North Shore Drive

Today we went to the beach in the morning for a little sun, then we headed over to the North Shore as they call it here. It was amazing! Here are some pictures from the journey which describe things better then I could!

Aloha from Hawaii!

Aloha from Hawaii!

The internet in our condo is only in the common area, needless to say I haven’t been sitting down there too often. So I decided that it was time to send out some pictures and up-date on our Hawaii trip.

Steve and I had to leave Marshalltown a day early due to weather, so we stayed at a park and fly hotel in Des Moines right across from the airport. Our flight left on time the next morning, so everything worked out perfectly.

The first day here we visited the beach…..went out to eat, and made a trip to Best Buy. Steve and I forgot to pack our digital camera charger. So now we’re the owners of 2! That’s what happens when you have to pack in a few hours and get things ready to leave town a day early.

For Christmas Eve we went out to eat at this place on the beach and did some shopping. It’s too bad that nothing around here is shut down for the holidays. Poor workers!

Today we went out for breakfast at Lulu’s on the beach (very yummy!) and then hiked up Diamond Head. Tons of stairs…one of the longest 0.8 mile hikes 1 way that I’ve ever been on. Then we drove to another beach called Kailua, which was beautiful but very windy and cold. The drive over on the Pali highway was really neat. We visited the lookout which was VERY windy, as you’ll be able to check out from the picture.



Nels and Steve finished off the day with a little surfing! My dad and I were in charge of taking pictures and my main mission is to read my book and not have to deal with 5th graders or Jack. I took surfing lessons the last time I was here, so if the boys end up renting a board later this week I might have to give it a try. We’ll see what happens.



We’ve had a wonderful time so far, and have tons more things planned that we have to do before the week is over.

Jack is having fun in Iowa and from what we heard today got a ton of presents.

girls night out

On Thursday, the girls from school and I decided that we would treat ourselves to a manicure and a pedicure and a dinner out in Ames. It was SO much fun and a well needed break from the routine of life. Here are some pictures of our adventure. It's such a blessing to work with such fun people.

8 things about me...

This is from being "tagged" by Erin and April a couple weeks ago! Here are 8 things about myself. Enjoy!

1. When I was in 2nd grade I lost by cabbage patch moon boot in the snowbank at April and Erin's house and their dad (Mr.Patient) had to come rescue the boot with a ski pole.
2. To go along with the cabbage patch moon boots I also had cabbage patch ear muffs, that were the actual doll heads with hair....nice, huh? I also had a matching backpack.
3. One time in college while shopping at the Thift Shop in Cook my roommate from college (Raku) found my backpack from when I was in 3rd grade. It said, "Back off, I'm a ghostbuster" on it. It also had my name on it and said 3rd grade and then was crossed off and said 4th. Yes, she did buy it!
4. I have always traveled someplace for Christmas by plane. Most often it was Arizona to visit by dear grandpa. What special memories with all 14 of us staying in a 3 bedroom house.
5. When I was going to babysit (about 14 or so) I was in the car with the mom and she ran over one of our cats. I will never forget what that cat looked like flopping around on the ground.
6. When we lived in the UP of Michigan, I went to grad school in another time zone!
7. I was trained to be a lifeguard for the YMCA, and subbed for 2 summers at the Aquatic Center, I have since retired from that profession.
8. I was stung by a jellyfish while snorkeling in Mexico on our honeymoon...I had to follow some locals and they convinced be to take a couple pills and put some lotion on it. The only problem was I had no idea what they were saying.

last weekend (a week late!)

Last Friday night (the 7th) Steve and I enjoyed a night out to the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular! It was so neat! Steve gave me the tickets for a birthday present and even arranged the babysitter and everything, impressive, huh? At the end they had a Live Nativity scene which included not one but two camels and 2 sheep! All on stage. It was so neat to have the show end with the true meaning of Christmas. I would highly recommend for anyone to go if it ever comes to an area near you.

We enjoyed being home and not having to go anywhere for the rest of the weekend. We did our first attempt at a Christmas picture of Jack...check these out! He is facinated with the camera, so he kept wanting to walk towards it. We'll see what we end up with.

elfed

Check this out...

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1239124223

stepec christmas

We traveled to Duluth on Thursday night after school and work. We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Canal Park. I told the lady at the desk, "when you grew up in MN and now live in IA you have to stay at a place where you can see water!". It was a fun hotel and a great view of the lake, since it was FREEZING cold we really enjoyed sitting by the heater and looking out the window. We had December birthdays on Friday night, followed by Christmas this morning. It was fun to watch Jada and Jack attempt to play together. They are both very easy going so that was nice!


Here is a picture of Jack and Steve both on the computers. Jack is very fascinated with buttons, remote controls, and loves computers. He was in heaven when the hotel had a keyboard to use for some TV internet thing. It was too cute!




We started to head home today but the roads are bad here with snow and blowing snow. In Iowa they are ice covered...so we made it as far as the cities tonight (Lino Lakes) and are staying in a hotel. We are actually staying a mile or so away from the Mills family! So we're going to venture over and visit and let Jack play in house and get rid of some energy before we have a long night in the hotel room!

hawaii?

Here are all our Keens ready for Hawaii! Only now only 2 pair will see the beach in a few weeks! We decided today that we're going to leave Jack in Iowa with our dear friends, the Bolands with Linda and Gary taking a couple days (yet to be determined because of G'pa). Over the weekend we got to thinking about the 10 hours of flying time, time changes, etc. So Jack is going to celebrate Christmas in Iowa and Steve and I will be on the beach! I will miss him like crazy, but after some good conversations with people I've come to realize that he would have more fun here without having to travel. I think the rest of the people on our flight will agree!

FYI...for those of you who don't know that this Hawaii trip is going to be a bittersweet trip for us. My dad and mom had been saving money for years to be able to spend their 25th wedding anniversary in Hawaii on the beach. On December 28th, it would have been my mom and dad's 25th wedding anniversary. My dad invited Nels, Steve and I to go with him to Hawaii to celebrate.

thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I loved every minute of not having to be at school! Gotta love a long weekend. My dad and brother came down to Marshalltown from Minnesota and were suprised how big Jack has gotten. He's for sure more of a toddler now than a baby even though everyone calls him "baby Jack". We went to Iowa City and stayed with Gary and Linda on Thursday night. Linda was kind enough to make us a great meal! Yum! We spent the night so we were able to visit with my granpa 2 times. He is now back at Legacy and the hard part is that hospice is now involved. We cherish every time we get to visit with him. He is so sweet! We also had Christmas with Linda, Gary and my dad and Nels. We got some fun gifts! One of the highlight gifts is that my dad bought Nels, Steve & I a Wii! Nels has his already but we're still on the search for ours. It was SO fun to play. I almost beat Steve at bowling!



Steve and Uncle Nels went with Jack to swim class on Wednesday night. It was fun to watch them all play.

test

Here is a picture I tried to put up last time, this is an example of what Jack loved to do at the hospital when we visited my grandpa! Just like his mom!! Off to the candy and pop.

pictures

Since Steve and Jack stayed home today, Steve was able to up-date our computer with the hospital pictures. Good news today was that my grandpa is now back at Legacy Gardens, all cozy back in his room. Steve took Jack to the doctor today, and Jack is back on the nebulizer...but now since he's older he is suppose to wear this mask that makes him look like he has a fish face. I'll try to get a picture of that. We have to use the nebulizer machine every 4 hours for now. At least the croup is gone and we've moved on to something else? agh...

One of those nights...

I was hoping to download some pictures of our weekend in Iowa City tonight, but we got a new digital camera a week ago or so and I don't think I have it set-up right. I know, big suprise! So much for that idea. I guess I'll try tomorrow when my patient husband is home.

Along the technology line....I dropped the cordless phone into the sink where Steve seems to be growing a spiderman? Don't ask! It was this little spiderman that he got and it's suppose to grow 400% or something? So it seems to be taking over our bathroom sink. So no more cordless phone. I'm trying to dry it out? Who knows if that will work.

I also had good intentions of being able to get some other things done around the house once I put Jack to bed...but after he was all clean and had a snack, brushed his teeth he started coughing so hard he threw up ALL OVER himself and me! It was so nasty. Washing Jack, myself and a load of clothes at 9:00 at night was not my plans. All Jack wanted to do was go to sleep so he's already out cold in his crib. Hopefully with the humidifier on he won't wake up coughing.

So the moral of the story is tonight...no pictures and nothing exciting, except cleaning up puke, and not talking on the phone!

G'pa

My grandpa is in the hospital in Iowa City. He's been there since last Wednesday. He has pnemonia(sp?), a blood infection and who knows what else. He was taken my ambulance from Legacy Garden (Memory care place...aka his "big house") to Mercy Hospital. Linda has been staying with him there making sure he is getting the best possible care. She is too sweet. I do get e-mails that talk about her eating ice cream, nachos, etc. So I do have to say she knows how to do it right! I attached a picture of them. My grandpa has been very entertained with Linda's computer and pictures. Linda is also learning how to take digital pictures and send them over e-mail!

Today my dad shot a dear with my grandpa's gun. My grandpa thought that was so neat he got tears in his eyes (is what I'm told). It's so neat to see that even though his memory is not so with it that there are still things from his past that he remembers. He hunted for a lot of years, with my Uncle Lars so who knows what kind of memories it brought up.

Jack and I are heading over next weekend to visit Susie and Aunt Carol who are coming down from Duluth. We all hope and pray that g'pa will be back in his "big house" by then!

Croup anyone?

It all started with what we thought was some more 1-year molars coming in...boy, were we wrong! On Halloween night we didn't hardly sleep at all and Jack was making this awful noise each time he woke up (which was often) and it was like he couldn't take in a full breath. Lovely, I know. I took Thursday off and I was at school at 6:30 that morning writing lesson plans for the sub, oh the joys of missing a day of school. Jack and I headed to the pediatrician at 9:00, and we didn't have to get checked out for very long when she heard him cough and labeled it Croup. For those of you wondering what you do for that....no medication! :) The things we were told to do was go outside in the middle of the night in the cold air to break the "stridor" or tight breathing. We could also turn on the shower and let it run for 10 minutes and fog up the bathroom. It never quite came to either of those, but it did require Steve and Jack sleeping sitting up on the couch for a few nights. Saylor and I had to hold down the fort upstairs and slept in our bed. It is definitely not any fun to see your kid get so sick and cough, and cough and then start to cry because it hurt so bad and look at you with the look of why did you do this to me? It broke our hearts to see Jack like that. All he wanted to do was sit with us and be carried around the house. He usually NEVER wants to be held or carried. I did manage to take some cute pictures of sick Jack. He wouldn't eat anything so the doctor told us to let him eat whatever he wants....cereal, toddler Cheetos and more cereal! He thought it was more fun to eat right off the table and not his tray, notice how he put his feet on the table.

On Saturday afternoon the youth group came and raked our yard. It was a huge blessing! They thought it was fun to put Jack in the pile of leaves. He had his own rake and was copying what they were doing.

Oh yes, we did make it our trick-or-treating with our friends. We went to a couple houses of people we knew so the moms could eat the candy!

Pumpkin Time!

We were going to head to the pumpkin patch today, but we decided after all the running around we've done that it might be best for all of us to just stay home for a day. Since Halloween is in a few days we decided to head out and get some pumpkins at Earl May, for 99 cents! What a deal! Jack thought he needed to try to pick up the biggest one he could find. Notice my feet behind him so he won't fall over on the jagged rocks! We came home and tried to take some other pictures since it was so sunny and nice outside.

Steve planted a tree that my Aunt Linda and Uncle Gary brought down from Lake Vermilion. The really neat thing about this tree is that my Uncle Lars (who passed away 2 1/2 years ago) was the one who planted the tree by the lake at Timbuktu. They had to take it out for some other planting projects, and now it's planted in our back yard in Iowa. My Uncle Lars was a really special person in my life growing up and taught me a lot about life. I'm so grateful to have the tree in my yard to go along with my many precious memories of him. Here is a picture of Jack by the tree.

Fall Retreat

Hello!

We made it through Fall Retreat! It was a lot of fun and the weather was amazing! I think on Saturday it was 73 degrees and sunny. Who could ask for anything more? Except I did forget to carry around the camera to take pictures of Jack eating dirt, sticks and all that exciting stuff. He loved to be around Eowyn. Josh, Liz, and Eowyn came down from Minnesota and Josh led music for the youth which was really fun. It was fun to see them and spend time with the 3 of them, the next time we see them we'll get to hold a new baby.

Jack got a new hat and mittens from LL Bean (free shipping, gotta love that!). We had a hard time finding a hat that latched under his chin. Since he has such an ear fettish we wanted to have some control of making his hat stay on. At least until he figures out how to take it off. He loves wearing mittens and clapping. I'm not sure how the 2 relate, but who knows? We did get some cute pictures in the kitchen, since it hasn't been cold enough to wear them outside.

The other excitement is that April and Jesse got engaged! YIPEE! Jack was doing a happy dance for Auntie April. We better get our dancing shoes out and dusted off. :) It's so neat to have such a great friend (a sister at heart) get engaged.

swimming lessons

Jack and I have been taking Parent/Tot swim class at the Y for the past 8 weeks. It's been a lot of fun to be with other young kids and meet their parents. Jack has loved it (we're actually signing up for the next session). The water picture is actually from the first day of class, which I know is kind of blurry.

The weather has finally cooled off enough here, so we've had to get out our fleece jackets and hats. This is a picture of Jack and I getting ready to leave for swimming class and the hat he has on he actually had the same hat when he was little. This one came in a bag of free clothes! Too fun!

We're heading to Fall Retreat with the youth group this weekend, which will be interesting. The kids are so excited that Baby Jack is coming! Someday he's going to get mad at them for calling him a baby!

I hope everyone is having a great week. It's been raining here a lot! I'm ready to see a little bit of sunshine. I'm jealous of my teacher friends in Minnesota who have MEA! Lucky!

Happy Birthday!

So today I turned 29....now I am SO old! It was a good day, enjoyed by lots of brownies that were brought by my teaching partners. :) I also was blessed to go out for supper with Steve, Jack and part of the Boland family. We went to El Portal, my favorite mexican restaurant. Steve surpised me with tickets to the Rockette's Christmas Show in Des Moines in December. He even planned out a babysitter! Impressive, huh? Jack gave me some Silpada jewelry, that was one of those things I bought and said it was To: Mom, From: Jack!

We have been busy enjoying the cool weather. We actually had to turn the heat on yesterday. Last weekend it was so hot (90 degrees) that we had the air conditioning on. Iowa weather I guess.

Tomorrow we head to Iowa City to visit my grandpa at his "vacation home" (aka Legacy Gardens, a memory care place). He says it's the biggest home he's ever lived in. So it's entertaining to go and visit and everyone there talks about baby Jack, even the workers are excited for him to come. G'pa is very content in his home as long as we don't tell him he's in Iowa. :)

The best treat about the weekend is that Linda is going to watch Jack for the day on Saturday so Steve and I can enjoy some time together. We plan on heading to Chipotle, since it's the first one that's opened in Iowa.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Long (& Fun) Week!

Sorry it's been so long since the last post....last week I had school conferences which took up 3 of the evenings, and when I finally got home I crashed. I did try to convince Steve to let me wake Jack up since I hadn't seen him all day, but he wouldn't hear of it!

This past weekend Steve, Jack and I headed to Des Moines to get Jack's 1 year pictures taken. That was a little harder since he wanted to walk out and play with the kids in the waiting area or walk and get the soccer ball that was a prop. We did leave with a few pictures in hand, it's always so hard to decide. We go to a place called Portrait Innovations, which is so nice because you go back and pick up the pictures in an hour! So here's a picture of Jack and Steve walking around the lake area by the Jordan Creek Mall.

On Saturday I headed to Minneapolis (ALONE!!) to meet up with April, Trisha and Erin. We had a girls weekend! It was so much fun to be able to shop for many hours at the Mall of America, go out to eat at the Olive Garden, enjoy some giggles in our hotel room all to wake up the next morning to head to Ikea. We then followed that up with some Chipotle before heading our separate ways. It was a well needed break! Steve and Jack survived just fine at home! I was glad to see them when I got back.

Jack also got his first "haircut", it was beginning to look a little shaggy! He did okay sitting in the chair but he was glad to be done.

This weekend is a low key weekend, so hopefully we can get caught up with things around the house.

apple orchard pictures

Here are the pictures from the apple orchard I promised! Jack figured out right away how to bite off a piece of the apple. He also thought it would be fun to throw a few of them, so hopefully that doesn't start a new habit!

weekend of fun

Our weekend has been filled with fun and excitement! On Friday evening we took Jack out in hopes of finding some shoes that would fit his fat foot (I swear it's as fat as it is long). We headed to Des Moines to try our luck there since I have tried to shove his foot into every pair of shoes I could find in Marshalltown. We did have some luck at Sheels (a sports store with an 80 foot oak tree in the middle). He got some brown Merrell's. They are so cute! If it wasn't 90 degrees outside I'd put them on and take a picture to post.

Saturday was the Oketemberfest parade, which Jack missed because he was sound asleep in his crib for his morning nap. I couldn't believe he slept that long since people were lined up outside our house for the parade...marching bands, police cars, screaming kids, etc. He slept for 2 hours, so just when Jack and I were headed to meet Steve and some of the youth everyone else was leaving the parade.

Last night Steve and I ate the BEST carmel apples from the candy store downtown for supper and watched Blades of Glory...which was actually kind of funny!

Today, Steve is going back to work for the afternoon and evening and Jack and I are going with some friends to an apple orchard. I've never been to one, so I'm excited about that!

I hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Too tired to move!

As I was talking on the phone to April tonight, and Jack and I were hanging out in his bedroom he was all happy and playing with his leapfrog piano and all of a sudden I looked and he was laying on the floor sound asleep. Too cute! I'll keep my fingers crossed that he sleeps all night since he was up a lot last night with two 1 year molars coming in.

Take a look at all the toys and books all over the floor. He made that mess all on his own!

Birthday Party

We headed over to the Boland's for a birthday party with my dad and Nels. He loved when we sang "happy birthday" to him, he clapped and clapped! Then it was time for the presents...which he got some neat ones...fisher price parking garage/ramp, animal magnets that sing for the fridge, nerf basketball hoop, and an airplane. To get ready for Christmas in Hawaii!

Here is his give me more presents face!

Here is the before the real fun began shot!

Here is the almost final product of messy-ness! He had cake all the way up his arm, in his nose and everywhere. It really helped when we put a little scoop of ice cream in the pan. He did have a cute little cake I made, but it fell off the plate when I was carrying it into the house. Oh well, I think he enjoyed himself. He had to take a bath with his clothes on and then get in his pj's before we left their house. A good time was had by all!

Happy Birthday Jack!

Happy Birthday Jack!

September 15th...1 year old! I can hardly believe it! It really does go by so fast. Here is a picture of Jack a year ago (6 days old) and here is another picture taken today.....boy does he change! Uncle Nels and Grandpa Fogelberg are on their way to Iowa to celebrate with us. The cake is just coming out of the oven, just call me Betty Crocker! It won't be near as cute as the cake he had last weekend in Duluth...but I promise to post some pictures anyway. He went for his 1 year appointment today and weighs 21 lbs! The most exciting part is that he's going to start drinking whole milk!! We're excited about that, especially since the formula Jack had to be on was 24 dollars a can. He also gets to sit in his car seat facing the front, so that will be much easier to take road trips when we can see his face and not just in the little mirror.

It's the big Iowa State vs. U of Iowa football game tomorrow afternoon, so the town is all decked out in black and yellow or red and yellow! For team spirit day at school today I wore my UMD sweatshirt and a MN Gophers t-shirt. You can tell how much we're into the whole rivalry thing. Some entertainment anyway...

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

If the Stepec's were a cartoon

This is a little fun. With all the Simpson craze this summer I thought it would be interesting to see what our family might look like in the Simpson world. Enjoy.

Birthday Party #1

Here are some pictures of Jack's birthday party in Duluth. From what I hear he wasn't too sure about the cake idea. It looks like he was being a little too neat with the spoon! He got some great birthday presents. As Steve says, "he's loved". They had a good weekend visiting family, friends and Steve headed to his reunion for a night. Jack was a good traveler in the car, he slept most of the way home which is why he was up a lot last night. Hopefully we can get that straightened out for this next week. My first full week of school is coming up.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Home Alone!

Yep, I'm home alone! As you can tell from the picture there is no sitting down and around relaxing when Jack is around. My main goal is to finish Jack's scrapbook of his first year of life....needless to say I'm on month 8 and I have 1 week to go.

Steve and Jack headed to Duluth on Thursday for Steve's 10-year reunion. They are also celebrating Jack's birthday a week early with Steve's family. Today is the big day with his very first cake! I'll have to post some pictures of that tomorrow!

Better get back to scrapbooking!

Funny face!

Here is a picture of Jack making funny faces. I was hoping that it would attach to my other entry, but I forgot to set the picture first. So entry #2 for me!! Impressive, huh?

Attempt #1!!

Hello Everyone!

This is our first attempt at a blog...so I'm just trying it out. We've (mostly I) have been talked into this blogging thing. We hope to have it all set up by the time Jack is 1, so much for all of you finding out about his first year of life!! :)

Things are nuts at our house with me getting back in the routine at school and Jack going back to daycare. All is going well, and we've been REALLY busy!