictures just don't really show the magnitude. It's so eerie and the disaster is just so huge...it's amazing (and horrible) to see.

Otherwise, on a lighter note, for some of our activities, I had Beth's bachelorette party Saturday night, and Greg went to see the Senior PGA tour in Blaine, both of which we forgot to bring our cameras...oops! A couple of weeks ago was also our friend Natalie's bachelorette party, Scott's bachelor party, Jennifer's bridal shower...as you can tell, there are a few weddings coming up!
Next week: celebrating our moms' birthdays, and next weekend THE WEDDINGS BEGIN! :)

35W Bridge Collapse

photo courtesy of Minneapolis Star Tribune


Please keep all of the victims of the 35W bridge collapse and their families in your prayers.

Happy 30th, Joel!!

Friday night we had a suprise 30th birthday party for Joel! It was pretty awesome- he had no clue. 17 of us were there to party- a good time was had by all!


This is the "initial reaction" shot- ha! Everyone hid their cars around the block, and Joel thought he was just coming over to hang out and grill with Greg and Nicole. When he came in, we all jumped out with our cheesey party hats and noisemakers- I think we caught him off guard!! Hilarious.


Outside after grilling, enjoying the beautiful weather.


Brian brought over Guitar Hero, which is pretty addicting. Here's Brian and Greg rockin' out....wait, is that Keith Richards???


Jesse playing some mean Guitar Hero


Jenny, Jennifer, Shantell and Alicia chatting in the kitchen enjoying some cocktails.


More fun in the kitchen...


And even more as the evening progresses...what the...?


SERIOUS game of Trivial Pursuit


Even Bree came out to celebrate with Joel! Sporting her party hat and all.


I (Nicole) am a dork and noticed that we had quite the rainbow array of shirts going on and had to capture it...


Random pic


Nicole and Joel

What a great night! We think Joel was definitely surprised....HA! Thanks for coming everybody!

Weekend at Mr. and Mrs. T's Cabin

We spent the weekend up North at Ryan and Alicia's cabin, just outside of Grand Rapids. The two of us, Ryan, Alicia, Scott, Cindy, Ryan, Erica and Jason made the trip up. Here's a pic of the lake the cabin is on. Isn't it pretty??? The following pics are not so tranquil...


The first night at the cabin consisted of ping pong and foosball (is that how you spell that?) and beer out in the "T's" new garage that they're building. Above is Ryan, Greg with his $2.88 hat that he found in Cloquet, and Scott.


Beer pong!!



Ryan had seen better days at this point.


The next day, the guys played some Snakes and we all played some Beer Ball before heading out on "The Armada" on the lake.


Scott and Greg emphasize "Safety First" before heading out on the lake.


Erica, Cindy, Ryan and Scott getting tans out on the trampoline, waiting for the rest of us to swim out.


Greg jumping off the boat! Water was a little chilly, but felt good. :)


That night, after feasting on some specialty brats, we continued with ping pong, foosball, beer pong and darts. Here are Ryan, Cindy and Alicia playing foosball and talking trash.


Action shot of Nicole playing some ping pong with Erica. What a great weekend! We had beautiful weather, too. Our bonfire did get bagged due to some Sat. night rain, but we had plenty to entertain us! Thanks again Ryan and Alicia!

A Night of Prince and a Night at the Races

We went to see PRINCE on Saturday night- all we can say is WOW. Nicole's seen a few of his shows and deemed this one probably the best of them all (NOT including some Paisley Park performances...). What a night! We won't go into much detail...all we can say is you had to be there. The photo above is actually courtesy of the Pioneer Press, and was taken from his performance earlier that day at Macy's...but we had to put an awesome pic of him on our blog.


We also headed out to Canterbury Downs on Friday for a "pre-birthday" bash for Joel....what a great time! We even came out ahead as far as the betting went...and Joel and Shantell didn't do too bad, either!



Brian and Joel



Greg, Shantell and Kendall


Nicole, Brian and Joel



Also had to throw this pic in....Greg did his first official "Mowing of the Lawn" last week...WOOHOO! He was pretty excited. Looked pretty darn good afterwards, too.


We think Poster is settling into the house quite nicely, don't you think? He doesn't look comfortable or anything....

Have a good week! I'm sure we'll have some crazy photos from Ryan and Alicia's cabin for the next post....