Just giving it a whirl

Before I get into anything too substantial, I just wanted to see if I get this right. I've tried to see if I can insert a photo but haven't figured that out yet.

Will be adding more later. Just want to say I love this idea and I look forward to reading it regularly.

This is great!

This is so great, Jason and I started our blog to keep in touch with friends and family accross the globe, and it is so much fun. It's nice to know what family is doing, because I can't call everyone:) I'd be on the phone for a month !!! Serriously, it's nice to peek into your lives and feel connected. Our precious Kiah just figured out how to walk! So far she's keeping the same time-line as the boys, they've all walked at 10 months. I haven't gotten a picture of it yet, but check our blog for updates.
Jason and I are currently reading the Harry Potter book and throughly engrossed in it. I hope that it ends well.
Bridget

How to Post w/ your own Name

So I've been asked to do a little technical support to help people get their own ID's for the blog. You need to sign up for a Google Acct. or Gmail (which is free), then you can log on to make comments about other peoples post.

To post your own pictures and stories, e-mail mom/Julie/Jules, etc. at doucette56@charter.net and ask her to invite you to the blog.

You'll get an e-mail invitiation that you need to click the link to accept the invitation.

Then when you log in you'll be able to comment and post your very own updates! Hope this helps everybody out! Have a terrific weekend! XOXO, Dawn

Joining The Fun

Hi everyone,

What a great idea and so much fun to see how and what everyone is up to. Well for me and my family we are having a busy summer with Arnie putting in long hours both at work and on the farm, as well as we are looking into building a house on the farm so we are running around getting all the info we need. I am kept busy by taking care of our rapidly growing little one. Oliver will be 5 month old on July 28th and I have no idea where the time has gone. Is anyone else a Harry Potter fan? I am currently reading the seventh and final book and can't wait to find out how it all ends.
The Oliver the other day I was cleaning and he was having fun rolling around (he can roll both ways now) and the next thing I Knew he was sound asleep.


I hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to being able to keep in touch.

Katie

Hello to All!

Hello Everyone! I've finally decided it's time to get adventurous and attempt to blog! It's quite different from addicting myspace/facebook that i am used to using so feel free to correct me if i'm doing something wrong! :)

Although it has taken me this long to finally post something, I have enjoyed reading all the posts we've gotten. And the last comment on Carissas blog; that was me. Can I get some help on how to get my name on there?

Besides saying hello to everyone, I wanted to give all the mothers (and fathers) a deserved pat on the back! I had my first experiece with a fussy baby resulting in a sleepless night! As everyone knows I am currently a nanny. In May there was a new addition to the family; baby Arianna. She came early and was very tiny but now is a healthy lil peanut. This past Tuesday the parents and other 3 children went to the dells to celebrate Adrianna's 4th birthday! (yes there is an Adrianna AND an Arianna- a day hasn't gone by where i've actually kept them straight!) Anyway, with everyone else gone it left just me and Arianna at the house. The daytime was great; we took a trip to Elkhorn to visit mom and Amy before heading back to the nanny house in Muskego. Arianna was fantastic all day so I assumed nighttime would be no problem. HAHA! We attempted to go to bed at about 10 after a good feeding. We wern't in bed for more than 2 minutes and her ideas were different. She was fussy ALL night long. After trying to feed her, burp her, 3 different beds, her swing, AND a bath...I gave up. I walked around the house ALL night long holding her so she would stop crying. By about 5:20 am I called mom pleading for help asking "what do I do!" She first calmed me down and then I finally got Arianna to sleep! It was a LONG night and I can't even begin to say how much parents do that go unappreciated. So I want to take the time to thank not only my parents, but ALL parents! Parents are amazing people. :-)

I think thats all i've got for now. Hope everyone has a good night! Love you all!

Love, Brenda

Progress

Here I am sitting at work thinking about all the things I could be doing on the house:)

Jesse is in South Dakota until tomorrow with his new job, he is working for a company called E80 constructors fabricating

railroad bridges, they wanted him to see a job site so away he went:( But while he is away we are receiving power to our house, just today the came and started to trench in the cable. Dawn, I am so happy to hear you sold your house i bet it is a huge relief. It is Columbia County Fair week and since Mom is so busy I thought I would update you on how well Emily is doing, she received a couple of grand champions and merit awards:) I am so proud of my little sister. So back to the house we will start insulating on the 1st of august if everything goes well this weekend, let keep our fingers crossed. Last Friday we put in our septic, enjoy the pictures:)

Happy Anniversary!!!!!!

July 20,2007 – this was Scott & Rita’s 11 wedding anniversary. What a great day that was 11 short years ago! Rita and I normally celebrate our “5 year anniversary” by going to a larger city. Our 5-year we went to Milwaukee. Our 10-year we went to Chicago. Don’t know what is in store for our 15-year, but the city has to be bigger than Chicago.

So on our 11-year anniversary I NEVER saw my beautiful wife once – how sad. I had to be at work before Rita arrived home from work. Then Rita was out with Noah, Kimberly, and Audrey, (who was home for 1 ½ days). I was sleeping when they came home and I think it was after midnight.

It is a good thing we celebrated a week earlier. The week earlier we had dinner with Monica, Bill, Katie and Lexi at the place Bill and Monica were married. Happy Anniversary to you two too!!!!!!!!

After dinner we shared a bottle of wine at our hotel room. We stayed at the Sybaris, what a blast!! (http://www.sybaris.com/index.asp) Any special occasion, this place has our recommendation. We had a huge pool, steam room and whirl pool. Very romantic.

Rita will kill me for posting this photo. But, I love her anyway!

The water falling is the waterfall in the middle of the pool.

On a side note, is anyone going to the WI State Fair????
Scott and Rita

Happy Weekending!

TGIF everybody! As I sit at my desk, I'm enjoying a beautiful breeze and the gorgeous nature I'm surrounded by. It just hit me all at one time just how lucky I am. I just got the hankering to blog about it and share my thoughts with you. (If you had asked me 10 years ago if I thought my mom would have started a blog, I would have laughed at you... now look at us! Thanks Mom!)

I am so greatful to have so much love in my life. I'm surrounded by a hugely caring, loving family. I have a wonderful companion in life that is always, always there for me. I have 4 wonderful doogles that very rarely* talk back. No matter what I've been through I've never had a loss of shoulders to lean on or ears that are willing to listen to me. No matter how many mountains I decide to climb by the choices I make or situations I find myself in, I always have had someone.

Thank you all for being my someone at some point in time. And if you haven't had the chance yet, don't rule yourself out! Your day will come! :) Have a wonderful, fun and loving weekend everybody. I just want to leave you with some of the beautiful nature around me. It's Brandi & Cody in amongst my flowers. Enjoy my little piece of heaven! Hugs & Kisses to All! Dawn

*Cody is often the exception to that rule!

Wall is Done!

Well it took 3 days to do and the wall is done. Ed would have had to work all summer to get that done and the knowledge it takes is phenomenal. I feel so lucky to have gotten a great landscaper and crew. 21 years of watching a wall crumble and 3 days to make it strong enough for me to walk on. Well there won't be any new projects fro a few years we have to start saving money all over again. On a more sincere note. Thank You to all who are communicating through the blog, I feel real hopeful that many great relationships will become even better through this. Have a great weekend and thank God for Family. Julie

Hello from DeForest!!

Julie - what a great idea. Believe it or not I have never "blogged" before. A couple of weeks ago Noah and I took a short trip to Niagara Falls. We left Monday morning at 7:30 am and drove 11 hours and made it to our hotel around 8:30 pm. We drove through Canada and had a great time. We hit the tourist area (including a huge Ferris wheel with an air conditioned car) for the nightlife and went to sleep around midnight.

Up and at 'em at 8:30 am and started power touring. We hit the jet boat and at about 10:45 am we were traveling through class 5 rapids and next to the whirlpool. What fun!!! After lunch and souvenir shopping we went through the Journey Behind the Falls. We went back to the room for a while and took a ride on the Maid of the Mist. Both were very cool as well! Little more tourist type stuff and in bed a little earlier Tuesday night.

We were back in the U.S. Wednesday morning at 10:00 am, drove through and were home by 11:00 pm. Quick, but a ton of fun!! Next time we might take Rita with us!!!!

That weekend we then went to camping at Castle Rock lake with my brother and Noah's friend Joe. Did some fishing and a little boating and watched some fireworks across the lake.

Can't think of anything else to exciting at this point. When I do, I will blog.

Scott

Julies Observations

Thank you for all the feedback on starting a blog. Seems we are all pretty much novices in blogging so let us all enjoy learning something new. I want to share an exciting new adventure for the Doucettes, well Ed and I anyhow. We have owned our house for 21 years and for the first time we are doing a major improvement, well major for us. Other than a new furnace or reroof we have done little that required some design decisions. We are building a new retaining wall on the sides of our driveway. We saved for 2 years for this and are finally seeing it come to life. Today is the second day of work and the pictures are from this morning. On the first day, Monday we got a terrible storm 2 hours after they began so this is really the first full day. So for all you who responded to the blogging idea THANKS. Keep blogging and everyone is invited to start and share stories and feelings. My day is better knowing you will be a part of it.

Soon to be Grand!!

First off I have to say Kudos for an excellent idea. With a family our size it takes the distance factor out of keeping close.
Lot's of changes for the other Elkhorn crew. I have a new job as a Night Auditor for the Grand Geneva in Lake Geneva. It is a four diamond resort with two beautiful golf courses. As an employee I can take 3 people with me and it is only $15.00 round (normally it's $150.00 - $180.00 a round). I have a strange feeling I may be get Dad to travel down this way a little more often. My shift is 11PM to 7AM so it's a good thing I have always been a night owl.
Beth is awaiting to hear on a new job with a company called Medicoil (in Lake Geneva) that would be a morning shift and better pay so we are keeping our fingers crossed.
I saved the best to last. We have found out Casey is going to make us Grandparents in December. She is due on the 2ND or 3RD so Jeff may have to share a birthday. It was a shock at first but she and her boyfriend, Jesse, were planning to get married and he wants to even more now. We have come to the conclusion you can't change what's done so now we are looking forward to spoiling the little one. On July 12th we find out boy or girl so we will let everyone know.
Hope everyone is keeping cool!!
Bill, Beth, Casey, Jesse, and ???

Accepted Offer

After a few months in a very slow real estate marketing, my cute little McDowell St. home has an accepted offer. All of the contingencies have been met and we're going to close on July 25th!

The buyers are 2 brothers, both first time home buyers that are making a great investment. They are so excited as are their family members. Their dad is a carpenter so I know they'll have no problem keeping the house beautiful!

Yippee Skippee! I've officially made my final mortgage payment!!! ~Dawn

The Merfeld Two

Well it has been and long 8 months but Jesse and I are finialy building our house.
The remaining truses and sheeting will go up today, we hope to be in by Labor Day:)

Share your love and humor!

Happy Fourth of July! Today I think is a great time to star a new way of communication for the Reindl family tree. Jason and Bridget have a blog and my family loves to go and see the Doughty family and their happenings. We feel it adds a new closeness so at family gatherings we have more things to talk about. I love having a big family and want all our kids have the advantage of having a large network of people who will always love them. They can take risks and we can celebrate the success or pick them up for the not so great adventures. So I am asking for all and any input on this. We can all share the password to one blog and all add our own entries. So lets get started on the 4th of July, 2007.