M.I.A. and things I am looking forward to!

I have been on furlough for a week or two!  Not really.  I have just been enjoying the last snippets of summer!  As Sara mentioned, we went on vacation with the whole Vandergirl crew plus a bonus family!  We had an amazing time!  It takes me a good week to get out of "vacation mode."  How about you?  Do you stay on mental vacation?



















































 On the home front, we have just been hanging out enjoying this glorious weather!  Here are a few pictures of my cuties!  The girls are loving dress up  these days...It tends to be highly entertaining for me!

And finally, I am REALLY really REALLY looking forward to going to the Iowa State Fair.  Sara's pictures got me even more pumped up for it!  It really is one of the highlights of my summer!  Some other big things I am looking forward to....Hallie starting preschool and soccer, directing our Cubbie program at our church, possibly being a contributor on a REALLY cool Des Moines blog for moms, fall clothes, Apple Orchards, OH-and the list could go on and on!    

Outfit post and Good Times at the IOWA STATE FAIR!! Yee haw.

Hola mi amigas!

So, I had just gotten home from Wisconsin when I was gonna make a little trip down to the greatest place on earth, the IOWA STATE FAIR! I wanted a cute top because I feel like all my clothes are really 'blah' to me. So, where do you wanna guess I went? That's right: Salvation Army!!!  Here's two cute tops I found and wore to the ISF on Saturday and Sunday night.

Saturday night:

Isn't this shirt cute? It's Candies brand (I think from Kohl's likely). Anyways, got it for $1.50. I wore it with dark skinny jeans and little mini-wedge sandles. It was nice and breezy and comfy.

Sunday Night:

Here's the other shirt I bought. It is a weird brand that I don't know but it seemed boutique-esque. Got it for $2.00.  Also, yes I did wear a fanny pack. I have a stiff neck and didn't want to have extra weight on my shoulders. I loved that sucker! Being hands free was ideal. 

Sunday I went down to the ISF with Kelly and Kelly, and their daughter Kadance. We walked all over and saw all of this:

This is a Belgian horse. It was so tall and had a super thick neck.

This was a fat and happy pig! It's legs don't even rest on eachother!

This pig was smiling.

Here's Kadance and Kelly relaxing on some rocking chairs at the ISF museum house.

This cow was soo cute. It's all curled up. Must be a cuddly cow! HE HA.

How gorgeous are these wood floors? They were in the ISF Museum house. They are the original floors from the old country house. I want floors like this someday!

Kadance standing by the state fair winner for Biggest Pumpkin. FYI. this is not even that big. They are usually monsters.. I think the drought might be effecting things this year.

Kadance eating the "hit" new food at the fair: A double wrapped bacon corndog. I had a bite and the bacon flavor was faint. I think they used the skinny little pieces of bacon. They need to put some thick applewood smoked bacon on those suckers!

Butter Cow. Enough said. This is an ISF tradition that goes back forever and ever. They are making a movie about butter sculptors.

This is an old printing press. This guy and his wife were running it. They were laying out an actual newspaper and would put little kids names in it--for free! Kelly and Kelly gave a donation to them and they gave Kadance her metal name press along with her pressed out name. It was so neat.

ALERT! Prepare to be grossed out! This is a foot bath that sucks all the toxins out of your body. These legs are not mine. I was walking by and SHOCKED by what the ladies told me. They told me the water was CLEAR when they started and all that brown/green bubbly stuff represents the toxins literally being expelled by their bodies. How gross is that? It was $30 for 30 minutes, so I didn't do it, but really wanted to try it!

We watched the VitaMix presentation. It is sooo cool.  I want one... but they cost around $500, so I will pass for now!

On Sunday night, Colby got us box seats to the Miranda Lambert concert through his work (ISF). It was pouring down rain and one of the best concerts I've ever been to! Here's some pictures. BTW, Homegirl Miranda rocks.

Here we are looking like wet pups! Colby's brother, Tad, and my cousin, Hannah, went with us!

Me and LoveFace. I love him.

Fanny pack under a sweatshirt=looking like a sassy pregnant lady.

Here's what Miranda wore. She is soo pretty and "real" looking!

Anyways, hope you guys have a great Monday! I am traveling to the great state of Oklahoma Tuesday and Wednesday!

Sara



Peppers are growing!

I got home from vacation and one of the first things I did was check on my pepper plants. They look huge!!! My grandpa Clate watered them for me while I was out of town. I looked around in the leaves a bit and found three decent sized peppers!!! Here's some pictures:

Watermelon sorbet

This is some sorbet I made! Purée watermelon then add sugar (I added crystal lite lemonade packets). Then freeze. This stuff is great. Also it's nice if ur watermelon isn't the greatest. Good way to use your melons!

On vacation

Katie and I are on vacation in Wisconsin at the Dells. We've been going down water slides, eating, swimming and being big kids. All of our immediate family and one set of our cousins is here. It's the first family vacation we have had in a looong time. It's been awesome to hang out when everyone can leave job/life stress far away from their minds. Here's some pictures.

Balloons make me HAPPY

Last night Colby and I went to the Indianola Balloon Classic. I have wanted to go forever but its only once a year and I usually have something that prohibits me from going! This year, we made it down.  The Balloon Classic is basically a huge event in the hot air balloon community. Tons of Balloon-ers launch their balloons and participate in races and other community events. Last night they had a race to see who could get down the lowest and do a ring toss, then they had the "Night Glow". Night Glow is really cool. They all sit down on a big open field, blow up their balloons and then the announcer counts 1...2....3.... and they all pull their fire-pull so their balloons light up. They are soo pretty. Here are some pictures...

 These were crazy-shaped balloons. The green one was a dinosaur, the purple one is some sort of monster, and the black and white one was that famous cartoon skunk.

Eagle shaped balloon. Weighed 700 pounds and was 150 feet tall!

They had some good food. We ate a turkey leg.

My phone died so I don't have a ton of the night-glow pictures. I will try to get some from Colby.

Sara