July 21st Birthday Celebration

I had the pleasure of turning another year older yesterday. I don't feel much different, but had a pretty good birthday. I worked yesterday and had some excellent birthday meals. For breakfast, Robin made me blueberry pancakes. Then she made me homemade macaroni and cheese for lunch. Both were very yummy. For supper, we went to the Chop House. I had a 9oz beef fillet and Robin had the prime rib. Both were very good. After supper we went to the Mattress King and bought a king-sized bed for our new house. Then back home for birthday cake. We bought the ice cream cake from Baskin Robins on Saturday and Robin decorated it.

Yes, I am 38! I think Robin did an excellent job with decorating the cake!

The Happy Birthday Boy

Robin taking a picture of both of us.

Our house is almost done!!!!

Our house is essentially finished. All that is left to do is clean and fix minor blemishes (paint scratches, missing screws, etc). We will do a walk through this Friday and then will have to wait until the 27th to close on the house. Below are some pictures of the house we took yesterday, as well as, a virtual tour of the inside of the house.

Front View
Back View

Back yard with trees!

Downstairs Virtual Tour

Upstairs Virtual Tour

4th of July Celebration

We had a wonderful 4th of July celebration on Saturday with Robin's parents (Leland and Diana) and also spend most of the afternoon and evening with Robin's sister Megan and Megan's "significant other" Seth. We started out with a little croquet match in which the 2 newbies to croquet placed 1st (Seth) and 2nd (Neal). We then strolled over to the corn field for the annual corn pictures. The corn is doing well this year (over head high in places). We then proceeded to have an excellent spread of burgers, potato salad, chips, brownies, and watermelon which were more than satisfying for the hunger we had mustered up. Kudos to Leland and Diana for the excellent meal they prepared. After supper we drove over the Lake Vermillion state park and took a 1.25 mile hike on one of the walking trails. The walk was quite nice and made plenty of room in our stomachs for our next treats. Smores!!! Leland built an excellent "tire fire" and we enjoyed roasting marshmallows, making Smores, and some of us even threw a few fire-crackers into the fire. Next on deck was Seth's excellent firework display. He put on quite a show for all of us. I do have to say that the 14.5 hour trek to South Dakota was well worth the activities and fellowship we had on the 4th. Below are some of the pictures and video clips we were able to capture.

Both Robin and her mom were playing with handicaps (her mom recently had hand surgery and of course Robin's handicap was her "baby bump"/AKA Mini Matthews (just in case you had not heard already).

Megan could see the writing on the wall and began to weep as Seth and I began to take over the match.

Robin and I in the corn.

Diana and Leland in the corn.

Megan and Seth in the corn. They were in a very tall section of corn.

A beautiful South Dakota sunset as we made smores and awaited darkness and the firework show.

House Update 7-1-09

We got an update on the house this afternoon. Landscaping has begun! They should have the sod in by the end of the week. They also will be finishing dry wall repairs this week. Monday they will paint the walls, Tuesday the carpet will be installed, and on Wednesday touch up painting will be conducted. Almost everything should be completed by the end of next week!!

Below are some pictures I took this afternoon.

New view from the front. We have a trees and shrubs!! Yay! You can tell the ground is ready for the sod.
An up close view.

A view from the back.