Happy Birthday Kristin!

Happy Birthday to our Kristin!
Kristin is the sweetest cousin, niece, granddaughter, aunt, sister, daughter and wife!
Kristin we all love your enthusiasm for life and big heart. Have a great birthday. xo

Happy Anniversary Kristin and Brandon

Happy Anniversary to Kristin and Brandon! Hope you two are having a great time in the Minch Family home away from home, Mexico!

You two are such a great couple, it makes all of us so happy to see you so in love! We love you. xo

Happy Birthday Kristin!

Happy Birthday Kristin!  You have always been so cute.

I have always loved your enthusiasm. 

You were a beautiful bride. 

You are a wonderful Aunt and niece. 

The best cousin!

A caring wife

A wonderful sister, daughter and granddaughter. 

Kristin, I always have so much fun with you and love when you visit.  I hope your birthday is as fun and special as you are!  Love you lots! xo

Our Basement

I realized that I never posted anything about the MAJOR change to our house last year! Better late than never right? Unfortunately I don't have pictures "before" shots of the basement. So, picture a huge area with nothing but cement...cement walls, floors, etc. It was a completely empty space :). On February 14th 2009 we began renovations on our basement. Brandon designed the layout and the work began. Brandon was super dedicated and worked really hard to finish this huge project...he was awesome :). We owe a HUGE thank you to all our friends and family that helped us during this process. Our basement was unofficially/officially ready in August 2009. We have been adding some finishing touches (door knobs, paint touch ups, etc) but I wanted to show some pictures of the "final product".

I tried to match up some "before" shots with pictures I took today. These before shots were taken after framing, electrical work, insulation, dry wall, taping, texturing..... but still give an idea of how different it is now :)

Here is a shot of the hall way going to the bedroom

Same picture taken today.

This is the main area of the basement. Much like a living/family room.

This is where Kaitlin and I play Mario Wii ... best game ever :)

We have a wet bar complete with sink/faucet and a wine cooler.

This is a small area hidden behind the "mechanical room"

We put an air hockey table back there ... you can also see the closet to the mechanical room.

Brandon designed these archways to match the upstairs

We have a full game room...air hockey table, pool table and poker table

One of my favorite additions...a bathroom!

Spare bedroom. This room is almost bigger than our room upstairs :)

This was taken standing in the spare bedroom. It shows the closet and "secret" storage room.

It is awesome because this spare room has a huge closet and then behind that is our storage closet. You can't see the storage crap unless you open the closet door and the storage door:)

Dinner and Dancing for Beckie's 30th

The night of Beckie's birthday, we all go dressed up and went out in old town.  Joanie hired us a limo to take us down to Olive and Ivy (Beckie's favorite place in Scottsdale)  We had a really fun dinner & then went out dancing.  We ended the night with some slices for our limo ride home!

Beckie's birthday weekend-Hanging out at the pool

On Saturday morning we all got up and had a big breakfast. After breakfast Beck opened her gifts.
Then we headed out to the pool. It was a good thing we picked up some extra floats because it was such a hot weekend we never left the pool!
The plastic floats were hilarious. Completely impossible to get on.
We had to take a new Fanta picture since our floats were very Fanta. Joanie had just painted Beckie's nails so we decided not to wrestle the floats and try to lay on them.
Beckie enjoying a birthday Popsicle.

Beckie's birthday weekend- Happy Hour and Spa night

Over the weekend of July 10th, we celebrated Beckie's 30th birthday at the Buechel House. Joanie, Kristin and Kaitlin all flew in and we had some friends here locally also celebrating.
Friday we went to happy hour at Sapporo. Beckie was having a lot of fun with Joanie's purse.
The cousins + 1 with Joanie. (This picture is blurry which is funny because some weird guy asked to take it for us with my camera since he was a "professional photographer")

The guy in the green looking at Joanie and Kaitlin's rear view, he is the "professional photographer".
Matt came to join us or give us a ride home ;)
Then Matt started the grill to make us some dinner.
Then the spa night started. Joanie treated us all to manis, pedis, massages and facials.
She even got us all these awesome spa wraps, slippers, pajamas and bags.