Ringger Lake Visit

This past weekend was the first (and hopefully annual) Ringger lake weekend at our cottage. We didn't have perfect weather (windy, chilly and choppy water Saturday) but we still had plenty of fun. Here are some of the highlights of the weekend:

- lots of EATING

- fishing (see Micki's blog for details of the "big catch")

- Swimming, I can't believe how much the kiddos are starting to like the water, they're lakers already

- Carlie took her first ski run, what a brave little girl, she had a smile on her face the whole time and her nose plugged...lol too cute

- tubing, I wish I had a picture of Eli's hand signals to post, we just couldn't get the speed right for that guy or maybe he just liked using the hand signals

- wakeboarding, hopefully no one is too sore (we had some pretty intense falls) but everyone who tried eventually got up :)

- bonfires, s'mores and even an impromptu fireworks show for our last night

I wish I was better about carrying my camera around with me, Sunday rolled around and I realized I hadn't taken a picture all weekend, whoops. Sunday Dustin and I took Lucy and Carlie on a scavenger hunt down the "Nile of Matteson". We found everything on our list except for a frog. We found cat-tails, lilly pads, white and yellow lillies, pink flowers, birds, weeping willow trees and even a turtle (which Dustin decided to get us an up close and personal view of and almost ran into it with the boat)

Adams Visit

Better late than never... The past two weekends have been a blast! We headed to Indy to visit with the Ringger clan, do some boating and go to a baseball game. See Gin and Micki's blogs for the details of the fun filled weekend. Below is a pic of us at Ram brewery before the game. I love this picture of Dustin.

65th Wedding Anniversary

A few weeks ago my grandparents celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. I can't believe how blessed we are. A lot of people don't live to see their 65th birthday, much less their 65th wedding anniversary. Dustin and I were just discussing the other day that if genes play a part in how long we live we have pretty good chances. Both of us have grandparents in their mid to late 80's that are still living on their own and working, amazing! The picture below was taken after the church service where my grandparents renewed their vows. I can't believe all those people came from just one couple and probably around 20 cousins couldn't make it back for the celebration.

I just had to laugh too when I saw the picture because beforehand I asked Dustin if my hair still looked okay and my sister mentioned that she might be a little under dressed for a family picture. It took me a while to even find myself in the picture and I even knew where I had been standing.

Wakeboarding

As those of you that were at the lake a couple of weekends ago can see, "medium and moldy" has been retired. I know it's sad to see she only made it one weekend before Dustin said she had to go. (Dustin named the life jackets that came with our boat; they were very literal names)
"Small and faded" on the other hand is still going strong!

Another weekend at the lake... another fun time. This weekend was full of more "firsts" for the Ringger household in water sports. Dustin successfully got up on one ski for the first time and made it all the way around the lake before he tried a risky maneuver and fell. Sadly, I forgot my camera for that trip out so we don't have pictures of it. We both wakeboarded too.

Aaron bought a new wakeboard, so we all had fun trying that out for the first time this weekend. I have found a couple reasons to like wakeboarding more than skiing now. 1.) it is much easier and less tiring to get up (I hate falling the first time tiring to get up on a ski) 2.) you only have to go 15-20 mph instead of 20-30 mph skiing 3.) the falls hurt a lot less (because you're going so slow I think) 4.) the only half-way cool trick I can do on a ski is go really fast in and out of the wake and everyone knows going really fast isn't quite my thing. If I get better at wakeboarding I think I could turn around and maybe jump the wake... we'll see. By the second time out on the water Aaron and I were both attempting to jump with at least a little success (Aaron more so than me).

Memorial Day Weekend

We had our first "official" warm weekend at the lake. It was a blast!! Gin and Brian came up Friday night and brought some great food, pork chops, brats and breakfast casserole... YUM. They were also present to witness my first attempt at driving the boat. Yikes...I think it was a scary feeling for all of us. I think I'm getting a little better, maybe, but I'm not sure I'm going to want to drive much once there are a bunch of other boats on the water. Thanks Dustin for not getting too aggravated with me. My first instinct when I am getting close to shore, turning or coming up on another boat is to slow way down and poor Dustin skiing behind the boat is almost climbing up the rope trying to stay up since I'm going so slow. Dustin and I also have our first sunburns and sore muscles of the season. I actually couldn't believe how warm the water is already... well maybe I shouldn't say "warm" but definately not bad once you get in. We were having so much fun I kind of forgot to take pictures so these are the only ones we have. We also met almost all of the neighbors; everyone is so friendly and laid back. I can't wait to have everyone up this summer.

Tricked again..??

I'm not sure why Dustin assumes the movies I want to see are going to be action packed thrillers, but he does. This weekend we rented Twilight and he must have assumed since there were vampires involved there would be a lot of killing and suspense. Sorry about your luck Dustin. When the movie was over I think it was dejavu of how he felt after Fireproof. He said something like, "I thought the vapmires would kill more people". Come on Dustin... you'd think he would know me better than thinking I would pick out a movie about vampires killing people....lol. I'm glad he's a good sport about watching my girlie movies though.

Whew... who knew I was such a wimp

We went up to the lake this weekend for a night just for the heck of it. Apparently, lawns need mowed in Michigan too... dang I was kinda hoping the grass didn't grow there. Since Dustin's life has consisted almost entirely of work and school these past couple months, I have been trying to take some of the load off him by helping out with things I usually don't do, like mowing. I'm getting pretty good at maneuvering our zero turn mower at home so when we got to the lake I thought I'd let Dustin chill and I could handle mowing. After about 5 passes across the yard with the NON-self propelled, push mower with huge bagger I was putting all my weight into pushing this thing. It must have looked either pretty comical or dangerous because the neighbor lady was starring the whole time and it wasn't long before Dustin was looking over to see if I'd given up yet. Luckily, Dustin saw that at this rate I'd be out there all night and too sore to move the next day so he took over and finished up in no time.

Tin Caps Game

I'm way behind posting so I'm planning on doing a couple. Here's a picture of us at the new Tin Cap's stadium. We went with Gin and Brian the other weekend and had a blast. Thanks Brian, for getting us such GREAT seats. Before the game, we went to the Thirsty Camel (apparently the best kept secret in Fort Wayne according to their sign). It was actually surprisingly good food and cheap...can't beat that!

Is it summer yet?!?!

Well this has been quite the interesting weekend... We found out my dad bought a boat for the lake cottage. Yeah!!! It's more of the "family cruiser type" as opposed to the "fast wakeboard/ski boat". He said he bought the boat for everyone. Dustin and I discussed that this would take the pressure off him finding a ski boat. As most of you know, Dustin and I have been boat searching for quite some time with no luck. It's harder than you'd think to find the type of boat Dustin wants in the price range we're looking at. So we came to the conclusion, if we didn't find the right boat this year we would just share the family boat and continue the search next year, with hopefully a little higher budget.

Below is my recollection of what the boat looked like. It's not in this great of condition and minus the beautiful mountain lake view. Basically, all I remember for sure is it was an open bow Rinker. Yes Dustin and Dad, I know I'm probably way off.




Well not long after this whole conversation went down, we found a boat that Dustin really liked and it was in Fort Wayne!! If all goes okay tonight, we will be the proud owners of the boat pictured below. Congratulations on your new boat Dustin!

Before and After

Since everyone else is posting their cool home renovation projects, I decided to post mine. This weekend Dustin successfully taught me how to use a drill! I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad yet(now I don't have an excuse why he has to hang things for me). So after quite the ordeal of showing me how to hang these roman shades, I was able to do most of it myself. Doing this made me appreciate all of the work he's done to the house so far, it was exhausting! This is kind of a bad picture of what they looks like, with the blinding snow in the background and all. Dustin liked the old ones better, but I think once I repaint (probably a while down the road; I'm still recovering from hanging the blinds) he'll change his mind. They don't really go with the yellow as much as the other ones. Any suggestions on what color we should paint?

"The Empty Nesters"

A couple weeks ago after church, Dustin and I decided to sign up for a small group meeting for the series we're doing in church. We decided Monday's would work best for us with Dustin's schooling. There were only 2 meetings on Monday's and one was pretty far from home. So not thinking much of it, we signed up.

Marshall (the leader of the meeting) called me Monday to confirm we were coming and I realized he sounded pretty old. On the way there, I told Dustin that I thought Marshall was older and we joked about how awkward it would be if everyone else was our parents age. As soon as we walked in Marshall told us, "I really think they should tell you the average age of the group when you sign up. We've been together as a group for a while now and we call ourselves "The Empty Nester's". To give you an idea of how old the group really was, Dustin and another man got talking about how he used to work at National Oil and Gas. Dustin told him I bet you know my dad Ked then, he works there. The man (I can't remember his name) said umm... I don't remember a Ked when I was there, I left in about 1958. 1958!!!! Our parents would have been youngsters in this group too.

After everyone's initial shock about age differences, the rest of the night was surprisingly very enjoyable. We're still contemplating seeing if we can switch into another group though.

Quick trip to Mad River Mountain

Sunday, Dustin and I made a sort of last minute decision to go to Mad River Mtn. with Ash and Matt. We had a blast skiing as usual. Except for a small incident we had with me putting too many pairs of socks under my ski boots and losing feeling in my feet. Yes Dustin, you were right, one pair of socks was enough. Let's just say I freaked out a little on the chair lift when my feet started throbbing, then lost feeling.

The highlight of my day was Dustin flying down the hill and Ashley and I trying our darnedest to keep up with him. Dustin hits a jump, gets some serious air and wipes out. I look to make sure he's still moving okay and keep skiing, Ashley, who isn't quite as used to skiing with "crazy stuntman Dustin", skis as fast as she can over to him and asks "oh my, are you okay, that was one of the hardest falls I've seen, I can't believe you didn't see that jump coming?". I had to explain to her, "Yes, he saw it coming and no I have no idea why he doesn't slow down." He must have a very high pain tolerance. If I fell that hard once it would be then end of my day on the slopes.

Ash and Matt - Thanks for inviting us we had a great time!!

Crazy Sunday!!

I haven't been very good at keeping up with posting lately, so I'm doing a couple at once. I thought I'd fill everyone in on our crazy Sunday. After church I went to a jewelery party at my cousin's house. On my way home, just outside of Magley on 224, my car decided to shut down...nice huh! It never even made funny noises, the gas pedal just didn't work. Luckily, I was able to coast into the driveway of a house, since there isn't much of a shoulder on 224. I went to grab my phone to call Dustin (aka...Mr. Fixit) and I realized I'd left my phone at home!! The incident went from no big deal, I'll just call Dustin, to very scary. Looking around I realized if the people at this house weren't home it was a LONG way down the road to the next house. Lucky me again, because the people at the house were home and beyond nice. They let me use their phone to call what felt like million people and offered me hot chocolate. I called Dustin, my mom and my dad, no one answered (it's amazing how few phone numbers you know by heart when you have them all in your cell phone). I was about to call my sister and have her pack up all 3 kids and come get me, when I realized I could try my phone since I left it at home. Dustin answered!! His phone was still on vibrate from church, so I told him it was a "good thing" I forgot my phone at home. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting a rolloff truck from Selking International and towing it up to O'Daniels. If there is ever a car that requires no maintenance and doesn't leave you stranded, I'm going to be the first one to buy it, I hate car problems! Kudos to O'Daniels though, I had my car back by Monday afternoon!

The "CHI"!!

Some of you may think I'm crazy for blogging about something so silly, but I'm in amazement over this thing. I finally broke down and bought myself a decent hair straightener, a CHI. I'm usually the type of person who thinks a knock-off brand is going to do just as good so I've always bought cheap Wal-mart ones. I realized I needed to do something the other day when I asked a girl at work how long it took her to straighten her hair (which is as long as mine used to be) and she said "oh about 15 mins." (my hair took at least that long and it's short). Also I got my hair caught in my old straightener that morning and had to pull out a large chunk of hair to get it out. So anyways, I'm not sure if i think this thing is so great because my old straightener was so bad or because this one is so good, but I love it! I put it to the ultimate test the other day. I went to bed with wet hair and tried to straighten it in the morning (something with semi-curly hair I have never had success at) and it looked the same as it did when I blow dried it straight then did it. If you are thinking about getting one of these I would suggest the thermal protection spray because it gets really hot. Sorry this was such a boring post, but I get really excited about things that knock time off my morning routine and let me sleep a little longer.