Lady Antebellum

Last night we traveled down to Prairie's Edge Casino in Granite Falls, MN to see one of our favorite bands, Lady Antebellum. It was a sold out show (1,000 people) and was a great time! They performed all 11 songs of their first CD, plus their lastest song "Need You Now" off their new album comiing out late January 2010.

Since a concert of only 12 songs would be somewhat short, they threw in some excellent covers of AC/DC, John Mellencamp, Eddie Money, Don Henley and Dwight Yoakam. Below are two short video clips of them performing and a few pictures from the show. Enjoy!

Acoustic Set

"Just Lookin For A Good Time"

"That Girl Is Long Gone"

Wyoming Vacation Pictures & More

It has been quite awhile since we have posted on here, so we figured we should share some pictures of the last two months. The following are a few pictures of our vacation to Wyoming at the end of July and a picture of our garage now that we finished painting the floor in there (Jenny's Dad and Jim spent a 10 day span on this). We were lucky enough to see a fair share of wildlife on the trip, including a moose that walked right through our campground in the Bighorn Mountains.

Speaking of wildlife while camping, we had quite the experience this past weekend while camping here in Minnesota at Itasca State Park. Yesterday afternoon we were out driving around in the park and about 1 mile from our campground we ran into a mother black bear and her cub. A picture below will show this, but unfortunately this was taken from a cell phone camera from a fair distance. Hope you enjoy all the pictures!!

"Old Faithful" at Yellowstone National Park

"Upper Falls - Yellowstone Canyon" at Yellowstone National Park

Grand Teton National Park

A moose in our campground at the Bighorn Mountains

Our newly finished garage floor...its like a showroom!

The mother black bear eating chokecherries at Itasca State Park

Summer 2009

As our vacation is almost here, we thought we would share some pictures of what we have been up to lately. This past weekend Jim's parents came to visit on Saturday for awhile, and of course Jim won the card game :-). Later that night we decided to go check out Granny's Pantry in Battle Lake with Jenny's parents. If you have never been there we would recommend it to anybody. It's an old fashioned ice cream, candy and fudge shop. The ice cream was top notch!! After that we went to Inspiration Peak and took in some fireworks for Pickle Fest in Hewitt.

The other project that has been keeping us busy all summer long is the landscaping around the house. With the help of Jenny's dad, we think that we are pretty much done now for this year unless landscaping block goes on a huge sale. In the pictures below you can see some of the new landscaping and the old. We now have a mixture of hydrangeas, peonies, azaleas, holly and much more all around the house. Enjoy what is left (or maybe yet to come) of summer. Hopefully, we will have some nice pictures from Yellowstone in two weeks!!

The fireworks at Pickle Fest in Hewitt, MN

Inspiration Peak near Clitherall, MN

Landscaping in front of garage - this was done during spring.

New landscaping in front of the house.

New landscaping on the side and front of the house.

Just Another Quick Update

Well summer has officially begun and we are still staying busy. Between house work, camping, softball and working there hasn't been much for spare time. That will all change here come the end of July when we are going to take a vacation out to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.

Our yard continues to improve as you can see by the picture below with the grass growing very well and the landscaping going well also. The other picture shows you our new toy - 2009 Dodge Ram 1500 Crew Cab. We have badly needed something with 4WD and it has been great being able to haul things now also. We hope to have some nice pictures from Yellowstone to share with everyone. In the meantime enjoy your summer!

Front of our house

2009 Dodge Ram 1500 Crew Cab - Our New Toy

The Yard Is Improving!!

Well we have been very busy working on our yard with planting grass and landscaping. A little less than a month ago we planted some grass and it is starting to fill in nicely across our lots. The picture below will show how the grass is coming in.

The Front Of Our House With Grass And Landscaping

We also have been busy doing some landscaping. We have planted some shrubs along the front of the house. Also, along the front of the house we have some flowers and accent rocks. Jenny's dad helped us lay down a bunch of rocks along the front of the house to dress it up nicely. Along with the landscaping on the front of the house, we have planted many trees. We still have our Weeping Willow that survived the winter, but now we have many more trees. We have one big autumn blaze maple, and many smaller red maples. In the back yard we planted 3 honeycrisp apple trees. Along the east side of our lot, Jenny's dad put in about 60 spruce trees so the yard is filling up nicely.

3 HoneyCrisp Apple Trees In Our Backyard

This past Saturday we had our fireplace delivered. The guy that built our custom cabinets for our house, built us a fireplace mantel, surround and hearth. We are very pleased with how it turned out and it looks beautiful in our living room.

Fireplace In Our Living Room

We are enjoying the warm up in weather now so we can get outside and work on some more projects. We hope to be able to build our deck here sometime shortly. Along with that also we hope to find time to go camping and golfing....and maybe sneak in a Twins game :-)

Eagles Concert

This past Sunday night we were lucky enough to be able to see the Eagles one last time before they call it quits. We took in their 3.5 hour concert at the Fargodome along with almost 10,000 other people. They played about 10 songs from their newest album "Long Road Out Of Eden", and 20 or so songs from their past.

It was a blast to be able to see them in person and to hear them play the songs live. Before the concert we bummed around Fargo for a little while doing some shopping at various places. We also went to Red Lobster to enjoy Lobsterfest. All in all it was a really fun Sunday.

(Photo courtesy Dave Wallis - Fargo Forum)

On Saturday, Jim and Gene started working on the man cave above the garage. They were able to get the subfloor down and insulate/sheetrock one wall. Tonight, we went to Detroit Lakes and were able to pick up the laminate flooring, so we now have everything we need to complete the room besides time.

Oh yeah, and of course this Friday is Jenny's birthday so you can bet there will be a party on Friday night :-) She really is just holding out for chocolate cake though.....and maybe to win some money on Saturday night. That is all for now.

California - Vegas Vacation

We have officially returned from Jim having training in Las Vegas / Vacation. We were able to find the time to relax a little and have some fun in California and Las Vegas. We started the trip by flying into Las Vegas and then driving out to Pahrump to meet up with Erik, Lori & Peyton. From here we drove out to Laguna Beach and spent Friday night enjoying the ocean and taking in an authentic Mexican Bar & Grill. On Saturday, we went to Disneyland and had a great time there, especially watching Peyton have so much fun during dinner with all the Disney Princesses. Sunday, we drove down to San Diego and got to see the Panda Bears at the San Diego Zoo. After that it was back to Pahrump and Las Vegas as Jim had training on Monday.

The view of the Pacific Ocean at our hotel in Laguna Beach

Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland

Baby Panda Bear trying to wake up Mama Panda Bear. It was their last day together before they were going to be seperated, so we were lucky to see both of them together.

Monday night we were able to get together with a co-worker of ours and his wife, Curt & Ashley. We went to Kahunaville for some good food. After that we went to Treasure Island & Bellagio to try our luck at the slot machines. Jim was able to come away lucky and won back everything we had gambled and a little more. Tuesday night we went to Yolie's Brazilian Steakhouse and lets just say when they bring all the food out on swords its an interesting experience. Later that night we met up with Curt & Ashley again and we went up in the Paris Eiffel Tower for a 500 foot view of Vegas. Wednesday night we met up with Erik, Lori & Peyton again at Margaritaville in the Flamingo. We had fun watching Jenny & Peyton get their balloon animal hats. After that we tried our luck at the slot machines again but that didn't go so well. Thursday night we went to the Steve Wyrick Real Magic show. We had a really fun time at this, and Jim even got to participate in the show. Any time someone can make a learjet plane appear out of nowhere, he is pretty good. Friday before we had to head back to the reality of Minnesota cold & snow, we enjoyed one last 75 degree day and checked out the Hoover Dam again. After that we tried our luck one last time at the Hacienda Casino, and Jim was able to win a little more at the blackjack tables so all and all it was a really fun trip. Sorry this is so long, but we just had a lot to share for once!!! Hope you enjoy the pictures and we will try to post even more in the near future!!

Hoover Dam (anyone see Clark Griswold?)

Jenny, Jim, Lori, Peyton & Erik at Margaritaville

The Las Vegas Strip to the north from the Paris Eiffel Tower

Jenny, Jim, Ashley & Curt at Kahunaville

Enjoying one last day of vacation at the Hoover Dam.