Fairytale, Chapter 16: Year 4

Holy smokes, folks. This is the last fairytale Friday until our five-year anniversary in October. We're still unsure of what we will do on Fridays from now on. We still want to post our soundtracks, Christmas cards and date night recaps, but if you have any ideas, we would love to hear them.

Fall 2009

In November, my mom took us on a trip to Disney World. It was awesome! I had never been there before, and had so much fun. It truly is the most magical place on earth.

We once again were Ignition youth group leaders and our original kids had grown from freshmen to seniors. It was bittersweet to watch them finish high school.

Winter 2009/2010

In January we started a small group with our friends Doug, Jess, Justin and Brenna. We started small and cozy and we went through a course called iMarrage. God slowly nudged us to add more to our group (see summer 2010).

My dad and stepmom visited us in January and doing what dad does best, we tackled a list of projects that included organizing the garage. My dream come true! He also brought with him a new snowblower. He had to pick it up for us in Mason City because they were all out of them in Des Moines. This has been a back/time saver. Kelsey is currently working on a post for the men on how to get your wife to let you buy a snowblower. You are going to want to come back for that one!

Spring 2010

We had some friends over for my 26th birthday in March. The girls played Wii games and the guys played card games.

Kelsey planned out an awesome treasure hunt for me. There were notes scattered throughout the house for me to find. It was awesome. Clues were hidden in our refrigerator, dryer, ping pong table and food envelope, and I finally found a new pair of running shoes and batting gloves in our bath tub.

In the middle of March, we went up to Mount Kato to ski/snowboard before the snow melted. I wanted to try snowboarding a second time (the first time ended in me smacking my head on a chunk of ice without a helmet). I got back on the board with a helmet this time and did OK. I was no Shaun White, but I also wasn't in the hospital. Win-win. Here is an 11 second video of the excitement.

We stained our deck for the second time in April. The infamous photo-bomber showed up to help. Thanks Doug!

Of course, we did the annual MS walk in May.

We planned and reveled in our very first staycation in May.

In June I took a trip with some gentlemen folk to Milwaukee to catch a few Brewers games. We tried booking a trip to the new Twins stadium, but they were all sold out, so we settled for the Brewers.

Summer 2010

At the end of the summer, we decided to take the Alpha course at our church as a small group. We had invited some other couples to join us and a few other folks were added to our group through the class. We've been meeting semi-regularly since.

We got to see one of our favorite bands, The Nadas, play on the Fourth of July in Okoboji.

A few weeks later we spent five days in Okoboji for Kelsey's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. We did a lot of maintenence projects and spruced up the place that we all enjoy so much in the summers.

We had one last hoorah with the youth group as we chaperoned the annual trip to BigStuf, a church camp in Florida. God certainly did some amazing things while we were there and it was an super neato experience for both of us and all of the kids.

Our Fourth Wedding Anniversary

For our fourth wedding anniversary, we decided to give each other our very first pair of TOMs. We were so excited, but neither of us got the right size when we ordered, so we had to wait about a month to finally get our new shoes. We both love shoes. Remember this poll question?

[poll id="9"]

By the way, I counted...Kelsey wins 35 pairs to my 19. I really thought I might have had her beat, but then I found a bunch of pairs downstairs in storage.

Other highlights:

We attended eight weddings and were in two of them.

Kelsey saw Owl City while I worked my second job.

We got to hear Donald Miller speak while on his book tour in Des Moines.

Our friend Keisha (Words of Williams blog designer extraordinaire) had a super sweet birthday party at a skating rink. I won the dice game!

We caught an impromptu performace at a Christian book store from Tenth Avenue North.

We went to see Jersey Boys with Kelsey's family.

And once again attended the Iowa State Fair, this time with my mom; my sister, Kaysie; and her son, Kaleb.