Guest Blog - by Greg

This is Greg, Jana's husband - trying my first blog ever. Well, my dear Jana is sick and has been for 5 days straight! This blog is posted in her honor. I know the crowd is checking the blog site but still no posts because she is sick. Therefore, I will step in and fill the void. Realize that I am not the blog wizard that she is, but hope this satisfies. (By the way, she has shown some great signs of improvement today; so I believe she is on the road to recovery).

Maybe I will start guest blogging about once a month, some serious, some funny, maybe even some of our outdoor adventures.

Jana is such a wonderful wife and being her husband is such a blessing. This first blog is to highlight Jana's creativity. Jana is a creative mastermind. Some times I come home from work or running errands and, behold, she has created some kind of art decor, cake design, bag tag, diaper holder thing, and so forth. Because of these creative contraptions I like to keep a camera close by to capture these moments - as you will see the process is not quite as neat as the end product. So, enjoy the pictures below and thanks for the prayers for Jana to get better!

Image 1 - Imagine just going to the ice box to get a tasty glass of milk to have a lady bug head staring back at you!Image 2 - This is a glimpse of what happens when Jana gets the idea to create a sweet card for someone. The card is wonderfully put together, but our living room looks like a tornado made its home here.

Image 3 - Our kitchen on cake making day!

Image 4 - My personal fav, this is Jana trying to fix our duvet cover. Imagine walking into the bedroom to find this on your floor. awkward.

Yes, those are legs sticking out.

Until next time!

Greg

Cure for Hiccups

Do you ever get hiccups? Violent, aggressive, semi-painful hiccups?

I do.

And I know Jenny does too.

Well I have discovered a cure. At least it works for me. Here it is: really really ridiculously high-pitched singing.

I tried it the other day, and my hiccups were instantly gone. It was amazing. Well, not for those who could hear me (namely, Greg). So when I got the hiccups again a few days later, I looked at Greg and said "You know what I have to do." He started shaking his head and backing away slowly - "No. Please No." "I have to honey. It will only take a second. LaaaaAahhhhhhhhhhhh!" INSTANTLY GONE.

Try it. This is not a trick. And if you are just dating, maybe you should wait until you are married to pull stuff like this. Let me know if it works for you. I am 2 for 2.

Disclaimer: Use at your own discretion. May not be best suited for public places. Side effects may include dizziness, shortness of breath, mild and temporary embarrassment, and mockery.

A Berry Happy Mother's Day

This weekend we went over to my parent's house to celebrate Mother's day. I have the most amazing mom ever and am so proud to be her daughter. We enjoyed spending the day with my parents, and celebrating my mom.

We went out to lunch together after church and enjoyed some seafood. Then we set out to go blackberry picking. This is a Grosse family tradition. Well, not on Mother's day, and not necessarily every single year :) But, I do have great memories of growing up picking blackberries together as a family, and then coming home and Mom making a delicious fresh blackberry cobbler. So Greg and I have decided to keep up with the tradition, and go out for annual blackberry picking.

This year it was a little tougher to find good blackberries. We must have hit the jackpot last year without realizing it, because Greg and I filled up 2 buckets to the halfway mark. We froze lots of the berries, and made lots of cobblers. This year we had trouble covering even the bottom of our buckets. It was still really fun and my parent's and we both got enough to make a cobbler.




There were plenty of pretty and not so pretty creatures in the field. Here is one of the pretty ones.


After our intensive labor we relaxed in the pool, and my parents told us all about the different kind of plants and flowers in their backyard for when we have a house and a yard. Greg and I are both looking forward to learning a little about gardening.

It was a great Sunday. We missed you Kimmels! And we missed not getting to hang out with the Matterns and Bryants on Mother's Day!

Yay for Target Gift Card!

I just got a $20 e-gift card to Target with my Swagbucks! I am super excited.

An e-gift card isn't quite as cool as a regular gift card, but hey I'll take it because it was free. I am going to try to avoid paying shipping costs though. A lot of things at Target have free shipping with $50 purchase. So I will either wait until I accumulate more target e-gift cards, or until I can find a free shipping code (if Target does those).

If you want to sign up for Swagbucks to earn points for using their search engine you can read my original post here, or click on my referral link below. They don't require any personal information to sign up.

Happy swagging.

http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=438973

**By the way, I would like to give a big shout out to Wendy to say THANK YOU for letting me know how to fix spacing! For all you perfectionists out there, if you go to the "Edit Html" tab (next to the "Compose" tab that you use to type up your post), you can fix spacing there.

Camping Gear, Aisle 5

No that's not Academy, that's just our living room.

Waller Wedding

This weekend I was in my friend Julie's wedding. Her and Scott had a beautiful wedding and now they are relaxing on the beach in Maui. The food at the wedding was fabulous - a full 5 course meal! It was a fun weekend full of wedding excitement, and lots of fun dancing at the reception. Here are a few pictures from the night.

The newlywed's first dance.

Julie and her 3 brothers did a lip sync to "I Will Always Love You". It was my favorite part of the reception :)

After the reception Scott surprised Julie with a horse and carriage ride. Very sweet!

Congrats Julie and Scott!

Grosse Family Vacation

My parents celebrated their 30 year anniversary on February 17th this year. My dad was so sweet to plan a special anniversary trip for my mom to Captiva, Florida. For years she has wanted to go there, so this was a dream come true for her.

Love birds pictured below...

My dad kept it a secret from my mom that my sister, Cody, Greg, and I were all going on the trip with her. We were planning on showing up at the airport and surprising her. We had kept this secret for months and were anxiously waiting to see the look on my mom's face when she saw us standing at the gate with our luggage. Unfortunately, Continental's automated message gave the surprise away when it called the house the day before our trip and confirmed to my mom flight information for SIX passengers. She said her mouth dropped open and she started screaming. She called me super excited, and in a bit of a shock. At first I was disappointed that our cover was blown, but I've never heard her so excited, so it was still worth it.


We had to fake the surprise picture just for fun.

My dad found this great hotel on Captiva island and we all stayed together in one of their suites that had 3 rooms and a common living area and kitchen. We ended all our evenings there with some very competitive Catch Phrase and Pass the Pigs tournaments, or a little serenading from Cody and his guitar.

The island of Captiva is really narrow, with the beach on one side of the hotel, and the bay on the other. We spent time laying on the beach enjoying the white sand and green waters. Would a vacation ever be complete without a couple of jumping pictures?

One day we took a boat out and went to a nearby island (very small). We got close to the shore than got out and swam to shore.

Here is Captain Bill.

Greg did a little fishing off of the island and caught several fish. Oh and it is not cold outside; Greg is wearing long sleeves because he got burned.




One of the highlights of the trip for me was when I got to pet a manatee. They would come right up to the docks behind the hotel, and this one was friendly. If ever there is an animal willing to be petted, by all means I will pet it!




One of our nightly dinners.




One day we all rented bikes and biked through a nature preserve.

We also made time by the pool because it was so pretty.

We had perfect weather the whole time and it was a such a wonderful family vacation. It was hard coming back to reality, but we enjoyed Captiva while it lasted.

On an unrelated note, does anyone else want to throw their computer out the window due to blogger spacing issues? I can never get the spacing to come out on the way it looks when I am in edit mode. If anyone has any tips please share!!