Always changing, always learning

Our little girl is growing up way too fast! Her favorite word this week seems to be "Dey Dey" (we call Mercedes, cece for short). While swimming this week she would constantly peer over the edge of the pool and shout "Dey. Dey"!
"Addi where's your tummy?"


"Addi where's your nose?"


"Addi where's your ear?"




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Memorial Day Weekend

Firday afternoon, we hooked up the trailer and headed toward Earlville and more specifically Tri State Raceway. After a half hour of driving through the campground, we found the perfect spot and started setting up (in the rain).

Saturday, Bob and Marcia brought Chris' dodge Dakota rt sport (little white truck) up and mom and dad also joined us at the racetrack. Chris ran the truck in the sportsman class and I ran it in trophy class. Chris got a buy in his first round and lost by 3 thousandths of a second in the second round. Due to chris running faster than he initially thought, he changed my elapsed time from a 14:90 to a 14:83. Guess what I ran? If you said 14:90, you were right! Although I had a decent reaction time off the line, the 11 second door car I was up against ran closer to his estimated elapsed time and wine the race.

Saturday evening we all enjoyed a meal over the fire which included turkey and dressing with cheese in the camp cookers = delish!

We were hoping to race again on Sunday but the weather won. After everyone at breakfast together, mom and dad went home while Bob, Marcia, Chris, Addison and I went to the Mississippi River Musem. We had a blast and I recommend it to anyone visiting the Dubuque area. I also showed them the 4th ST. Elevator and Eagle Point Park (to of my other must sees if you are in the area.
































After a fun afternoon, Bob and Marcia headed home while Chris, Addison and I prepared the camper for the trip home.

We then met my mom at my cousin Dana's graduation party. By this time the weather had really cleared up and turned into a beautiful night!

(although though some of the following images aren't good - it's funny to see who interested she was in the flowers!)








Once Addison started getting tired (and we started getting tired of chasing her around) we headed back to the racetrack/ campground. Since it was still fairly early, and we already had everything packed up, we decided to head home.

The road was fairly quiet and Addison slept the whole way home. (We made it back to Ankeny around 11:00)

Sunday we mostly did housework and ran errands. We did make a little time for swimming...


They were testing the temp before we got in.

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Dinosaurs at the Zoo

I just had to post these cute pictures of Addison and Grandpa Vest at the zoo today...

Our Vacation

So most of you know that Chris and I were supposed to go to Punta Cana, DR for our anniversary. We were supposed to leave Friday, May 13th, but our flight into Chicago got canceled due to weather. We contemplated driving to Chicago, but it would have been after midnight before we arrived, and we would have had to pay for parking. So we called the airline and while se were at the airport we were rescheduled on a flight to Atlanta in the A.M. So we went out to dinner in Ankeny. At the end of dinner, Chris checked our flights, only to discover that our flight was yet again CANCELED!

After contemplating canceling our trip and lots of emotions later, we discovered that our only real chance of making it to the DR on Saturday was to drive to Omaha. So at 9:30 Friday night Chris, Addison, Bob, Marcia and myself drove to Omaha! Chris and I couldn't go by ourselves, because our return flight was through Chicago and we wouldn't have a way to get the truck home. It was around 12:00 when we arrived in Omaha (hindsight - should have driven to Chicago).

Our flight was to leave at 5:40 am so we went to sleep for about two hours then headed out to the airport. After arriving at the airport, we discovered that USAIRWAYS (our original airway) hadn't transferred our tickets to Delta (our new airline). After much back and forth and no one wanting to take blame for the issue at hand, USAIRWAYS discovered that when we almost canceled our trip one of the USAIRWAYS reps entered something wrong, realized this, but neglected to fix it! Too bad they discovered all of this 5 min after our flight left, especially since there was no way to make the flight out of the US that day.

So, we went home, and canceled everything! How disappointing going from first class tickets to the DR to going back home.

Chris and I worked Monday and Tuesday then took off with Addison to camp outside Minneapolis Wednesday night through Satuday morning. We had a great time with our little peanut - swimming, riding bikes, playing in the sand, swimming, and of course mini golf and Shopping!




They said they had "Apple Products" but I don't think it was the same store as the following image...


I think I converted him to be an Apple fan!



Mini Golf! After seven years he finally took me to an actual mini golf course.



I can do it myself! Turning into little miss independent!

Moltzan Wedding

The weekend of May 6-8th we went back to Dyersville for the wedding of my cousin Katie M. to Adam Moltzan. We went home on Friday and went out for dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Knepper. Saturday morning we ran some errands. Grandma and Addison played with the baby chicks at Theisens.

Addison kept going straight for the poor chick's neck! She must of thought it was Toby's tail!

After running errands we got ready for the wedding. Adam and Katie's wedding was beautiful and they couldn't have asked for better weather. Chris and Addison had fun playing in the back of church... not sure who ate more cheerios :)

Hanging out with Aunt Sarah before mass

Oooh BUBBLES!

This is my buddy Rachel

Love my daddy

Sitting on Uncle Jamie's lap - Crazy Aunt Kim!

Dancing and singing with my buddies

Beautiful Bulldog Contest

I know a few of you have been waiting for this, sorry it has taken so long to get it posted. I think I'm on the verge of getting a good app for my phone or ipad so that I can update this from there. Lately it seams that the only time I'm really on my computer is when I'm doing design/photography work and when I'm not doing one of these things, I would rather spend time with Addison then be on my computer :)

So here it is. The Monday after Easter, we took Lexi (Alexis Lucile) to the the Drake Beautiful Bulldog contest. She was selected out of 100s of bulldogs to be one of fifty dogs in the contest. I have never experienced so much panting and drooling in one room! Although there were A LOT of cute bulldogs, I'd take my little Lexi Lu's behaviors over some of them :)

Waiting for the festivities to begin...

Later in the afternoon we took miss Addison to the doctor and she had an ear infection... although you can see in this picture she isn't feeling very well, hind sight is 20/20 because she acted very well until we missed lunch time!

Nervous for her judging

Making her final walk - you can see how shy/nervous she is

Last year's winner





This lil bull was deaf



Zelda's Kissing Booth - best costume


Jail Bull

Vinny the runner-up

Lucy - the winner