A Wonderful day for a Wedding

Saturday was indeed a wonderful day for a wedding! Hillary and Ryan lucked out and had a beautiful day. With storms threatening the area, Superior Shores in Two Harbors remained dry. Not only did it not rain on the day but it was overcast all day which was SO nice. Friday, there were no clouds in the sky and you broke a sweat in about two seconds flat {I actually got a little sunburn during the 10 minute wedding rehearsal - go figure.} Having the overcast day not only made it bearable to be outside temperature wise but it also made for good picture taking! I'm so anxious to see Hill and Ryan's professional photos. They used the same photographer that I used. {Lime Rock Photography out of Mankato MN.}

I woke up with the sunrise Saturday morning. The sunrise over Lake Superior {are any lake for that matter} is gorgeous. I quietly sneaked outside and snapped some pictures. The morning was beautiful - the lake was clam, the temperature was still cool and the sunrise was gorgeous.

Hair appointments started at 7:30am in Hillary's room. It was really nice and laid back. We had one hairdresser who drove up to the resort and did all of our hair. It was nice not to have to drive anywhere. We all just hung out, ate breakfast and got our hair done. It was perfect.

The bride got to go first.

Then it was Bobbi's turn.

Then me.

Mom was next.

I loved the way my mom's hair turned out. It was so her :)

Then it was Kristin's turn.

The Wedding Party - Bobbi, me, Kristin and Hillary {I guess Loewe girls like blue!}

Completed hair photo.

Adding the final detail to Hillary's hair.

While we were getting our hair done and eating breakfast, we got to watch big ships go by out on the lake. This reminded me of my first year of medical school when I lived on the top floor of my apartment building and had an unobstructed view of the lake. I loved watching the ships and boats going in and out of the harbor.

After everyone's hair was complete and before the photographer showed up to take pictures of Hillary getting ready, Kristin and I plucked Hillary's eyebrows {had to get her all ready for these photos that she'll look at for many, many years to come}.

Poor Hill - she felt like we were pulling her eyeball out. {I can sympathize. I HATE plucking eyebrows. I'd rather wax them and have a split second of pain than several split seconds of pain back to back to back}

Mom and Hillary doing make-up {I love this picture.}

Getting all prettied up. {I really like this photo too.}

I don't have any pictures of us getting Hillary all ready in her dress, but the professional photographer was there so eventually I'll have some pictures. Unfortunately I don't have many more photos from the day. Once pictures started there wasn't a lot of down time and being in the wedding doesn't lend itself to carrying around a camera. Oh well, it makes me want to see all the professional pictures even more.

The guys hanging out on the balcony. Ryan {usher}, Aaron {groomsman}, Ruben {groomsman}, Dave {usher}

Beautiful bride

Hillary and Bobbi.

Bobbi and Kristin. The bridesmaid's necklaces were made by my dad!

I did manage to sneak in a photo of the bride and groom.

What a gorgeous place to take photos.

There they are, the happy couple!

 These are the last pictures that I took during the day but I got a couple other photos from my Aunt Judy.

Dad and Hillary coming to walk down the aisle.

Ryan and Hillary leaving the ceremony - high fives all around!

Ryan and Dave ushering people out. The ceremony was really quick but it was such a nice service.

Back detail of Hillary's dress.

Here are a couple pictures from Muffie that I took from facebook {gotta love the internet!}.

Look at how gorgeous of a backdrop they had for their ceremony!!

Saying their vows. {During the ceremony, when it would get quiet, you could hear the waves of Lake Superior lapping up against the shore. It was really pretty}

The day was so much fun {minus the whopping sunburn I got during the ceremony - forgot the sunscreen...oops}. After the service, everyone went back to the lodge where the reception was being held. The DJ that Hill and Ryan hired was awesome. He was such a great entertainer.  I can't wait for the professional photos to come back to I can post them and write about them. The dinner was delicious. I had the chicken which was stuffed with wild rice, mushrooms and I think sausage. The other dinner, which was a crowd favorite, was walleye. For dessert, instead of a traditional wedding cake, we had pie from Betty's Pies. Anyone who has been up North knows of Betty's Pie. We had the Great Lakes Crunch which was a strawberry, raspberry, rhubarb, blackberry {I think} and one other berry in a pie with a crumb crust - SO good! And it was served with vanilla ice cream - double YUM! Another cute thing was their party favor. The resort has bonfire pits all along the lake shore so Hillary and Ryan put together little s'more kits for everyone. Like I said before I can't wait until their pictures come back to I can post all the details. It was a great day. I'm so happy for Hillary and Ryan! Congrats guys!! :)

~Ashley

Projects, Projects, Projects

Since I've had this past week off, I've been tackling some projects here at home that I otherwise have little time to do.

Project #1
Since before I started residency, Ryan and I have been working on refinishing a dresser and night stand. Well this turned out to be a bigger project than anticipated and then throw in the fact that I was hit with a huge dose of reality when residency started and so we are still working on getting these two pieces done. {Good thing we didn't start all four pieces of the bedroom set or they wouldn't be done until well after Christmas - ha!}. We stripped, sanded, sanded, sanded and sanded some more on these two pieces of furniture. A couple weeks ago, we bought the stain but it has been so stinking hot outside that it is unbearable to work in the garage in this heat. The heat seems to be somewhat subsiding so on Wednesday I got out in the garage and started staining away.

Things are looking better but we still have a little ways to go. Clear coat and hardware are up next!

Project #2
I quickly learned that when working the night shift, it is hard to come home and get a decent amount of sleep the next day. I'm usually pretty tired by the time I get home and normally don't have a problem getting to sleep, it is staying asleep that gets me. When I was working nights, I got around 5 hours a sleep which is a far cry from my normal 8-9! I think part of the reason is that I'm trying to sleep when the suns out. We have blinds on our windows but it still doesn't block out all the sunlight. Ryan and I have improvised...

...but lets face it - this isn't going to cut it long term. Two weekends ago, I set out to find curtains for the bedroom. I looked and looked, found a couple that would do, but wasn't finding anything that I thought were worth hanging in the bedroom. So this blanket has been covering our bedroom window since that time. My first shift back after this week of vacation is Friday night, which means I'm going to be trying to sleep Saturday during the day before heading back in for the Saturday night shift. So I figured I might as well solve this too-much-light-in-the-bedroom-during-the-day-while-I'm-trying-to-sleep problem. Off to the fabric store I went. After all, I have a sewing machine so what's stopping me from making my own curtains.I came back from the store with this...

Fabric and blackout liner!

I got to work but the first panel took me for...ev....er to finish. Mainly because I had to figure out how to get the liner on the back and then hem the fabric so that the back of the curtain {who really cares about the back of a curtain?!?} looks all nice and pretty. Anyways, I soon figured it out and made us some curtains that will keep the bedroom dark, just the way I need it!

Figuring out how to work with a large piece of fabric.

Getting the hem pinned into place.

This is the view from bed of the curtains - finally it will be nice and dark!

I probably could have made it a little shorter but meh, oh well. Not bad for my first curtains.

I was also talented enough to put those little rings in the fabric!

This morning when we woke up, it was just as expected, nice and dark in the bedroom. Woo hoo! Mission accomplished! Ryan and I are not the only ones that like a dark room. I walked into the bedroom, flipped on the light and saw this...

Mr. Cooper all tucked in and enjoying some Zzz's

~Ashley

A Groom's Dinner and Jag Bomb Wars

Friday night was the Groom's Dinner. But before the guys could think of eating dinner, they decided to take a dip in Lake Superior. Friday was one HOT day up in Two Harbors - no clouds and no breeze off the lake - yowzers!! The lake was freezing! Hillary's Ryan jumped right in with no hesitation. I think my Ryan must have tested the water a little prior to jumping in because it took a little bit more courage for him to cannonball into the lake. I'm sure that it felt wonderful once they were in the water - talk about a quick cool off!

The view of the lake and the swimmers gathering down by the lake from Hillary's room.

Ryan C and his brother enjoying the Lake Superior coldness.

I think this picture is my Ryan getting ready to jump in but regardless, there was a big crew of little kids down there and they had absolutely no fear when jumping into the cold water.

Now onto the Groom's Dinner. The wedding party and some of the family went to Black Wood's in Two Harbors for some yummy grub. The Groom's Dinner was SO much fun. It was filled with lots of laughter and really good food! It was a great way to start the wedding celebration. Hands down a wonderful time!

The Bride and Groom!

Man Hugs!!

There were four different dinner dishes on the menu to choose from but the Tilapia was one of the popular options.

The BBQ ribs were the other popular options. They were soooo delicious!

What meal is complete without a dessert?!? This was really, really good. Unfortunately it was really rich {and I was getting really full} so I didn't eat it all but what I did eat was really delicious. In the words of my Grandma Frost - they should serve dessert first!

Over three years ago when Ryan and I got married, Hillary's Ryan and my uncle Dean had a little lot of fun with Jag Bombs {jagermeister and red bull combined into a shot}. Ever since then, whenever we get together, there are Jag Bombs abound. Since Dean started the Jag Bombs at my wedding {they subsequently continued at Kristin's wedding}, Ryan T and Ryan C started it off by getting Dean the first jag bomb of the night. I think the rest is history. There were several, several jag bombs flowing during the dinner - Dean, Ryan C, Ryan T, Ryan C's cousins/uncle, my cousin Mitch, my dad {unsuccessfully}, the photographer {unsuccessfully} and Dave {compliments of Mike the photographer}. It was a good time! I only got pictures of Dave taking his jag bomb and the events leading up to it, but I know the photographers got all the other jab bombs captured in picture/video history.

The waitress presenting Mike his bomb...

...since he was "on the job", he chose to give Dave the bomb...

...and Dave took it like a champ!

After dinner, everyone headed back to the resort where Hillary and Ryan were going to host the after party. Towards the end of dinner I could feel a headache starting. I think it was a combination of the heat and being dehydrated. By the time I got back to our room to change clothes, I had a full out pounding headache....right...behind...my....right....eye. Ugh! I felt kind of bad because when we got back to our room, Ryan's parents were up. I said a quick hi and then went to take ibuprofen and then lay down so I didn't get to talk to them much but I was feeling terrible. I normally go to bed early, but I was awake and wanted to be hanging out with everyone but the headache wasn't going to let me do that. Eventually Ryan and his parents walked over to Hillary and Ryan's room without me. I ended up falling asleep. I guess Ryan's parents came back around midnight but Ryan partied it up until two in the morning! I'm surprised he stayed out so late, but surprisingly when morning came, he was ready for the big wedding day!!

~Ashley

Cavity free and north bound!

At 7 bells Friday morning, I was in the dentist chair getting my teeth cleaned. I haven't been in Omaha long enough to find a new dentist so I squeezed an appointment in while I was back in Minnesota. I don't know what it is about the dentist chair but anytime that the chair starts reclining, I can NOT keep my eyes open. I struggle to stay awake through the whole appointment. People probably think I'm crazy, but even though I've had my fair share of cavities/dental work, going to the dentist and sitting through a cleaning or a cavity filling doesn't bother me. This past Friday was nothing out of the ordinary for me other than I closed my eyes for the whole appointment, only talked when the hygienist asked me questions {which was the entire length of the appointment, she was rather chatting, but that's ok} and I had zero {!!!} cavities. I think this marks two years since my last cavity. I thought for sure I was going to have a bad report card as my, umm, dental hygiene has been a little lacking this past month {cough, cough}. Let's hope my cavity-free streak continues for many years to come!

After the dentist, it was back to my parents house to pick up Ryan and help load of the cars to head up to Two Harbors for Hill's wedding.  Ryan drove the whole way up while I sleep on and off. It feels so good to sleep! Yay for sleep!!

I love getting to the cities and seeing the skyline. I really like Minneapolis' skyline. Seeing it this time around was kind of bittersweet. It made me really miss my time in the Twin Cities. I miss my classmates. I miss being in Minnesota :(

 Luckily we got an early enough start so driving through the cities wasn't bad at all. I wish I would have 1) been driving through the cities when my friends weren't at work so that I could have stopped to see them and 2) had more time to actually stop and see them. I think I'm going through medical school withdrawal. The first two years of med school, countless hours were spent in the classroom with the same people day in and day out. Then the last two years, we were all rotating around the twin cities and even though we didn't see each other everyday, we still saw each other {and I lived with two classmates for the last year of med school}. Now that I am out of the state, I miss the ability to just call them up and be able to hang out. I'm sure as time continues in Omaha, I'll become closer friends with people here, but that will never replace the friendships I made in medical school. Here's to old friends and new friends.

There is part of the drive up north, between the cities and actually being "up north" which doesn't lend itself to being the most interesting in regards to scenery. But once you get up north, I LOVE it! I love the pine trees. I just love the feeling of being up north. It is gorgeous!

Getting up north. Starting to see pine trees! {This doesn't really show the beauty of the north but it was the only one I took on my cellphone camera during the drive up I guess...oh well.}

This is my favorite part of the drive up north. It is just as you are getting to Duluth. You head up this hill and just as you come over the top of the hill, the view opens up and you look out over the City of Duluth and Lake Superior. It is such a calming sight.

Heading into Duluth - what a cluster of bridges {and then add in construction on top of it}.

 Ryan and I had some time before we were able to check into our room in Two Harbors so we met Kristin and Dave down in Canal Park. Kristin and Dave were out by the lighthouse and believe it or not, even though I lived in Duluth for two years and went to Canal Park several times, I had never actually been out to the lighthouse.

The Duluth lift bridge. Unfortunately, there were no big ships coming through to the harbor while we were there.

The lighthouse.

The view over Lake Superior from the end of the pier.

Ryan and I at the lighthouse.

In front of the lift bridge {something must have been funny}.

 It was really warm in Duluth on Friday. REALLY warm. In fact, I don't remember it even being that hot when I lived in Duluth. There was no wind coming off the lake like there usually is. Once we got in from the pier, we decided to get ice cream comes. Ryan LOVES ice cream, so he was fully game and when he saw that the "two scoop" cone was only 50 cents more than a "one scoop" cone, he went for the two scoop {score!!}. Well, these babies were HUGE. Check out Ryan's "two scoop."

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that there was about a quart of ice cream on the cone!

It was hard to keep on top of the cone since it was so hot outside. There was dripping ice cream everywhere!

Ryan was determined to finish his cone. The cone in the plastic cup that he is holding is what was left of my one scoop cone that I couldn't finish.

Good til the last bite. Ryan never lets ice cream go to waste.

With lots of family headed up north for the big wedding, we ran into a couple relatives down in Canal Park. I love Duluth. It's a bigger city with a small town feel. Once the ice cream cones were all finished, we headed back to our cars and continued our drive north to Two Harbors. Once we got to Superior Shores, we checked in and headed to our room. Our room was perfect. Heaven.

Here's the view from our room. Seriously perfect! The lake was so calm on Friday. Calm = no wind = hot day.

I love the north shore. It is so beautiful. I could live up here forever. And Lake Superior, ahhh, gorgeous!

~Ashley

Storm clouds, flooding, rainbows and dead frogs

This past Thursday afternoon started the beginning of my first week of vacation since residency began. By the time clinic ended, I was just itching to get out of the office and hit to road to head due north! Hillary got married this past weekend and I was so excited to get back to Minnesota, see my family and celebrate Hill and Ryan's wedding.  {My} Ryan and I got on the road around 6pm, just in time to drive into a huge storm! It has been so hot and humid down here in Omaha that I knew a big storm was bound to blow through. Well, I got the pleasure of driving the first shift, in the pouring rain.

The storm clouds are moving in.

There's the storm front.

I can't believe how flooded things are down here still!

The rain came.

And it poured!

And continued to pour! Here we are driving through gravel-bag barrier which is protecting the road from the flooding.

It was a little intense driving through this little tunnel with flood waters on the other side of the gravel bags, heavy rain pouring down and cars/semis coming at you in the other lane causing zero visibility as the passed and splashed up tons of water.

Eventually the rain stopped, the sun came out....

.....we continued to drive through flooded areas....

...and rainbows came out!

The rainbows were beautiful! We didn't capture it on our cellphone photos, but there were double rainbows and at times they were really intense. Unfortunately Ryan and I didn't find any pots of gold at the end of the rainbows. Better luck next time {maybe the Powerball ticket we bought on the way back to Omaha will pull through for us}.

The drive from Omaha to MN is boring. It is one of the dullest drives I make. There isn't much between these two places, just a lot of farm land. Even though it is dull, there are a couple areas we drive through which are absolutely gorgeous. I always look out of the land, taking it all in, and I always comment to Ryan "Isn't it so beautiful here." His response is something alone the lines of "yeah, it's nice, but I've seen this many, many times driving back and forth before." Oh well, I still think it is beautiful!

As time continued on, I kept driving and by 10:30ish Ryan was fast asleep, sawing logs in the seat next to me. Somewhere between Worthington and Mankato, I came across the Great Frog Migration of 2011. I don't know what was going on but there was a couple mile stretch where hundreds and hundreds of frogs were making there way across the road. It was dark and there were tons of bugs splattered across the windshield so there was no avoiding these poor, defenseless little frogs. I tried to avoid as many as possible but I was unsuccessful. I felt awful! Poor little frogs. Ryan woke up to me screaming "oh my gosh, oh gosh" as thump, thump, thump, more frogs were being sent to heaven. Agh, I felt awful. As I was freaking out about killing these frogs Ryan told me there was nothing I could do unless I pulled over to the side of the rode and waiting for the frogs {hundreds upon hundreds of them} finishing hopping across the road. :( Poor frogs. I'm sorry!

Just south of Mankato, I pulled over and let Ryan finish driving. I was out like a light when I got into that passenger seat. We got to my parent's house around 11:30/midnight and it was straight to bed for this one as it was going to be a short night - I had a 7am dentist appointment on Friday.

~Ashley