Party!!!

This, like the rest will be a short post with lots of pictures. The first picture is of a lion cake my mom made, and there was a lamb cake too, but my sister and I cut the head off of it and put it in the lion's mouth. We both thought it was pretty funny :)



Erin and Kim at the Party.



We went to Kalamazoo last weekend because Chris was in town from Florida. His mom put together a dinner in Kalamazoo, and it was good to get to see him for the little time he was in town.



While we were up I also played in an indoor soccer game with Phil, in which I was by far the best player, I scored the game winning awesome goal too. Phil scored, but my goal was definetly better.



The next week I had to be in Indy for work, so I got to hang out with Justin and Heather (the Harbert's) and baby Lily. She is getting so big already. I made Justin run a mile with me, that may of been the most amusing part of the trip :) On the other hand it may of been the ping pong.

That is about all of the fun things going on here, but remember with March Madness going on, don't forget, GO GREEN!!!! GO WHITE!!!!

Happy Leap Day!

This is just a picture update of the house blog. Sorry, I am not going to ramble. Please look past the clutter of tools and see that we are almost completely done with the remodel.

The upstairs painted hallway. (Thanks to my mom, dad, and sister for coming and helping paint and tie up loose ends)


The living room.


The dining room.


The kitchen.


The downstairs bathroom, and yes Harbert it is DONE DONE now.


The steps.


The basement.

Flat Thursday

I am sure a lot of you are wondering where I have been for the past month. I wish I could say I have been so busy and here are a bunch of pictures to prove it.........but I can't. I was sick most of last weekend and luckly Erin took breaks from studying to make sure I had soup and 7-up and a blanket, she is the best. I have been working on the house mostly while Erin studies her butt off. I did squeeze in some time to go up north with my aunt and uncle to go snowmobiling, here are some pictures.

Here is the Cabin.



Snowmobilers at a lunch spot.


The Trail.


The groomer.


I haven't talked much about it, but here is a picture of something we are working on at work. It is the new Blue Chip Casino Hotel in Michigan City. It will be 24 stories when it is all done. They are 18 floors up right now, and you can see the Chicago skyline from the top on a clear day.


The title of this blog is to thank Erin. She was kind enough to let me come change her flat tire on the side of the By-Pass at 7:30 this morning. THANKS DEAR!

The 1,300 Mile Tractor

This past Friday and Saturday I spent on the road with my dad, grandpa, and great uncle. We were in search of a Grand Haven tractor located in Chattanooga, Tenn. The tractor is the same kind as my grandpa's first tractor. It was made back in 1953 or 1954. There was an article in a magazine a while ago that told that there were less than 1,000 of these tractors ever made, and the writer only knew where 15 of them were left. This makes number 16. My great uncle found it advertised in a magazine and got some pictures to see what it looked like. It was in good shape, so we decided to take a road trip. We left Friday afternoon and got to Nashville by midnight, then got up first thing Saturday, drove to Chattanooga, loaded up the tractor and some other good finds, and made it back to Michigan by 12:30am, putting me back in South Bend by about 2:00 Sunday morning. It was very draining, but a blast. I got to hear all sorts of stories. I realized the next day that the entire ride down and back that radio had not been on once, a good indication of many stories being told. We ended up driving through 5 states on the trip, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia (only for 4 miles, but it counts).

Here is a picture of the tractor.


I fit on the tractor, but not sure if I could drive it for hours on end.


Here is the crew, my dad, great uncle, grandpa, and me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHIL!!!

Kim (Phil's wife) had the great idea of going to a Piston's game for Phil's birthday last Friday. So Erin and I went up to Kalamazoo and met up with them after dropping the dogs off at my parents (thanks again for watching the monsters). We carpooled over to Jess' apartment and then met up with Phil's brother Robbie at the game. It was Erin's and my first Pistons game, which was very fun. They lost at the end, but it was a pretty close game. It took us a while to get back home because of the snow and icy roads, but we made it safe and sound.

Here are the girls with their FREE hats.


The guys with our FREE hats.


Erin and me by our seats.


On Saturday night I went looking through boxes of my old stuff and found this sweet soccer ball nose.

Happy New Year!

Our new year celebration was quite eventful. We traveled to Indianapolis to see some of my cousins in the afternoon and then went to the Harberts for new years eve. We played all sorts of games with a large group of people. We came home in the afternoon on New Years Day to this....



thats right, TWELVE INCHES of snow had fallen, and we got another 4 inches over the next two days.

Erin went up to Kalamazoo the next weekend, and I since I was bored, I decided to make a snowman in the front yard. I didn't have much to use, so I used some 2x4's I found and some shingle scraps. He didn't last very long because we had 60 degree weather.



Another thing I like to do while Erin is away is to start large construction projects. I pulled up the carpet in the dining room and started installing "fake" wood flooring. My mom and dad came down one day and my dad helped me on the flooring installation while Erin and my mom went shopping.

The Best Christmas Gift EVER!!

As usual, this was a very busy christmas season for us trying to fit in going to all of the famlies. I won't bore you with all the details, but some of the highlights were Erin making christmas cookies with he family. Then over at her grandparents house she got to open my gift which was a digital camera. It was very exciting. The funny part was that her grandma bought her the EXACT same one that I did.



Erin's uncle Brad got her cousin a spiderman toy that shoots webs (silly string) and most of us got hit after we put it together. Here is a picture of Em after she has been web-i-fied.



Erin and I at christmas.



My sister got a very nice GIGANTIC remote control. I guess that makes sense because she is getting up there in age :) Love ya Kristin.



My dad got a horn for his golf cart, it makes 50 animal sounds and 30 other songs. My mom was extremely excited about it also.



Santa brought my sister and I headlamps, here we are trying them out. The do both white light and red.



My dad made my sister and Erin veggie bins.



The best present ever came about 3 days before christmas though in the mail when I found out that I passed my engineering (PE) test!!! So I am offically done with test taking! My uncle Mel bought me an "engineer" hat and a box of good and plenty so I could renact the old good and plenty commercial.