Cancer

It's amazing to me how many people I know that have or have had cancer. Even more amazing to me is the number of people I know that have kicked cancer to the curb and are either in remission or "Cancer Survivors". All types of cancer; colon, prostate, lymphoma, leukemia, brain, the list goes on and on.

I have known four people in my lifetime that have had a cancerous brain tumor. The first was a good friend and classmate of mine. We were 16 and she was (and still is) an amazing miracle. A year or two later another student from our school had a similar tumor and recovery. The third person was a neighbor as well as the father of two of my students. They found the tumor during my first year of teaching. He has had a long road but things are going fairly well now.

The fourth person is someone I've known his entire life. I was "sandwiched" between him and his older sister. The sister a grade ahead of me in school, and he a grade behind me. They found the tumor a few years ago after he had a series of terrible headaches. Only 26 years of age and fighting cancer.

The Lakeview Softball Tournament is a late summer tradition that goes way back to before I can remember. In recent years it had faded away as the "founding fathers" of the Lakeview Softball team I grew up watching all reached "retirement" age. A few years ago it was re-established and organized once again. One of the highlights for me was watching my father come "out of retirement" and play so that Lakeview could field two teams. He even donned his old school softball pants the second night. I love my family and watching my dad, two brothers, and husband play on the same team was so wonderful, even if their team did get eliminated after two games!

The proceeds of this year's tournament will go to my classmate and childhood friend to assist with medical bills. I was asked to take the footage and put together a video since he was unable to attend this year.

So, without further ado...

Lakeview Tourney

Just a quick post before I head off to bed. Recently I (Jodi) have been working with video footage from the 2011 Lakeview Softball Tournament. I really like to make videos using both motion and still photography and although I would not claim to be excellent at it, I learn a bit more each time I work on a project. Usually when I have a task like this I jump right to it and work until its completed. This time was a bit different (more about that in my next post). I struggled to compose the video I envisioned and had a hard time deciding on music, which is VERY unlike me. I did eventually end up with four videos. Two are just uncut footage because I like to add it to the completed DVD. The one I will share tonight, er...this morning, is a video done from a preset that I used to get the creative juices flowing. Though I don't totally love it, it has some fun elements. Okay, enough talking...here's the video:




I promise I will post again very soon and post the other video, explain a bit more about this project, and talk about why it was hard to get these videos put together. Lots on my mind and in my heart but it will need to wait for a more awake time!

Those promised pictures...

As promised, pictures of beautiful Glacier National Park. George and I took the trip last summer. The pictures don't do it justice. I promised some photos...here they are. So beautiful. I would definitely suggest visiting the park if you get the chance but make sure to bring a sweatshirt! Above George looks at the majestic mountains in the first part of the trip that caused him to fall in love with Montana. (I keep telling him he has to visit in the winter as well to make a fully informed decision about the state.)





I will leave you with my favorite...

Exciting Day

I have been really bad about blogging through the school year. But now it is summer! (Cue cheer sound effects!) I was planning to upload some of the promised Glacier photos from last summer....but the inter-web is being stupid at the moment and does not like to have to work very hard. Hmmm, that reminds me of someone I know who is currently on summer break!

Since I cannot upload photos this is just a post to say "I'm still alive!" and to promise a post or two in the near future. In the meantime, I am going to a Taylor Swift concert tonight!!!! I'm super excited about it. I will try to get some photos taken and posted of that as well. So, as Miranda Priestly says on The Devil Wears Prada "That's all..."

Family Vacation

My parents decided that our whole family should take a little vacation together this summer to celebrate Jon's separation from the Marine Corps. They decided to take us to Minneapolis for a Minnesota Twins game (we are all Twins fans except George). The Twins are now in their new stadium, Target Field. We had a wonderful weekend together and I'm so thankful for a great family! So, here's the trip in pictures:

We walked to a local Irish Pub for supper...we didn't want to deal with parking but we ended up having to deal with cabs because it began to storm, and I mean STORM while we were eating and continued to rain (we sat in the pub for quite awhile trying to wait it out). We got to see the stadium as we walked to the pub though so it was fun (and the pub became absolutely crazy after the Twins beat the White Sox 3 to 2 on Saturday night).

We spent Saturday night at Normandy Inn...and had milk and cookies at 10 p.m. Jon had a buddy from the Marine Corps. that lives near the Twin Cities that met up with us (his father came too) for supper at the pub and then came back to the motel to visit.


Sunday we got up and headed to the stadium early for the game. It was great walking around and then just hanging out before the game began!

We ate lunch at the stadium...here the rest of my family is sitting in their seats eating/getting their picture taken! We had GREAT seats...right behind the Twins Dugout close enough to see facial expressions on the field. It was awesome!

Here I am in my Twins gear...including my new Joe Mauer t-shirt (Jon couldn't resist being a bit immature and giving me "bunny ears").

Joe Mauer himself :o)

The game was wonderful with the Twins winning 7 to 6 in the 9th inning. They led at the beginning, trailed by 3 from about the 5th or 6th inning on...and then won it in the 9th...super exciting! It was the first walk-off win at Target Field so we witnessed history!

We converted George into a Twins fan...

It was a great weekend! Thanks Mom and Dad :0)

Fourth of July pics

Okay, I promised to post some pictures from our 4th of July/Welcome Home Jon party. First of all, it was a great time! We had around 40 people or so come for a cookout and fireworks. Despite the enormous amount of flies, the night was fairly perfect. The weather cooperated perfectly and we (George and I) were very happy with the way things went! We've decided we might be getting the hang of entertaining and we are enjoying having people over.

Okay, so the pictures...

"Baby James" enjoyed the fireworks...

And so did the adorable Lilly...

We had a beautiful sunset (which is normal in Lakeview, we have lovely sunsets almost every summer evening).

George hands out sparklers :)

A group of people visiting after supper (waiting for dark).

George sitting with a bunch of the guys shooting off bottle rockets!

George did an enormous amount of grilling which was fabulous. He is great on the grill, I'm a lucky girl :) All in all, it was a really great evening! We are planning to do it again.

Finished Painting!

Ah, we are finally done painting! It is the best feeling in the world :) My goal was to be done by July 4th and we finished on July 2nd. We hosted a party here on the 4th and had a great time...more about that another day. Anyway, I wanted to get the last bathroom pictures up before I start working on posting 4th of July pictures. So here it is...the green bathroom :)




The shower curtain is a bluish color...kind of hard to see in this picture because of the lighting.





Next pictures will be of our 4th of July bash and the two bedrooms that we painted upstairs!

Isolated Storms...

We had a nice isolated thunderstorm this evening. At about 7:00 p.m. George went out to grill meat for supper. We were watching the clouds as we had an interesting looking storm cloud overhead. By 7:10 the storm had blown in (literally the wind began to blow REALLY hard...check out the flags) and the rain began to pour down. Within 20 minutes the storm had passed...wind, rain, rainbow, hail, and then more rain. At one point our flag pole was at about a 45 degree angle from the ground! We also had a lovely double rainbow (though it wasn't pronounced enough to catch on film). In the above picture you can kind of see how one end of the rainbow seemed to stop right in the pen across from our house...see how it "touches" the ground there!?!?! Pretty cool...God's greatness displayed :)

Look at the flags blowing in the wind!



The hail came after the first bit of rain and after the double rainbow appeared in the sky. It hailed really hard for about 5-7 minutes. This picture was taken after it stopped hailing and began to rain again.

Haying=Summer

Today was spent in the hayfield. Between my brother Jon working for a neighbor today and brother Rob going on a tubing trip, my parents were left a person short for their hay crew. This worked perfectly for me because I rather enjoy raking now and then. Being out in the hayfield gives you time to think, listen to music, and just generally smell the amazing scent of fresh cut hay! It was a pleasant day, just warm enough but not hot. Okay, so obviously I enjoyed my day in the field.

In the meantime, George was left inside caring for our dogs and doing his homework :) I'm guessing his day wasn't the most fun but I did come home to supper being grilled (yea!) and now he's out hunting rabbits.

About the picture: We don't bale in square bales like are seen in the picture. This one was taken in Idaho on our trip west last summer. George made fun of me for taking multiple pictures of hay bales but for me, summer means haying! So, I thought it appropriate to post a "hay" picture.

Trying this...

So, I love reading other people's blogs...and well, it just kind of looks like fun. So, I'm going to give this a shot and see how it goes. I have this feeling that I probably won't be great at updating because I just don't have that many interesting things going on in my life but I'm going to try it anyway. Life is currently pretty grand. We are on summer vacation from school so our days consist of just about whatever we want them to. George has been fairly consumed with work for his graduate classes so I spend my days entertaining our pugs and trying to motivate myself to do house or yard work. Today was slow. Lola recently went through surgery to ensure we do not have baby Lola's (Toby was already fixed but we don't want wandering dogs to give us funky mutt puppies). She is suppose to be "taking it easy" for a few days. When the vet told us that I just laughed because our Lola is HYPER as all get out and taking it easy for her consists of taking a short nap in the afternoon. I was right, she was right to bouncing around today so it has been a full time job today ensuring that she doesn't get too wild and pull her stitches out. Okay, I'm getting wordy...how about a picture of our dear pugs and then I'll be done for the evening!