Minnesota or Bust!

Jason and I were asked to be the "College and Career" leaders of our church. Well neither of us really knew what that meant...so we just do what we do best....talk to them and feed them. We have tried to organize a few events, but no one comes, so if we just tell them we are going to come over eat and hang out, they all show up! ha ha.
But, with that, Brandon and Natashia have pretty much been at our house at least three nights a week, for the past few months...but we have hung out with them for a while now....and when they planned to get married in Minnesota, they asked us to come, and asked me to cook the sides. Natashia loves the way I make my green bean bundles and corn. So we agreed to come help.


Once we had the plans in place, I developed a Minnesota bucket list....

1. Go to an Amish community and visit.
2. Go to Mall of America
3. Eat cheese curds.

Brandon and Natashia throughout the last year. Believe it or not, I took every one of these pictures!!!

I flew up to Minnesota on Wednesday morning....When I got to Minnesota, I had to search and search and search for a rent car, because they had some kind of soccer tournament going on up there and everything was pretty much rented out.

breakfast of champions

Once I met up with Natashia, we ran to Target, then got ready for her bridal shower for her home church. The shower is the whole reason I went early. She wanted to me to be there with her. They had some great food (I thought it was an homage paid to Texas when they served a taco salad bar...ha ha ha)

She scored some great gifts, and the decorations were very beautiful. It put to shame my little shower I put together for them in June!

 Wednesday night, Jason, Joseph - the best man, Katrina (both a part of our college and career group) Neda and Rodney all drove in our newly fixed suburban.
Our car had engine and transmission problems, and it took FOREVER to get our car back.
They got to Bloomington on Thursday afternoon. I know it was only a day, but I couldn't have explained how excited I was to see my husband. When he walked into the church, I was standing on a chair hanging a curtain for the reception, and I hopped off and ran to him and gave him a huge hug and kiss....I missed him something awful!
We didn't give them a minutes rest, we put them right to work! Lots of wedding preparations! Their church has mid week service on Thursday....so that night we went to church. And then afterwards we went to dinner with the group from Minnesota and the crew we brought from Texas.

Friday we were shopping for the reception food,  more decorating! Between all the hustle and bustle of getting the wedding put together, we all decided to take a few hours out of our day to go and be tourists......scratch that off my list....

There is a Nickelodeon theme park smack dab in the center of the mall.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH who lives in a pineapple under the sea...... Here is just a little proof that we were actually there at the mall. ha ha.

Katrina, me, Neda looking like tourists!!!

Scratch that off my list!!! Here is me eating Cheese curds! Thank the Lord for free samples! I personally think that the cheese curds taste like a waxy cheese stick....I hear they are better when they are fried.

Peeps are my favorite thing about an Easter basket. I personally feel they are not tasty till Spring time, but it was fun to see a whole store dedicated to just marshmallow yumminess.... and how fun is it to say "hanging with my peeps"??? ha ha.

 Now, for the main event. I got to Minnesota on Wed, and we went straight to work. Thursday and Friday we were setting up the decorations for the wedding and the reception...We went food shopping for the whole reception....but Saturday July 21st, even though I was busy running around like a chicken with my head cut off being a wedding plannerish-personal assistant I also was cooking the beans and corn, over seeing the reheat of mashed potatoes and Jason grilled 45 pounds of chicken.....I still was able to sit back and watch my two college and career kids pledge their lives to each other. It was just about the sweetest ceremony I have seen! I couldn't be a prouder person of the two of these kids. I felt as if my own flesh and blood was getting married, and I cried like a baby!

The beautiful couple....I was honored to be a part of their big day!

We left Minnesota on Saturday at about 7ish, and we drove home. We pulled into church at 10:10am on Sunday just in time for Jason to jump behind the sound board and work the service. Krisha (the substitute sound person) couldn't have been more excited to see Jason! ha ha. Here are a few pics of us stopping in Iowa.

Did I mention that while we were up in Minnesota, our engine on the truck messed up again, and so we had drove all the way home with a stuck cylinder in our engine, yeah, we just wanted to get home, so lots of prayers went towards the quick and safe travels!

Got to love Joseph! He was showing us on the map where the race car museum was, just in case we felt like going out of our way to go see it. ha ha ha.

 At the end of the trip I was able to scratch 2 and 1/2 things off my list.....Mall of America, check, Cheese curds, check.....going to an Amish community....no, but Natashia's God Dad, the person who gave her away, was an Ex-Amish, AND he had Amish bread brought to the wedding. I am going to count that has a half....ha ha ha. AND I brought some bread home, and now I wish I could bake Amish bread!!!! ugh, i want more!!! ha ha ha.