Pizza with the Parents

We had a fun time meeting Daddy and Mama at Pizza Ranch after getting our vehicle. Kevin loves to see his grandparents.

Yukon Yahoo's!

Well, we finally have a family vehicle! This is our new member of the family. Seth has named it our "Limo". We thought about a smaller vehicle, but we hope to keep this one around for quite some time without having to upgrade. We also thought it was kind of sad that our friends and their little girl wouldn't be able to fit in the truck along with our little family if we wanted to do another fun vacation trip, so, as you can see, this was a much-needed expenditure.

Curtain Countdown

Many of you have been waiting for this so I thought it was about time to post it again. I'm not as far as I could be at this point, but it's coming - slowly but surely. I really haven't worked on it a whole lot since the last post, but I haven't given up yet. It is very motivating to have people ask me about how it's coming along. Thanks friends! I'll try to post another countdown in a month and hopefully it will look like a lot more progress.

Happily Home

Life has been an adventure for Kevin and I over the past couple weeks. My mom and siblings came up to visit us last Monday and they dropped us off in New Ulm at my aunt's house on Tuesday. I ended up staying there until the end of the week since Seth had to be away on business. Then I left on Tuesday (in the Dodge, 6 speed manual - AAHHH!!!) to go to Owatonna for my friend's junior piano recital. It was good to see some old friends again. Kevin and I stayed with Dan and Christa and had a very good time playing Taboo and talking. We made it home last night - despite my dislike of driving stick - and Kevin and I went right to sleep!

Gourmet Grilling

Seth made some super yummy steaks on the grill! Grilled Steak and onions, twice baked potatoes, cheese beans, and orange julius to drink. Yum!

The last picture was meant to tantalize certain acquaintances that don't have a blender. You know who you are! Hee!

Truckin' Trip

This last Thursday Seth took me to work with him, and -not being very equipment savvy- I took a LOT of pictures, so I thought I'd give you all a running documentary of our day. Sit back and enjoy "Truckin' With Seth".

We left for Benson, MN at 6:30 a.m.

This is where they parked the rigs at Benson after dumping at Fibromen.

This is the grey tractor that we rode in. After arriving, we had to wait for the Dooley's Petroleum service to come and fuel the trucks. They came, and we were at last on our way to the job site.

Justin was in the truck ahead of us.

This is inside of the grey truck.

Uh -oh! Where's the key to the excavator? Once we got to Alexandria, Seth and I stopped at the John Deer dealership to pick up a couple keys. Then we made our way to the site where all of the equipment was waiting to be put into action! Boy was it muddy! This is Josh's shoe-print. Stepping in the mud was unavoidable. I was very glad that Luke let me borrow his mud boots! Josh was cleaning out the grinder getting it ready to go. Then he jumped in the excavator and started stacking brush piles. In the meantime Seth and Justin were working on backing up the trailer to the pile for loading. The telehandler saved the day by pulling the truck and trailer through the mud into place. Here's a short video of the process.

Seth was now able to start loading the chip trailer.

It takes special skill to load a truck the right way. (Ilike the way Seth bounces into the pile to load the bucket)

This is just so you know that I was really there.

The grinder was finally started and the woodchips started flying.

After the trucks were loaded, we drove back to Benson where we would dump at Fibromen which is pictured above.

We had to wait in line for a good forty-five minutes before we could cross the scale.

But we finally got through and went to our unload lane while we waited for an opening to dump.

This is where we parked while we waited.

Seth got his wood chip samples ready to give to one of the workers.

At last we were able to back the trailer in and get started dumping. This is inside Fibromen where the trucks dump.

Seth climbed into the trailer to get rid of a clump that was slowing up progress. The trailers are walking floor trailers which means that the floor of the trailers moves to unload the chips. Here's a video of it in action. I was impressed.

This is me watching again!

After dumping, we headed back to the site for another load. When we got there it was significantly warmer outside and we were in mud soup!

This is Justin un-suctioning his boots while getting into the telehandler.

The service truck received quite the mud bath.

Funny that I was the only one with mud boots and I was the only one that was completely useless! I offered piggy back rides, but nobody seemed to want one;o)

Justin in the telehandler and Josh on top. Towards the end of the day everyone was a little tired of swimming. They don't make very good ducks!

Seth picked the semi. I had mud boots on so I didn't even mind the ground, but I picked the service truck so I didn't feel left out.

After getting all of the trucks un-stuck and back on the road for the second time, we headed to Benson again for the last and final load of the day before going home. We made it home by 10:30 p.m. and were very glad to be out of the mud!

Mama Moments

What a joyous blessing it is to be a mother!