Dayne and Lina Photoshoot

This mosaic is made of all the pictures I took the day of the photo shoot.

This past summer Dayne had the heart-wrenching experience of having to say goodbye to her best friend, Lina, as she packed up and moved to Philadelphia, PA.

Fortunately, Lina has family here in Lee's Summit so they have plenty reason to visit.  In early October they had reason to come back for a visit and a soccer game!  Lina's dad used to play for the KC Wizards and is now a talent scout for the Philadelphia Union.  The Union was playing Kansas City Sporting (formerly the KC Wizards) so it was a great opportunity for the girls to get together and enjoy each others company and soccer!

I took an afternoon off and let Dayne miss school one day so she could spend some time with Lina.  We really enjoyed the Lee's Summit area photo shoot!  Below are some of the day's results!

Taylor Swift Concert Fun

Around February the announcement was made that Taylor Swift would be coming to Arrowhead Stadium in September!  Immediately I thought to invite Trista and her girls to KC for the weekend for some concert fun!

The stadium starts to fill up

Kylie's first concert!

Two of the coolest moms around

As soon as the sun fell, so did the temps!  It was pretty chilly but it didn't stop us from having a blast!

I thought Taylor did a great job!  It was almost like a  play where she told a story behind each song and one transitioned right into the next!

Taylor takes the stage!

"Mean"

"Back to December" ... she made it "snow" by dropping confetti from the top of her stage, cast a blue light on the confetti and the wind carried it all around the arena. Well done!!

The girls were ready to get back to warmth!

It was so wonderful having a good friend and her daughters join me for a wonderful time!

Labor Day - 2011

This represents how glorious time at Grand Lake is!

This year, as with many summer weekends and holidays, we were lucky enough to be invited back to the Reustman lake home in Grove, OK.  ... and a bonus was that Gretchen & the kids were able to join us! (Donna hadn't been feeling well and didn't think an 8 hour road trip was a good idea so she didn't join us: ( ).

We arrived in Grove late Saturday morning and got right to some R&R!  The weather was beautiful, the company was great, the food was great, the water was warm ... it could have only been better if our Nana had been able to join us!

Dayne and Zoe (who is 100% fearless!) tubin'!

Kylie patiently awaits her turn on the tube.  She and Dayne did a face dive into the water and it really scared Kylie (understandably!)

One of the many delicious meals we had, courtesy of Chef Dick, was smoked beer can chicken.  To an outsider, it may not be that funny ... but, as is the case with many things, we can make fun out of some really odd things!

Each of the three chickens were each posed in a way that said, 'Hey, how *you* doin'?'

Dayne and Kylie in the hot tub. The temp dropped 30 degrees in 24 hrs ... so the hot tub felt good!

Graden with his sister, Gretchen

Graden & Dick preparing the 5 racks of ribs for our feast!

It was a great holiday weekend filled with good fun, good people and new memories for all!

Kenny Chesney Concert: Good times, Good Music, Great friends!

In late March it was announced that Kenny Chesney - along with Uncle Kracker, Billy Currington and The Zack Brown Band - would be coming to Arrowhead Stadium for a concert.  The first concert at Arrowhead since 1976 or something crazy!

Graden thought it'd be a great birthday gift - and I couldn't have agreed more!  So, we picked up the phone and called our friends the Benhams and Hermsens to see if they'd like to join us!  We were so thrilled when they said they'd be here!

The Tailgate Camp

The day of the concert we went tailgating - my first tailgating experience ever!  We had a blast!  We got there a little after 10am and set up our "camp" of food, game set of "bags" and of course, beverages!  In addition to The Benhams and Hermsens joining us, we bought tickets for Hunter and his friend Zach.  We knew we'd be doing some drinking, so we wanted to be responsible and make sure we all got home safely!

Graden and Trista reigned as champs in 'Bags'

Trista, Bryan, Graden, Adam & Renee

Oooh!  Look who we ran into!

The crew as we head into the stadium to our seats.  We had awesome seats!  And the concession stations & restrooms were indoors with air condition if we needed to cool off!

Happy 12th Birthday, Dayney Wayney!

What do 12 year olds wish for, anyway?  I can't remember!

This year for Dayne's birthday she had a posse of friends over for a sleep over and time at the water park in Independance!

The next morning, they weren't quite swimmed out so we headed to our neighborhood pool for some more sunshine funshine!  The girls played chicken, Sharks & Minnows and did group jump shots!

Oh, and made "George Washington" hair styles! (They recreated this event from Dayne's 8th birthday party that some of them attended, too!)

Danye and her cousin, Zoe.

A Weekend of Friends, Dance Shows and Cubs vs. Royals

Not very often do the Chicago Cubs play the Kansas City Royals ... but this summer was one of the rare times it was scheduled to happen!

Being Cub fans and Royals fans, we thought it would be great if we could go to the game and bring Gretchen and the kids along as well!  We booked the tickets, invited our friends Brad and Sarah Baker down for the weekend as well and got the plans rolling!

And then the dates for Dayne's dance recitals were announced and the recital was the same weekend as the game.  That meant Dayne and I wouldn't be able to go and we had two extra tickets.  Knowing that Rocky and Luke are always good for a baseball game, we asked them if they'd like to go in our place and of course, they accepted!

Dayne did a really good job during her dance recital - her first ever!  She started the dance season with two of her best friends - Lauren and Lina - but they had since quit dancing so Dayne wasn't too thrilled that she was alone.  Regardless, she stuck with it and learned some impressive dance moves along the way!

Dayne had two recitals: one on Friday night and one on Saturday night.  The rest of the family was able to attend the Friday night show.

Dayne's first dance recital at Layton's Dance Academy.  She is the 2nd to last on the far right side.

Proud mom and dad after her first recital!

The next day, the day of the baseball game, Oz decided to add some excitement to the day by running off!  He was missing for a few hours, but eventually we found him - right in the neighborhood!  It was clear that whatever he had been doing wherever he was doing it, he had a blast!  He was wet and muddy and, besides giving the look of "I am sorry and ashamed" ... seemed to have had fun!  We were just happy to have him back home!

Dayne, protecting her beloved Oz from anyone who might want to scold him for running off.

After the recital and after the game, the Bakers brought over Wrigley so Dayne could play with her and they could hang out with us for a little while!  Wrigley just loved all the loves and attention that Dayne and Kylie gave her!

Hermsen Wedding Weekend

The Hansen Family traveled to Dubuque, Iowa this past weekend to help our friends, Adam & Renee, celebrate their wedding! 

| Our travels started Friday morning about 10:30.  We had to be in Dubuque for Graden to attend the wedding rehearsal that started at 5:15 so we were on a tight schedule!  Hunter had football practice until 10:00 ... so we couldn't leave sooner than we did!  I made pancakes for breakfast for the family before we hit the road so we wouldn't have to stop to eat, plus had plenty of drinks and snacks on hand!

| Amazingly ... we arrived in Dubuque at 4:45!  We dropped Graden off at the church while the kids and I went back to the hotel to get checked in and unpacked.  After rehearsal, we enjoyed a really nice dinner at Catfish Charlies - Graden had ribs and I had a nice sirloin.  Of course, we coupled our wonderful meals with a few adult beverages!    We headed back to the hotel about 9:30 that evening ... well, I should say we aimed for the hotel but ended up at the sports bar across from the hotel. 

| The next day was a fun one!  We spent a leisurely morning getting ready for the wedding - which was at 1:30 that afternoon.  My best friend, Jennifer, and her lil' guy, John, drove from Cedar Rapids that morning and met us at the hotel to get ready with us.  Graden, who was a groomsman in the wedding, headed out with the wedding party about 10:30 while the rest of us got ready to head out for lunch prior to the wedding. 

| Jen and I and the kids found a Mexican restaurant close by and enjoyed a margarita (of course!) then headed to the local WalMart to kill some time.

Me and my long time bestie, Jennifer

| The wedding started on time and was a beautiful ceremony!  After the traditional Catholic ceremony, the wedding party drove around town in a Party Bus while the wedding guests headed to the Grand Harbor Resort for Cocktail Hour.  Well, most of the wedding guests did .... we, however used this downtime to head to our room and take a little nap.

Mr. & Mrs. Adam & Renee Hermsen

| We headed down to the reception (which was located right next to the hotel we were staying at) about 5:45 and waited for the wedding party to arrive!  Renee was one of the most beautiful brides I have ever seen! She looked like she had just walked out of a photo shoot!  She is one of those women who you'd love to hate because she is so beautiful and adorable, but she is such a sweet person!  Adam isn't too hard to look at, either .

| The wedding reception lasted until 11pm, then we headed back to the sports bar we visited the night before.  We quenched our thirst until about 1am then headed back to the hotel for some zzzz's.  It was a fun night!

Wedding wishes to Mr.and Mrs.Hermsen: To many happy & fun years! ♥ The Hansens

| The next morning Dayne and I went to the waterpark that was located inside the hotel/resort.  It was pretty lame for her to be there with just boring ol' Mom, so we were back at the hotel room by 10am.  We cleaned up, got packed up and headed out for lunch.  We stopped by the Aswegan's hotel to say goodbye to them .... but ended up having breakfast at their hotel and then headed to the Mississippi River Aquarium and Museum for a while.

Hunter & Dayne with John

| About 2:30 we hit the road and headed toward Waterloo so we could join Donna, Gretchen and the kids for dinner.  As we got loaded into the truck to head home, TJ and Kylie got in the Suburban and "refused' to get out .... saying they were going home with us!  We bounced around the idea (they were planning to come to Lee's Summit the coming weekend for the Cubs vs. Royals game) and they ended up coming home with us!  I thought it'd be good for Gretchen to have a little break from the kids and it'd be great for all the cousins to get some much needed bonding time together as well!  They all miss each other very much!

Kylie, TJ's & Dayne enjoying the summa-summa-summatime heat!

| On our way out of town we stopped by Dad's house as a surprise visit for Father's Day ... but weren't able to stay long since it was already almost 8pm and we still had a 5 hour drive home. |Bleh!|

| On the way home we ran into some pretty severe weather ... listening to the radio we heard that a tornado had touched down about 16 miles from where we were.  Yipes!  The storm was traveling northeast and we were traveling southwest ... so Graden told Hunter to "hurry up!"!

| Sunday night was a loooong night ... we didn't get home until almost 1am.  Needless to say we all slept good that night!

| Long weekend, but good memories spent with friends and family!