September is over?!?

I can't believe it! I feel like this month has flown by...

So not a whole lot has been going on this past week... I did start working back at Kid's Korner after school. I worked for them last winter, and it's located in the same warehouse as Primary, so I'm back in familiar territory! Then last night my mom and I did a laundry run - our washer works, but our dryer made some funny sounds after the flood, so we just bring wet clothes to the laundromat and dry them there... It's not much fun, but there's a Dairy Queen right next door... Hehe! After stopping for ice cream, we came home and had another Mother-Daughter Movie Night. I rented "An Affair to Remember" from the library and it was great - it's from the fifties; a romantic, tear-jerking chick flick. After that, we watched the better parts of "Sleepless in Seattle" - a movie that was actually inspired by "Affair."

Then this morning was Pastor Steve's second Sunday at Hillcrest! It has been fourteen months between pastors, and it's so good to have a great pastor and his family here - finally!!! After church, we had a delicious steak dinner from the grill (thanks Mark!) and I took a little time to clean my room. My mom was working on sorting stuff from the flood and dug out a bookshelf topper from the garage. Since all the bookshelves that were downstairs were thrown away in the flood, she thought I could use it on my desk (I had used it on my desk in the past.) So, I spent a little time rearranging my trinkets...

My new desk arrangement!

Hand-made ceramic gifts from Mexico...

And since this is the last day of September, that means tomorrow is the first day of October, and that means that October 5th is only 5 days away.... What I'm getting at is that I'll be in Urbana for a Steven Curtis Chapman/Sanctus Real concert on Friday!!!!!!! I can't wait!!!

WaNiPa Wedding!

On the weekend of Sept. 8, I traveled with my mom and Granny to my beloved UP for the second time in a month. My cousin Susa had her wedding ceremony on the beach at WaNiPa - and it was beautiful!

We left our house just after lunch on Friday and after a record 3 stops, we arrived at the Nordic Bay Lodge to spend the night. After waking up to hilltop views of Lake Superior, we headed out to the cabins for a midday ceremony. We walked directly to the beach to white chairs set up on the beach. Behind the chairs, we were surprised to find the groom, Forrest, playing a gorgeous new piano - on the beach!!! The piano was a gift to the bride and groom from the groom's parents, and it took over an hour to get it down to the beach. Eventually, the pastor, Althea (the groom's mother), and Forrest walked down the aisle and "Here Comes the Bride" began to play. We all stood in anticipation, waited, waited some more, and sat again when the music changed. After a few minutes, we were informed that the bride did not have cold feet, but the ring bearer had lost the rings somewhere between the cabins and the top of the dune. Being, in fact, the bride's family dog Elvis, it truly wasn't his fault that the rings had come untied from his doggy tuxedo. The ceremony did go on once the rings were replaced with purple ribbon. The flower girl, Susa's cat, was carried by the maid of honor, and Forrest's brother, Birrion, walked Elvis down the aisle as best man.(Yes, that is a piano on the beach!)

The ceremony was beautiful, and shortly after the bride and groom was presented as Mr. & Mrs. Stonedahl, the wedding rings were found in the sand on the path. The wedding party took their pictures on the beach, on Presque Isle, and even hiked up Sugarloaf Mountain. The reception was held in Marquette at Upfront & Company.Me with the Bride & Groom at the reception -

there was a deck overlooking lower harbor...

It was such a perfect day for a beach wedding. We found out later that the day before, there had been 40 mph winds, horrid rain, and waves covering the beach almost to the beach grass! Praise God for great weather!

On Sunday, we were able to spend a little time in town. We went to Messiah Lutheran for church (we were actually early to church - something that never happens when we're up there!), ate pasties at Lawry's, ice cream at Jillbert's, drove around the Island, and went shopping, of course!

While we were shopping at Touch of Finland, I realized that I really don't own anything Swedish. My mom has a few things, but I don't. And what could be more Swedish than a Dala horse?!? Since there were none at touch of Finland (not surprisingly), we went to Scandinavian Gifts and I found the perfect Dala horse!!! I love it! Plus, it was on sale! All in all, a great weekend! And here's a great pic I got from the dune on Sunday - strong wind, but still beautiful!!!

Steve & Barry's

I love Steve & Barry's!!!!!!!! They have good quality clothing at extremely-amazingly low prices!!!!

I got these three tees for only $9!!!!!

They have great college stuff!!!

My brothers got these great Chief Jackets

And Eric found these Illini-inspired athletic shoes!

I love Steve & Barry's!!!

My New Dell!!!!!!

I just thought that before I get to far in my posting, I should let you know that I have a new laptop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I got on to Dell's outlet online store to check things out, and I saw this - the most perfect laptop ever!!!!!!! (OK, so I'm a little biased... Hehehe!!!) I love it!!! It's a refurbished Inspiron 1420 with 2 GB Memory and 160 GB Hard Drive. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, an integrated web cam, and Windows Vista. The best part?........

It's BLUE!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Flood!!!

A view of our flooded backyard...

We are just lucky that we were home and not on vacation on the night of Thursday, August 23. We had a little more rain than normal (about 5 inches in 24 hours) and rain was starting to collect in our backyard - nothing that hadn't happened before. Water started creeping into Eric's room about 7:00 - something that had also occurred before. Eric was keeping up with the water by using the shop-vac. I was still recovering from a cold, so I took NyQuil about 9:00 p.m. My mom came into my room about 11:00 and told me what was been going on - the water in the backyard was rising and our neighbors were helping put sandbags around our house to try to stop the water. I rolled back over and fell asleep; but not for very long, because at 1:00 in the morning, my mom came and got me to help get as much stuff upstairs as we could. It turns out that the Kishwaukee River, not far from our house, crested and was flooding all around our block. We spent the next 3 hours salvaging as much furniture and stuff as we could before the water rose too high. We got almost everything out of the boys' rooms (beds, dressers, desks) and a few other major pieces of furniture throughout the rest of the basement.

Pics of the basement after the water receded.
Notice the bubbly carpet - it had been (for the most part) floating!!!

This is everything the city hauled away for us.

The hardest part for me was when I started grabbing as many of our photo albums as I could. The water was rising faster - up to my ankles in 15 minutes - and as I watched my family bring everything that we could upstairs, prioritizing what needed to come up first, and thinking about how difficult this must be for my brothers who have their bedrooms downstairs, I felt so overwhelmed! We had to stop about 3:30 in the morning because my dad had to turn off the circuit breakers so no one would get electrocuted from the rising water. No circuit breakers meant no lights to see what we were doing, so we just had to sit back and let the water rise...There was a large storage container full of pictures in the storage room that we didn't have time to dig out. We ended up drying them in the sun all over the driveway - many were at least partially salvaged.

The water (a combination of river water and backed up sewage...) finally topped off at 22" and it sat in our basement for about 45 hours, then receded rather quickly. Demolition in the basement soon began - we ripped out all the smelly carpet, cleared all the rooms of stuff (some was saved, some was not), and started ripping out all the wet walls. With all that happened in those few days and the rebuilding that will continue for a few months, we still have so much to be thankful for. None of us were injured in this ordeal (the most important thing!) and a lot of important things were saved. I just keep thinking - what if the water didn't start coming until after my brothers went to bed and they woke up in two feet of water during the night when it was too late to save anything... Thank God that He provided time for us! As that Casting Crowns song goes "I will praise You in this storm..."

temporary sleeping arrangements upstairs...

"Dad the Builder" - Reconstruction begins!!!

The blue-painted cement floor
(with rugs, much less expensive than carpet)

Framing the walls - as of now, the boys'
rooms are just about framed up!

WANIPA 2007!!!!

The Lord blessed my family and I with a wonderful week in the UP! My Granny co-owns property on Lake Superior near Marquette, and it is such a great vacation for my whole extended family on my mom's side. My mom and her five siblings grew up going up there every summer, and the tradition has begun to pass on the the next generation. We were up there that week with Granny, Aunt Debby & Uncle Rob, and cousins Brittany and Mark - some of my favorite people in the world!!!

The day before we were to set off, my mom picked up Granny so she could spend the night at our house. Uncle Rob and Aunt Debby drove the first leg of their trip (from St. Louis to DeKalb), then spent the night at our house to get a few hours of sleep in. Then that Saturday morning, Aunt Debby and Uncle Rob got up early and drove with Granny, and we left a little later and made a stop to pick up Eric at Covenant Harbor.

Eric with his camp counselor Chuck, and friend from church, Tucker

So after finally getting on the interstate, we soon made a call to Aunt Debby (who had left hours before) just to see how far ahead of us they were. Because of a little misdirection, they had started to head to Madison, WI, instead of Milwaukee, and because of the detour, were actually a few miles behind us!!! Hehehe!!! We ended up becoming travel buddies and made most of the same pit stops for the entire 8+ hour journey. Along the way, we also passed cousins on their way back to Illinois after being at WANIPA...

Andy(not shown), Granny, Pete, Leslie, Mitch, Saul, Eric, Me, Mark,
and dogs Charley (far left), Chief and Casey!!!

When we arrived at WANIPA, my "sister" Brittany and husband Mark were already there after traveling all the way from Massachusetts!

Britt & Mark on top of Sugarloaf

Of course, we took Casey to the beach right away - and what a beach it was!!! This year was the longest beach that my mom could remember in a long time. It was fun going swimming because it took forever to get from the table by the beach grass (where we put our towels) to the Lake!!

Casey on the dune

View from the dune

Look at how tiny they are!!!
Mark, Dad, and Casey on the long beach

Casey on the beach!

Sunday morning meant church at Prince of Peace Lutheran, and then it was out to Presque Isle (the Island) for pasties by the breakwater!!! We were also blessed to have cousin Mark's parents and sister vacationing with us for a few days - what an awesome family!

The breakwater on the Island with an ore boat in the distance

Pasties on the Island!!!

Burtni!!! Susan, Bill, Britt, Mark (behind Britt), and Bekah!

The rest of the week was spent going to the cove on the Island, climbing Sugarloaf Mountain, pasties on the Island again, shopping downtown, and hanging out on the beach!!!

Skipping stones at the Cove on the Island

The Cove

Climbing up Sugarloaf!
Casey always has to be first!

Eric hitting a golf ball off the peak of Sugarloaf Mountain into
Lake Superior (and he really did make it to the water!)

The Wessel family on Picture Rock

The beautiful forest!

Downtown Marquette

View from the dune bench

Casey hanging out by the cabins

WANIPA!!!!!