finally

  By Kevin | August 14, 2011 - 8:36 am | wedding
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Ok so I’m not sure what excuse I have to just be getting the wedding photos up online, but if you think of a good one, please let me know.

The photos in the slideshow (click HERE for the FULLSCREEN version) below were taken by our good friend Louisa (and her assistant Jess) – Louisa works for Rivets and Roses Photography.

Please contact Meg or myself if you see a photo you’d like to have (we have the ability to do that and we don’t need to bother Louisa – or we may already have plans to send you one soon anyway)

pot rack

  By Kevin | July 25, 2011 - 7:01 pm | home
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We received an incredibly generous gift card for Kitchen Window as a wedding present.  We purchased an ice cream scoop, some syrup to make soda (with our soda stream,) a shaker (for sesame seeds), ghirardelli chocolate for home made-mochas with the Nespresso, and a pot rack.

The pot rack is designed to go on the wall, which we thought would be better since we’re just renting.  The instructions say you’re supposed to attach each mounting point to a stud.  However, I don’t know any walls with studs only 7 1/2″ apart.  So to reinforce the rack, I purchased a piece of stainless steel.  I had to cut/drill/countersink/ and sand(polish) it. Check out the pictures below, I think it turned out pretty well.

summer reception

  By Meg | July 17, 2011 - 8:10 pm | Uncategorized
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Kevin’s family (John, Janet, and Grandma) hosted a beautiful party for us today. About sixty people joined us for a picnic. A few of the guests were with us for the wedding, but most had not been able to join us in Minneapolis. We are near the sixth month mark, and I loved sharing wedding photos and talking about the wedding. We had a beautiful celebration in January. It was fun to reminisce.

People asked, “How is married life?”  I want to shout “AWESOME!” Kevin is more sober- we’ve been through a lot. It’s true. We haven’t just learned to share a home, prepare meals, sleep in the same bed (we both snore), or decide what to do with free time. My dad’s decline, death, and memorial service were major events in our first six months. We’ve crammed so much of the ups and downs, I’m looking forward to some quieter days.

Still it is fun to look back….

facebook with family

  By Kevin | July 17, 2011 - 7:44 pm | family, married life
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Meg and I have always had different opinions about asking people (we already know) to be connected on Facebook and other social media networking sites. There isn’t any wrong with either of our approaches to this situation but I feel like I’m beginning to move toward her method (which as I understand, consists of asking anyone she knows to be connected on Facebook.)

We attended a lovely party today with all the family and friends (on my side of the family) who came to wish us congratulations and good luck with our new wedded bliss. During one of the many conversations we had today, someone mentioned facebook and “who really wants to know if my son lost a tooth?” Well the truth is I guess we do.  As I introduced Meg to various family and friends she hadn’t met before I sometimes recalled that I hadn’t seen them in years. They have children I haven’t met, and we all regret that we haven’t seen each other more often.  This desire to keep in touch seems more difficult in this age where we all live where the work is and we try to live lives of happy existence, but we start to loose touch with those out of sight.

So I’m going to get over my un-substantiated fear of sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong (or isn’t wanted) and start connecting to more family and friends on Facebook.  However I’m still not promising this will make me more active on Facebook, but one step at a time.

From Des Moines to St. Paul

  By Meg | June 21, 2011 - 8:11 pm | family, married life
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This is the weirdest summer ever! 103 degrees one week, 60 degrees the next. We had beautiful weather for a drive to Grinnell, Iowa to see Chuck, Nicole, and baby Colin. And despite drizzle and some rain, spending time with Emily, Jason, and Andrew in Des Moines. Memorial Day was a good time to get out of town and regroup.

Even with the crazy weather, we’ve also managed to spend more time outside walking. One warm, sunny day, we took the long stroll down Grand Avenue in St. Paul for Grand Old Days with Jill, Jason, Steve, Alicia, Rachel, and another of my favorite kids:

I love how Nate wears his Packers hat with pride. Someday, our kids will have similar loyalties.

We spent part of last weekend in Lowertown, St. Paul at CoCo MSP for Unsummit. It was an exhausting, exhilarating day. I loved having Kevin at Unsummit a second time. He was a huge help to the conference and even attended my session.

Up next, New Orleans.  Laissez les bons temps rouler!

thank you’s (whew)

  By Kevin | June 19, 2011 - 9:33 pm | married life
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If you remember a few posts ago, I mentioned that Meg and I were working on wedding thank you’s. Technically we’ve been working on them for quite some time. I am happy to announce that as of tomorrow, we will be finished with formal thank you notes for the wedding. We finished writing them last week, but I hadn’t had time to get to the post office until Monday.

We’re both sorry that it has taken us so long to get them all out, but we hope you all know that our tardiness wasn’t caused by a lack of sincerity or thankfulness, but more by a number of life complications beyond our control. We were both truly humbled by all the things we were helped with and/or given around the wedding. It made our wedding that much more special.

ps. just in case your curious why it might have taken this long for us to finish: we wanted to make sure we took our time and wrote personal notes of thanks that conveyed how thankful we really were for each gift, we wanted to make sure they all mailed at the same time so that no one talked to someone who got one while they hadn’t, and then we picked bigger cards and I needed to make sure that we didn’t get them returned due to insufficient postage. (oh and omg, if you don’t get yours, please let us know, we want to make sure we thank everyone properly.)

knodl social calendar

  By Kevin | May 16, 2011 - 7:12 am | Uncategorized
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We certainly don’t think we’re busier than any other family. In fact we acknowledge we’re probably not a busy as most families, BUT:

  1. We like to prepare in advance to treat our friends as best we can.
  2. We love using technology to make our lives easier.

To this end, here is our social calendar (when we’re both otherwise engaged).