Merry Christmas

I was watching Good Morning America the other morning while getting ready for work and they viewed the clip below and I got a little teary eyed. When you see things like this it just makes you appreciate the holidays and all that you have been blessed with. Have a safe a happy Christmas my friends!! (enjoy the clip...I think they have a little blip while it is loading)


Soldier Surprise
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4000031

16 Days till the first Hill

Well friends I am not quite sure how to feel about this years birthday. Usually I am super excited and reminding everyone about my birthday coming up and getting them excited too(I know I am dork) But turning 30 is something else...I know I don't look 30, so that is positive:) Although, I will always be carded when I go out with my sister(who is 22) and they wont even look at her to see if she needs to be carded!! but there is just so many other things that fall in the 30 category that I am not too sure about....I am deffinately not 21 anymore, staying out till wee hours of the night and being able to get up the next morning and go...no way I need my sleep now, and the list could go on. I am excited that I get to go away for the weekend:) and that my girlfriend and I are probably having the Biggest 30yr bash ever...

sorry for the random blog...I was just sitting at work thinking about turning 30 and thought I would share my thoughts:)

SNOW..a love/hate relationship

It is amazes me how much snow we have gotten this month! I love it and hate it at the same time. I love it, cause it is calming to look out your window and see the snow covered trees and yard, to be snuggled up in your favorite chair with a cup of coffee (or hot cocoa)...its great!! You also get to go out and enjoy sledding, making snowmen, and snowangels:) I hate it, cause only in Minnesota do the drivers have to learn to drive all over again. For real!! I am sure we all have our stories.

So we FINALLY are getting to put things up in the cabinets of the kitchen and get it organized!! We can breathe the finishing touches. The only things left to do is put down the flooring, and install the appliances and order counter tops. Then we are DONE!!! with the kitchen...I have heard you are never really "done" on house projects. ( I will have to post a few pictures later)

YEAH GOD!!

Hey Friends

Here are the beautiful kids that my friends were blessed with through adoption!! It has been so amazing to see God work through their entire process. We are so excited for them all to come home!!

ps you can read about the process by clicking on there blog to the right"dressel familia"

This Is NOT Happening!!

I am seriously loosing my mind and I haven't even reached 30 yet!!




yes this is me pouting...for real though, this morning, I thought I lost my keys. I dumped out my purse wondering where they were, ran up stairs to my room, tore the whole thing apart to see if I dropped them on the floor, nope, so then I went back down stairs to my purse thinking they would magically appear this time, and went through it again, still no keys, yes, I ran back up stairs to my room, making an even bigger mess to find those darn keys! Still nothing, so I went back down to my purse determined that they had to be in my purse, nothing!! :) I even tried to retracemy steps from the night before. So at this point I had to call my boss to tell him I was going to be running late due to my lost keys. I call my mom to see if she still had my spare key, then I rummaged through my room one last time, then went down stairs to kitchen...and low and behold I had set them on the counter this morning after getting a drink of water!! So humility sets in called my boss told him I was on my way, do I dare tell him how I lost them! luckily I got voicemail and I was only a few minutes late.

....AFTER

For all you wondering minds what came after....
check out the new LD:):)
who would've thought I would be so brave to do such a thing :)
Kinda Hot don't ya think!!!

Before and....

Its a FLIP FLOP FRIDAY

Hey everyone....So I woke up this morning, got ready for work and the first shoes I slipped on were my flip flops with intentions of changing my shoes when I got into my car this morning. Didn't happen:) Just some reason, they are so much more comfortable than the shoes I wanted to wear and decided to just keep them on. Am I the only one here...Have a great weekend friends!!

Team Barr

What a fun season!! We had a 10-0 season ending up in the playoffs beating the first team(this team was from a d-2 league and was in 3rd)we played and the second team(they were in a D-1 league and came in 2nd) we only lost by 3.I know most we be like "oh man we lost!!", but considering we came from a D-3 league and we only lost by 3 I think is pretty good.
I actually did pretty good through out the season, I even made MVP in one of the games!! The were all intrigued by my acrobatic skills in catching a few of those pop flys:) I was even amazed I made some of those catches. They even ventured to play me at second base...(a position I have never played before) If I could only learn to keep the ball in my glove when I stop it, I don't know what I was doing but that darn ball always seemed to pop up and out. But hey at least I stopped it right. You will see Rich(#21), he is the one who got us into this league. This team is through his work. He did pretty good this season as well. Everyone was a lot of fun and real encouraging even when you messed up:) I will have to post more pictures later.

Sweet Dreams

So I got a new bed over the weekend!! and I LOVE IT!! yes it was due time that I did get a new bed (hence I had my old bed since middle school) I am not up on the fashion pro-qous on how often to change your beds...but I did it. I actually look foward to running up to my room and jumping in my bed and ready to sleep, then realize that it is only 7 or 8 o'clock and force my self to get out of it and go do something else:)
It is amazing what a new big soft bed can do for one person. I know this is silly to get excited about my new bed, but I just wanted to share it with someone!!

Got Soy!!

So, my sister has talked me into trying soy milk in my lattes (to make is a little healthier). I guess I have to say I can't really tell the difference between soy milk and 2% milk. I did cut out the vanilla shot though, since the soy has vanilla in it. Does this mean it is a good excuse to drink more coffee....probably not, but it is still very good!! I have been trying to cut coffee out of my diet, it is just too hard though. I don't know why! Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me.

6 hours vs 6 minutes

One would know that there is a big difference between the two...except for me:) I had my first pampered chef show the other weekend...The ladies had a great time and I thought I did pretty good...until I pre-almost burnt the pizza crust. See the recipe had called for you to "pre-bake" the pizza crust for 6 minutes(this is so the crust does not get soggy) after I had put the crust in the overn, I went on with the show. Well, it wasn't until one of the guests had asked if the pizza crust had been in for more than 6 minutes...I looked up at the timer and told her "no we have plenty of time." She then asked me again "are you sure??" so I checked the timer again then thought to look at the crust. Well, the crust was a nice golden brown, and when I read the timer again it had read that there was 5 HOURS and 25 seconds left!!! Hello LaDonna!!!....good thing she mentioned something...otherwise we would've had one burnt pizza crust to deal with. Good thing the host(my mom) had baught extra though. I couldn't believe I had set the timer for 6 hours and not 6 minutes!! Good thing this is called "Pampered Chef" and not the "Perfect Chef" I had a lot of fun at my first show, I have two more coming up for a couple of my close friends!!

DISCONTINUED!!!

This famous word seems to be our(Rich and I) theme lately!! We are finally coming down to redoing the kitchen in his house and seems like everything that we have picked out to go in the new kitchen has now been discontinued!!! It all started at Home Depot when we were asking about the cabinets we had picked out, they guy told us that they have stopped buying from that line for a month now!! Then we went to go look at our tile that we liked and guess what?? Yup it was discontinued too!!! Luckily we found cabinets that we liked right away but now we are back to the drawing board on the tile!! It is frustrating especially when you get your heart set on a certain look and then they take it away. I am sure we will find tile that we will like, but it is just frustrating when you go into the store ready to purchase the item for the household and it is no longer available. Because you want it to coordinate with all the other things you had picked out. We did get to see the floor plans for the kitchen our friend Drea made up for it. We are super excited about that. So now we just need to make a few more measurments get everything ordered and then comes Demo Day!!! When it is all done, we will deffinately throw a party!!

A Day at the Spa!!

Last Friday I was lucky enough to have received a gift card to a Day Spa. It was actually quite fun. I went in for a "Detox Body Wrap". You always see the ladies get wraps on the movies so I thought I would try it out. I am not really sure how much it "detoxed" me(like get rid of that bloating feeling or other impurities in your skin) but it was really relaxing and I felt great afterwards. I kinda felt like royalty. You get dressed in a robe(you can keep your undergarments on) and you go sit in a relaxing lounge and they have people there to wait on you hand an foot. I would deffinately do it again.

something fun

Burn 28 Calories

So I heard this on the radio this morning.

"Everytime you Kiss you loved one you burn 28 calories!! "

Forget all those other diets we try...right!!

Just give your honey a big 'ol SMOOCH and you just burned calories.
Happy Valentines Day Everyone!!

REVIEW DAY

so you know when you are going to sit down with your boss for a review, and you stomach is all tied up in knots and fearing for the worst. Why do we do this to ourselves, (or am I the only one) My boss and I sat down on friday and went over the good, the not so good, and THE BAD!! he kept emphasizing the bad part all the way up to it. Turns out there was no bad stuff!! I think I made all 4's and a few 3's(it was on a scale of 1-5)
I was actually relieved after our meeting and felt pretty good about my position here at ACI. Yeah God!! It's not that I can't handle the bad stuff, you just cringe thinking of what it could be, cause you strive so hard to do so good and put 110% into all that you do.

I know it's not much of a blog...but that was my thought for now...take care

must be smarter than the blog site!!!

I am so pumped!! ( I know it might seem silly) but I have been trying to figure out
for a long time now how to get my friends blog links on my blog, and today I am proud to say...
I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

So we are back on the house work train...it was kinda nice to not have to go straight to work
on the house right after work. It took a little bit to get back into the work mode..but it has been
fun and deffinately an adventure. If I figure out how to do one of those cool slide show boxes
I will put up pictures of Rich's house.

Already in the New Year

Well, what can I say...we are already in the new year and I didn't even get to blog my fun events towards the end of the year last year. December was a crazy month. I wouldn't even know what to name the title if I tried...maybe CRAZY DECEMBER!!!
I went to go visit my sister in New York over Christmas. It was a great time! Getting there and coming home was not so great....lets just say, don't travel over the holidays or at least take a direct flight and no connecting flights!!! Other wise you could be stuck in your connecting destination!! I won't bore you with the whole story. Once I FINALLY arrived in New York we went Trapeze Flying!! It was great!! Yes that is me at the top preparing to jump off that platform and fly through the air anticipating if the guy on the other rope across the net is going to catch me. What a rush!!!
Then my sister had me live the New York life style by taking me out till 2 in the morning!! I was wiped out by the end of the night...or is it just that I am getting older and can't keep up with those youngen's anymore!! Sad! It was fun though we went Salsa dancing with some of her friends!

Although I do have to admit I couldn't go out everynight and party...I can safely say I am not a New Yorker:):) We went ice skating in central park and shopping down in Time Square. Good Times.

Speaking of being old, I also turned another year older bringing me closer to joining the 30yr old club!! oh man..I am still not sure how I feel about this! It was a good birthday though. I went out for Cheesecake with some girlfriends and Rich took me to a nice resturant called the Wild Fire in Enden Priaire, mmmm!! oh ya my boss kinda forgot it was my birthday and so he went out and bought some cup cakes and came back with them and sang me happy birthday. It was funny...it is the thought that counts right!

So over all I would have to say 2006 was a good year. It was very busy, adventurous and well learned. I hope you all have a great 2007!!

LD vs the Hair Dryer

well, this morning my hair dryer decided to give me a small black eye

ok so maybe I didn't quite end up looking like that...but that is what I feel like minus the pirate hat:) I think my depth perception must've been off this morning. I had my drier in my right hand moving over to the left side of my head and bam...I flung it right in my eye. I thought I was going to dye(dramatization here) luckily I just have a few scratches on my eye lid and my eye has been hurting all day.

So on a more serious note, over the last week I have learned the importance of communication...and talking with the person face to face. Because email just doesn't cut it...even though it seems so real and the easy way to go...but I do know that if there is an issue or change that is coming to talk with the person and not try to explain through email. You can literally assume everything through email, which we all know what assuming does. Luckily after a few little tiffs my friend and I were able to cool off and work through it, thank you Lord, it deffinately was a lesson well learned. I am not sure who really reads my silly little blogs but if anything I can share with you all is if you know there is something important to share with anyone, make time to talk with them....ya email can be the quickest way to go or more convient, but you can save alot of frustration and hurt by just taking time to talk face to face.

Well, have a great weekend everyone!! You all are in my prayers. Ciao