Our little nature lover

Saying that Madelyn loves playing outside would an understatment.

She loves playing outside so much that if I even open the front door a little bit, that little rascal tries to squeeze out, and if I let her walk outside as we head to the car in the mornings, she fights me tooth and nail when I try to get her in her car seat.

So needless to say, Madelyn was very happy this weekend since we spent much of it playing outside.

Jason was painting parts of our house's exterior, so Madelyn and I played with sidewalk chalk, barked at the neighbor's puppies (she did; I didn't), played at the park, pushed around her toy car, and explored the yard.

Weekend at Grandma's

We had a great time visiting Jason's family in North Platte last weekend. Every year we go to NP over Labor Day weekend to celebrate our nephew Corby's birthday. Madelyn LOVES Grandma's house (so do we) because there's so much room to run and explore.

She had a great time playing with Grandma, Grandpa and Corby ... and Daddy, too.

 

Trying on Grandma's shoes  

 

 ... and her sweater

Feeding Grandpa a brownie

Play horsy with Grandma

... and helping her sweep

 

Always lots of love from Grandpa

 

Playing blocks with Corby

Corby's new baseball jersey - from us

She just loved Courtney, Val and Corby's puppy. Gave lots of hugs!

And crawled after it

Aunt Courtney

Val, Corby, Aunt Courtney and Madelyn

Reading books

Chasing the geese

 

Eating like the llama 

 

Visited Grandpa's office 

"Ed" trip to Iowa City

Every year my friends Lisa, Angie, Kristi and I go on our "Ed" girls trip - in honor of our favorite show "Ed", which went off the air a couple years ago. Sometime during our trips - a road trip through Iowa, a winery in Nebraska, Kansas City, Nebraska City - we wear our "Ed" shirts. :)

This year we (minus Kristi, who is living in Rome) spent the last weekend in August in Iowa City, which is halfway between Omaha (where me and Lisa live) and Champaign, IL, where Angie lives. We stayed at a hotel on the University of Iowa campus, which was totally fun. It was just a couple blocks from downtown restaurants and bars, and with it came access to the campus Rec Center. We took a Zumba class and swam in the super cool pool - it has a lazy river!

Here's us in front of a cool building on the University of Iowa campus in our "Ed" shirts!

Here's me and Lisa pointing to a flier that says one of the characters from "Ed" performed the night before in the Student Union - which is the building we were staying in! Had we been paying attention instead of watching old episodes of "Ed" in our hotel room that night, we could've actually MET this guy. We were a day late - and totally bummed!

To help us feel better, we stopped by Orange Leaf.

Dinner at an Irish pub!

Hanging out in the pouring rain!

Can't wait for next year's trip!