July, August thus far

The last time we posted was July 6th. Wow! It certainly has been a busy month!

July 19th - July 20th we went to LaCrosse, IN for an invite-a-couple weekend. We stayed with some friends that Mary had met in Mexico a few years back. Also, Mary's cousin and his wife were invited as guests as well. We had 3 babies that were around 3 months in the same house! Needless to say all 6 adults were not ever sitting in the same room talking for more that 10 minutes the entire evening! Still...it was a nice weekend. Sunday after church we had to rush back to Tremont because Mary's brother John was put into the ministry in Tremont. The service in the evening was very nice and good for us all. My favorite comments came from the children. Jacob told Grace that if she was being disobedient during a service that John would say, "Excuse me congregation, but Grace needs to behave!" Grace also told me later that she hoped I wouldn't be a minister so I could take care of Max. I think the children are a bit sad they won't be able to sit with their dad quite as often in church.

July 26th was the bachelor supper for my good friend Dale Koch. Since I was in the wedding I had offered to make the meat for the dinner. I grilled 5 types of meat in an attempt to mimic the Brazilian BBQ methods. The meats prepared included linked sausage, chicken breasts marinated in Italian dressing, teriyaki steak, buttered/seasoned shrimp, and a couple glazed pork tenderloins. It was quite a spread by the time you threw in the fresh fruit, relishes, bread and brownies with ice cream. It was a great evening of remembering good memories we've had with Dale thus far.

July 28th - July 31st was the 4-H fair. Katy showed pigs on Monday. She sure seems to love those little porkers. Her best class was the carcass class (which I think she may have won!). One of these years I'm gonna get her showing chickens! Speaking of chickens, I went down on Tuesday in the morning to watch the chicken show. Its always good to stay in contact with my old chicken judge. Mary, Max, and I also went down to the fair on Tuesday to watch the horse shows in the evening. It was a tiring but fun few days at the fair.

On Thursday we left for Dale's wedding which was in Minneapolis, MN. We stopped in Madison, WI to see Steph's in-laws (or out-laws or whatever you call the Ramquist's!). Either way, we spend the night with them and really appreciated their hospitality despite the fact that Mem was healing from a detached retina. The omelets she made for us on Friday morning were absolutely amazing! They were quite glad to finally meet Max. After we left their house we took a ferry across the lake they live close to. Max seemed to enjoy the little "boat" ride. Then we continued our drive to Minneapolis. We arrived around 4 in the afternoon and met up with Brett and Laura and Rustin and Sharon (and Grace). We had dinner at the Granite City Restuarant and then returned to the hotel to swim and play games the rest of the evening. It was great to catch up with our cousins! They don't make it to Tremont often enough! Saturday morning Mary, Max, and I headed over to the Mall of America to brave the crowds for a few hours. Mary thought it was pretty neat, as she had never been there. We enjoyed a nice Thai lunch and then headed back to the hotel so I could get ready for the pictures. We took pictures in the afternoon and then headed over to the church to rehearse for the wedding. It was a bit weird walking with another woman...especially since she had on 4 inch heels which literally made her the same height as me! I am used to my Mary (who is about 6 inches shorter than me!). Mary was glad that I missed walking with her! That evening we had the rehearsal dinner and spent a good amount of time talking once again about good memories with Dale and Meg. Then we went to the church for a singing. Quite a busy day! Sunday we went to church and the wedding was during the afternoon service. Everything went off without a hitch. Following the wedding was a reception at a Catholic church center that was just down the hill from the church. The reception was very enjoyable (as was the food, cheese, and cake table!) After the reception ended we headed down to LaCrosse, WI for the night. We stayed at the Stoney Creek Inn. We took Max swimming and he seemed to enjoy it. On Monday morning we headed up to Perrot State Park and did a bit of hiking. We would love to go back and canoe there...it was a beautiful park. After the hike we headed down to Galena. It was about a 3 hour drive...although all those stops at the cheese shops slowed us down! We found some grilling cheese that our friends from Brazil love to use! We were quite excited and have since had kabobs with warm tasty grilling cheese on them! Once in Galena we took residence in our suite at the Stoney Creek Inn. It was a "sweet" room! Fireplace, whirlpool, steam shower, fridge, etc....very nice! The steam shower was just like a sauna and I quite enjoyed the relaxing haze on Tuesday morning. But...back to Monday night. We ate at Vinny Vanucchi's "Little Italy". It was up a long flight of stairs and then they put us in this little cave area where there were only two tables. Thankfully nobody else was seated down there and we enjoyed a romantic dinner in the little shelter. I'll have to admit...I felt a little safer down there after we heard the tornado sirens going outside. Tuesday we drove to the Chestnut Mountain Resort and took Max down the alpine slides they had there. It's hard to tell but I'm SURE he enjoyed it. You can judge from the pictures! After that we went back downtown, had lunch, looked at a few shops, and then left town. We arrived back home in time to eat supper with Mary's family and then went home and crashed after surviving our first trip with Max!

So you would think after all this running around that maybe we would take it easy a bit, right? Well, we did have a slower paced weekend Aug 8th, 9th, and 10th...took a walk and ended up at John and Heather's on the 8th, out of town potluck on the 9th (fondue!) and Wag and Beutel family picnics in the park on the 10th. However, on Tuesday we decided to go to the State Fair, so we loaded up Max and headed down to Springfield. We met U. Steve and A. Diane at the fair and watched some horse shows. Then we split up and we got lunch. Later we joined back together to watch a dog show, an alligator show, and a diving show. Then we split up again for good and we went to watch the harness races at the Grandstand. Quite exciting even with no money on the line for us! We then drove home, ate some leftovers, and at 8:30ish we headed up to the airport to welcome home Grandpa, Grandma & Aunt Katy home from Germany. By the time we picked them up, went to their house and got home it was 11:30 PM. Once again we crashed and went to sleep quite quickly!

Now it's Thursday and we might have a few things cooking tonight. Mary is in Congerville visiting a friend that had a baby last month. I was searching the Internet and found an abundance of Huskies in the Free Pets section of the Tradin Post. So we'll keep you posted on that development. The puppies were actually in.....Congerville...so Mary is supposed to call and check that out! Also we are going to make a few batches of salsa this evening with Mom and Katy. So we will see how that all goes!

Hopefully this exceptionally long post has completely tired you out of hearing from us and you will all be satisfied to wait yet another month for an update of our incredibly exciting lives!

Love,

The Beutel's