On the road again...

September always means a lot of traveling for me so I'm posting some pictures of the places and people I've spent time with over the past few weeks. Scott and I spent a week in Spirit Lake visiting family and friends, then a week in Orlando (we were bad about taking pictures down there so I don't have any) and then I spent a week in Tulsa and Altus Oklahoma visiting friends and going to a wedding. September also brought the birth of a new cousin so I'll include a picture of me and little Masyn.



He's clearly NOT camera shy!



On our way to Spirit Lake.....


Not quite the view we're used to in the city, but much welcomed!



Jen made Scott and I a beautiful engagement cake. Thanks Jen!


Breakfast with Grandpa and cousins.....


My grandpa just recently finished remodeling an original Model T (1927??) It's beautiful!




View from my parent's porch. Breathtaking!


I visited Angel for a few days in Tulsa. We had crazy fun!


Keysha and I at Taylor's wedding....

Sumo!!!

Scott got to show his competitive side while doing sumo wrestling on sunday. Here are some great pictures (and a video!) that captured the moment. He's the one in the red thong. :)

We're engaged!

We decided to take a mini-vacation to Lake Geneva (just 45 minutes NW of Scott's house) and Scott suprised me by taking me to a place called The French Country Inn on Lake Como. We spent the day walking around downtown Lake Geneva and went on a 2 hour mansion tour around the lake. We got to the Inn and Scott had a dozen roses in the room and after sitting out on the deck for awhile (in the rain) Scott got down on one knee and proposed. I said yes of course, and here are a few pictures of our day. We enjoyed the evening by sitting in the hot tub and listening to the rain fall. Even though it rained all day long, we didn't let it spoil our joy or excitement! We'll keep you posted on the details!

"When you find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." -When Harry Met Sally

Rain and a ring.

Oh, and here's the ring....

Our shelter from the rain

Scott's Pets

A few weeks ago Scott noticed a visitor at his back door. Each night he builds a huge web between Scott's house and the dog's backyard leash and waits. When Scott lets the dogs out, he turns on the light and that's when the spider gets his dinner. Bugs swarm the light and fall prey to the huge web. It's gross and terrifying to watch him, but at the same time, really cool to see how unique and creative God's creations are. This picture is the first web he built last night (I accidentally let the dogs come in too far on their leash and they knocked the web down) so he had to build another one.



This is him rebuilding his web after it got knocked down.


This is his second web-even bigger and more beautiful than before.


Here is a closeup



Here are Scott's real pets, Sydney and Precious. :) For those who know me well, you are probably thinking, "Wow! Mel is in love with a guy who has not one, but TWO dogs?" Yes, it's true, and I really like them. They remind me a lot of me and my sister. Precious is the older one and definitely more responsible. She likes to stay out of trouble (most of the time!). Sydney is the younger, wilder sister. She likes to play around a lot and gets into trouble (Jen I'm not saying you get into trouble :)). But they are just typical sisters, each having their own personalities. They are really fun to watch.

Sydney is on the right, Precious is on the left.


Sydney waiting for her dinner :)

Nickelback

For Scott's birthday I gave him Nickelback tickets so we made our way up to Alpine Valley in Wisconsin last night (along with 30,000 other people!!). They confiscated our cameras on our way in (Scott got the pat down by a big guy with a shaved head and goatee) so I'm just adding in pictures I found online that represent our time there. It was fun, and we saw some very interesting people!! A group named Black Cherry something-i can't remember the name-0pened and they were AWFUL!! Scott and I laughed the entire time (they kind of got booed off the stage!). They just thrashed their hair everywhere and rocked. HARD. This isn't
them, but looked similarly like them! Ok, without the spandex. But close. :)



Staind played after them and they were much better. I knew a few of their songs but not all of them. By then the crowd in it's entirety (minus Scott and I) had a good buzz going from all of the alcohol and pot smoking. We were definitely the most straight-laced people there. We enjoyed people watching. There was this big guy sitting next to Scott and he LOVED Staind. He told us that it was his favorite band and he knew all the words to every song! He also must have gotten a huge headache from all the head banging he was doing. I remembered that my phone had a camera so I whipped that out to document the action. Scott was really enjoying this!! That black blob in the background is him thrashing about.



The only other people who were as straight laced as Scott and I were the 2 women sitting next to us. I'm still trying to figure out for the life of me, why they would have been at that concert. Maybe they thought they were seeing Nickelcreek?? Again, no real picture of them, but this is what they looked like. Ok, they weren't THAT old, but they were wearing mom jeans and tennis shoes. :)


All in all we had a great time. Nickelback is a great band, although all of their songs sound alike. The lead singer even started singing the lyrics to another one of his songs to the song he was playing! It was pretty funny. They definitely put on an entertaining show. By the end of the concert, there was a haze so heavy you could hardly see. Scott thought it looked like a battlefield after a battle had occured. It was crazy!

Family Fun!!

My mom and Jen came out for a few days to visit this week. It was way too short and went by way too fast, but we had a great time. Jen got to meet Scott for the first time and we had fun shopping on Mighigan Ave, visiting Montrose Harbor, going out to Crystal lake to see Scott's house and taking a tour of Willow Creek.


We were looking at the HUGE fish that were swimming down there. Gross!