Country Fest 2011: No parents, No rules

As many of you know, this past Thursday through today I was roughing it in a tent, in Cadott, Wisconsin, with 4 of my very best friends, dancing and singing all day and night to fabulous country music. Livia and Kelly don't even like country music, but they're pretty much converted after the amazing time we had! I'll give you a little breakdown of the festivities we participated in:

Wednesday: Jenna, Livia and I made the trek from our various locations (LaCrosse, Rochester and St. Cloud) to Hudson, WI to meet up with Kelly at her apartment. We caught up on our lives while eating Applebee's 1/2 price apps! We made it an early night so we could rise bright and early to get a move on to Country Fest!

Thursday: We all slowly woke up and got ready for the day. Jenna and Kelly made fantastic pancakes as our "last meal" before the big trip. I took lessons from the Knutson family on how to efficiently pack a car completely full of stuff. I think I did a fabulous job.

We arrived in Cadott around noon. Jenna, Livia and Scott set up the tent while Kelly and I watched. Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy all day Thursday. This meant a muddy muddy mess. Here's my back end after a lovely bunch of boys decided it would be super funny to drive as fast as they could through the biggest puddle I've ever seen as I'm trying to carefully walk through without falling and getting wet. Needless to say, I was not happy!

The first night of concerts was quite delightful, even though we were freezing cold. We saw Lonestar, Gretchen Wilson and Trace Adkins. Here's my closeup of Gretchen:

Friday: The weather was beautiful! We spent most of the day just sitting in the sun. (We all regret this decision later...) My friend Kelsey who lives in Eau Claire came after work! It was so great to see her again! She stayed until Sunday with us! Here's the whole group....

The line-up for the night: Steel Magnolia, Justin Moore, Craig Morgan, Gary Allen, and Miranda Lampert. Miranda was kind of a disappointment for us...

Saturday: We spent the day over at Scott's camping site. We playing bean bag toss and other games to pass the time. Then we went to the concert area for the rest of the day. It was a blast! The line-up: Josh Thompson, Collin Raye, Chris Young, Dierks Bentley and the FABULOUS Carrie Underwood!

Sunday: We were all quite tired and lazy on Sunday. We laid around (I burnt myself to a crisp, even though I wore a ton of sunscreen). Kelsey ended up going back home since she had to work Monday morning. I'm leaving out a ton of details from Country Fest, but I will not be shy about the details of my Sunday night......I ran into an old college friend Jeremy. Jeremy discovered that Lady Antebellum is my all time favorite group. He has an in with the security in the VIP section, so he brought me in there for the Lady A concert!!!! We walk in and we're practically forced to drink free Leinenkugel beers. Already I'm quite happy. Then, we're standing around waiting for them to come on stage when we notice a brand new size small Lady A shirt on the ground. No one claimed it--So, it's mine! Then we get in line to go up to the stage. While we're at the stage all 3 of the group members came out into the crowd and touched hands. I literally was almost on stage! I had a giant smile plastered on my face the entire time! It was the highlight of my life this year (besides getting engaged to the most wonderful man of course). Here are some shots from my night---I didn't use zoom once!

I had the time of my life! After the concert we received some news that a really bad storm was coming, so we packed up and headed back to Hudson. We didn't want to risk it! Overall, the week/weekend was such an amazing time. We all decided we're doing it again next year!!! 







This past Sunday, Tony and I headed to Kasson to spend some time with the best "soon to be" niece and nephew I have! Harvey was not so sure about me. He was really cuddly with his Uncle Tony. However, he did make several song requests.....We did a sing along before bedtime! While we were there we played outside for a long time! Here are some action shots of Natalie, Harvey and Uncle Tony playing....

Here's Natalie driving her race car.

 Harvey and Tony were playing some basketball when Natalie decided she needed to pester them!

 Here she is pestering them!

 Uh oh! The ball went under my car. Thankfully Harvey has things under control! He's showing Uncle Tony right where it went!

 Natalie and Tony were tossing the ball around!

 I drew a Princess castle for Natalie. Now she's just adding some "decorations" to it.

 Tony thought he was so clever....he wrote geometry formulas around the driveway....Nerd alert!!

 Harvey also joined in the chalk drawing.

We had a great night with the kids! We're looking forward to spending more time with them at summer vacation....and everyone else!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful dad and grandfather!

2 more checks...

Wedding dress hemmed.....Check

David's Bridal was really pushy about trying to set up a time to get my dress hemmed, since that's all I need done. I was mentioning this to Tony, and he said Jaymi's mom does a lot of sewing. So...we gave her a call and she came over the the 'rent's house today to take a looksy at the beautiful dress. She put pins in here and there and took the dress along with her! We are so blessed to have so many talented people in our lives! Renee stuck around to visit with my mom and grandpa after they were done with my dress. My mom brought out her wedding dress (also my Grandmother's) for Renee to look at. Sounds like they had a good time visiting after I left!

Photographer.....Check

We met with Adam our photographer this evening at Caribou Coffee. He showed us pictures he has done of weddings and then we talked shop. He even offered to do our engagement photos at NO EXTRA COST! How fantastic is that?! We'll be getting together at the beginning of July to take some fun photos!

Side note--- I met with my advisor at Augsburg this afternoon. It looks like this time next year I'll be prepping to student teach! I will only have to take 1 more year of classes before I'm done!!!!! I'm a little excited (if you couldn't tell with the exclamation points).

Hope everyone is enjoying this absolutely GORGEOUS day!

I have a job!

Last Friday I had an interview with ZED South Campus in Byron. ZED South Campus gives services to children who are severe EBD (emotionally behaviorally disturbed) and ASD (Autism spectrum disorder) whose needs are unable to be met by the home school district. It is a nice new building that services around 60 children ages 5-21. Tuesday, I got the e-mail offering me the job! They also offered me a position with their Extended School Year program for July and August! What a relief to know I have a job come September other than beer carting and bar tending at the golf course!

Flower time!

This morning I went and met with a family friend who works at the HyVee South floral department. We looked at countless pictures of flowers and bouquet ideas! These are the flowers that I liked best.

Jan is going to put them into nice bouquets for us. We'll have them bundled together with plum ribbon, and the stems will be sticking out the ends. I really love the way that style of bouquet looks! We'll have the cost of the flowers by Friday! How exciting!

Luna Knutson

Friday, we had a new roommate move into the apartment. Luna Knutson joined us. She was VERY scared and timid at first. We had to put towels, blankets, and clothing around every piece of furniture and big appliance or else she'll run and hide under there. However, at this exact moment she's sitting on my computer keys and "fighting" with the screen, so I think she's warming up to us. If you haven't checked Facebook, I'll show you some pictures of the cute little thing.

Luna is still unsure of her roommate Will, but she'll warm up to him soon. Speaking of Will, today is his 22nd birthday! He'll be spending his big day at IBM working on some finances. Luckily, he has time to go out to the Outback for supper with mom and dad and brownies at Auntie Amy's afterwards. Happy Birthday little brother!!

Just a little update on the wedding planning: Our invitations came in the mail on Thursday! They are very nice. Very simple, but just what we wanted! Now, to make the RSVP postcards to go along with them.

Today I don't have to work until 6pm at Willow Creek and Tony doesn't work until he has auditions tonight. So...we are going to have a fun day together. I'm getting an oil change on the car, eating lunch with my cousin Kaylee at her school, and maybe doing some outdoor activities with Tony. Happy Monday!