All About the Smiths

Josh's sister Jenny spent the weekend with us last weekend. On Sunday we had to take her to Rockford to meet her ride back up North. While we were waiting for her ride we stopped at a beautiful State Park nearby. We had a great time playing in the leaves. Cynthia enjoyed having lots of new things to look at.

Enjoy the pictures!

First off, Cynthia is 9 months old today! Wow, time flies!!

Now, on to the biggest reason for this post! As of a week ago, Cynthia has her first tooth. She's been a trooper through the teething process. We didn't even know she was teething until the tooth popped through last week on Friday.

Josh tried to take a picture of the tooth, but I don't know if you can see it! So, get out your magnifying glass and take a peek!



Tonight Cynthia and I took a walk with our neighbor and her grandkids. We had a blast. Cynthia thought the kids were hilarious and kept laughing at them. They are twin boys who just turned 5 and their 18 month old sister. Josh got a super cute picture of Cynthia and Chloe playing in the grass.

When Josh started his new job he was required to wear a shirt and tie to work every day. He still had quite a collection of ties from his Northland days, but we had to go buy him a few more as well as some new dress shirts.

After viewing his collection, he decided to see how long he could go without duplicating a shirt and tie combination.

You can view his project here.
He is also going to be posting a new family photo every Sunday!

Friday night Josh and I drove up to Northland to attend Freedom Celebration. We had a great time! It was so great to be able to see friends up there and also to enjoy the fireworks. Josh got some GREAT shots of the Fireworks. I posted a few pictures below. To see the entire collection click here.

We had a very busy Thanksgiving Weekend. Josh's sister Jenny and her friend Heidi came to stay with us for the weekend from Northland. We also had some other friends from Northland Vanessa and Kyle here for the weekend as well (they stayed with my parents.) We packed a ton of fun things into the weekend.

Wednesday night I broadened my horizons and baked pumpkin. I had never done it before, but it was pretty fun and turned out really well. My pies for Thursday even turned out great!!

Thursday was a beautiful day here in Wisconsin, so we took advantage of it and went out to a park Thursday afternoon and goofed off for a while.

Friday was of course our shopping day. We weren't really going out looking for anything in particular but we did find a few good deals along the way.

Saturday, Josh, Jenny, Heidi and I went out and cut down a Christmas tree and brought it home. All of us enjoyed that as it was a new experience for us all. We decorated the tree Sunday afternoon.

Here are a few of the pictures we took this past weekend. Pictures from our tree cutting adventure will come later. :)

A few weeks ago Josh and I went out and took some winter pictures. Here they are for your viewing enjoyment!

Josh and I went to one of our favorite parks in the are today to take some pictures in the snow (well, and to spend some time together too!!) We had a blast taking pictures and walking around. We also made a snowman!















Us and our Short Snowman (maybe we should call it a SnowBoy.)

Well, I just completed yet another crazy weekend! The past few weeks have been so crazy. When life slows down (which it probably won't....) I don't think I'll ever complain of boredom again!!

This weekend, Josh and I (and Brad Bladine) helped our new friend Megan with a project at the Wausau West High School. Megan is an English teacher there and also supervises the Pub Lab (where the students make the school newspaper and yearbook). This weekend our project was to rearrange the lab so that it functions better. Oh yeah, and we had some students there helping us as well.

Friday night we worked on emptying the lab, cleaning and organizing things to get moved back into the lab. This included removing old cables, cleaning the floors, and throwing away tons of old files and pictures and stuff. We also moved in the tables and arranged them in a much more functional manner. Saturday we moved in the computers and monitors and the rest of the furniture and then worked to organize everything.

The project was tons of work, (we were up late Friday night and up early Saturday morning) but the end result was well worth the effort we put into it. The students were so excited about the reorganization. Hopefully, they will be more productive now!! (Well, at least as productive as a group of High School students can be....)

Now, one might think our crazy busyness would end here and that Saturday evening was spent relaxing and recovering from all the work of the daytime. But, oh no! not us!! Saturday evening we joined my family and a bunch of friends for a bonfire. We were helping a friend from Scotland celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. So, we had a bonfire and cooked hot dogs and S'Mores and had a grand ol' time around the fire. We ended the evening at my parents house watching Finding Nemo.

Sunday was a rather normal Sunday for us. We had church and then dinner at my parents house. Sunday dinners are always great as we end up with tons of people there and there's always lots of laughter and joking going on. I wasn't feeling well Sunday afternoon so I went home and took a nap and actually ended up staying home from evening church because I still was feeling kinda bad. Today I'm feeling better though and feel a bit more rested, but still pretty tired!

Maybe I'll post some pics later if I get them. We took some before and after pictures of the Lab but I don't have copies of them yet.

Have a great week!! As for me, I'm going to try to get caught up on sleep!!

Sometimes it seems life never slows down. But being busy sure can be fun!! (Warning, this post is kinda long!!)

Friday night Joshua and I drove over to Northland to hear the SMS Men's Choir at the Artist Series. On the way over, we received a call from a friend (who will remain nameless to protect him!) who was having a problem and needed HELP!!! This friend had been driving through Crandon, WI the day before and had stopped to get gas and his credit card had been rejected and he was being accused of stealing gas. He called Josh since he knew Josh used to live in Crandon and had some connections there. So, we arrive in Crandon and head straight for the Police Station. Josh talks to the cops and then we head over to the gas station to pay for the "stolen" gas for our nice friend. You know, you'd think that if someone came in saying that they were going to give you money, you'd just accept it. Oh no - not this lady!! She tried giving Josh a hard time, but he won!! They finally accepted the money and gave Josh a "receipt" to prove that the gas had been paid for. His receipt was written on the back of a cigarette carton!! Well, that taken care of we proceed to go back to the Police so they can put down on the record that the gas had been paid for. Whew! What an adventure!!

With that escapade behind us we went to Subway and had supper with my parents who were also heading up for the concert. We had a nice time chatting with them and laughing over miscellaneous stories from the day.

The concert was very nice and the singing was great. There was even an appearance by a Barbershop Quartet that I particularly enjoyed! We also enjoyed sitting with Josh's friend Dan Childers and also Jenny, Josh's sister.

After the concert we were able to talk to lots of friends who we hadn't seen in a while. We also got to meet a couple of the SMS guys and enjoyed talking with them. I think we ended up talking to people until around 10:30.

Now, you might think oh 10:30 end of the night right? Nope, not for us crazy people. There was a Hockey Game Friday night and Josh and I really enjoy going to those, so us, Jenny and Holly (Jenny's friend) went to the game together. We had fun but didn't get back until around 1:15 AM or so!!

Josh and I spent the night with our good friends the Reese's. We always have a blast at their house. Phil and Shirley have 6 kids of which 5 are boys. So yes, it is never dull at their house! We were woken up by Thomas (one of the members of our fan club!) at 9 AM by him coming into our room and turning on the light to say good morning!! We enjoyed our visit with them and had fun playing with the kiddos and hearing what they are up to. (I'll post pictures later!)

Saturday evening we had a night of excitement which was supper and several crazy rounds of Uno Attack with the Eckdal's, Silvia, Liz, Jen, Dan and Mark on Saturday night. If you've never played this game you should try it sometime!!

Sunday was a bit calmer in which I was able to take a nap (yay!!) and we just did some relaxing.
Sunday evening at church the kids from church had the opportunity to show their parents and the other adults what they've been learning in Children's Church. Josh and I love teaching them on Sundays and have so much fun with the kids. Right now Josh is teaching through the book of Acts and the kids are really enjoying it. They sang 2 songs and then answered some questions about their lessons. We were so proud of the kids - they all did an excellent job!!

Wow, I'm tired just thinking back on all that we did this weekend. I'll post pictures later on.

Josh took these really cool pictures of our car a few weeks ago.

 

Last weekend we went bowling with some friends.
The first picture is of Anneliese. The second picture is of Liz and Jen. Liz and Jen are comind down from Nortland each weekend to work in our church as their Extension Ministry.

Story: Right after this picture was taken Anneliese fell down while holding her bowling ball and ended up breaking the tip of her finger. Poor kid!! She's doing great now though and was a real trooper through the whole ordeal. 

My wonderful Husband brought me home some flowers about a week ago. Here are some of the pictures he took of them.
 

Sunday afternoon Josh and I spent some time with one of our friends children. We took them to the park to play and took a bunch of pictures while we were there. The kids had a blast playing on the playground and also walking around the park. Here are some of the pictures that Josh took.

Friday night was very nice, so Josh and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go to one of the parks here in Wausau and have a picnic. We packed ourselves a supper of sandwiches, chips, drinks and apples and took off. We found a great picnic table overlooking the water to eat on and afterwards Josh decided to take some pictures.

(Let me interject one thing here. Last weekend we were at a wedding in Minneapolis. Before the wedding, we went to the Mall of America for a few hours. While there, Josh found this cool 12" tripod to use with our Kokak Digital Camera. )

So Josh set up the camera and tripod and decided to use the timer to take some pictures of us sitting on the dock. Well, about 5 tries later we ended up with the picture below. The first 4 tries ended up rather goofy. See the slide show below for more of the pictures Josh took.




 

Josh and I enjoyed our long weekend. We enjoyed having some time at home to relax and also some time to get out and do things with friends. Here's what we did: (If you'd like to skip all this text, there are photos below!)

Friday night I had a girls night at my house. My Mom and sister came over and we did some Stamping. We are just getting into the Rubber Stamping craze and have fun making cards and using our creative prowess (or lack thereof!)

Saturday Josh and I slept in and then just hung out at home doing a lot of nothing. Saturday evening we went to my parents for a cookout and then went bowling. One of our friends from Northland, Stewart MacLean was visiting with his friend, Jeff, for the weekend. We all had a great time together.

Sunday afternoon, myself, Josh, Jeff and Stewart went to Rib Mountain State Park and spent some time up there. They have a 60 foot (1400 feet above sea level so Joshua tells me) lookout tower there that we went up to see the views. We also walked one of the many hiking trails there. The one we ended up on was about a mile long with TONS of hills. I was tired by the time we were done, but we throughly enjoyed ourselves.

Monday, Josh's friend Dan Childers and another new friend of ours, Erick, and my brother Mark came over and the 5 of us went to the Eau Claire Dells which is about half an hour from our house. The guys all had a blast climbing around on the rocks and trying not to fall in the water! Our next stop was a driving tour of Wausau, WI for Erick since he had never been here before. Our tour ended at Rib Mountain State Park where we climbed the lookout tower and took tons of pictures of the beautiful landscape. After that we went back to the Smith apartment where we grilled out and had some fun eating and fellowshipping together. Our evening ended late (11:00), but we all had a great time.

Needless to say, after my busy weekend, I am ready for another day off just to have some time to rest!

Josh brought home an iMac last night to work on for someone. These are some fun pictures that we took using the iSight Camera.