Monday

Summer at Compass is fully underway. With this being my last 6 weeks with the kids I am trying to enjoy every minute as much as possible and not focus on all the craziness too much. :D Here is just a slice, what we did this Monday. 

Our theme is adventure, so I asked my very favorite adventurer if he would mind coming in and talking about a few of his adventures a little bit. The kids acted like they were meeting a movie star, since they have heard me talk about Josh forever. 

He brought some of his cool adventure stuff for them to look at. 

He answered all manner of questions from "Why don't you have any pictures of bears?" to "Was Miss Emily's wedding dress really just plain white?" 

A few of them decided on the spot to climb mountains some day, so I would say his goal was accomplished. 

Also this week we have on loan a ginormous amount of Lego's. When the idea for using Lego's this summer first came to me I had no idea where to find them. God provided like He always does and the little kids are having more than a little fun building every afternoon. 

My favorite is when they make something awesome and then ask special permission to go show it to Miss Jenny... 

Singing while we are building. 

It was a really great Monday, I had two guest speakers. The other was (or rather were) Miss Joanna and Miss Elsie who came to teach dance class. They taught the kids a stomp, which was more than a little entertaining. 

It took some practice, but they got the hang of it in no time. 

Isn't this about how we all feel by the end of Monday? Let's just say I might be busy but I am enjoying close to every minute of it. :D 

Home Improvements

I have made a few improvements to my house in the last month. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.... 

*Pretty darn happy* 

Honeymoon

A few months ago we started talking about our honeymoon. It took a few different ideas, but finally we thought of the perfect plan. Go on a semi-unplanned road trip with the motorcycle. 

For the sake of record keeping, we took a quick pic of the odometer before we left. 

Nimrod, all packed and ready to roll.

It was an amazing trip. We did a lot of things. 

We rode on our motorcycle... 

We went to the end of the road, South Padre Island, TX...

We got a little windblown a few times... 

We rented fat bikes and rode down the beach for hours... 

We were very much in love... 

We watch the sun set over the ocean... 

We endured a 93 degrees and sunny day of riding across Texas... 

We found our namesake...

We ate amazing food.... 

We camped a lot.... 

We rode out over Lake Pontchartrain... 

We watched the sun set over New Orleans... 

We enjoyed being married.... 

We canoed in the Louisiana swamp (and saw a baby gator)...

We ate amazing BBQ in Birmingham... 

We went out on the town on music row in Nashville... 

We saw some beautiful cars.... 

We toured Mammoth Cave.... 

We camped in Mammoth Cave National Park... 

We outran some storms...

We drank a lot of chocolate milk... 

We kayaked into a cave... 

And in a storm... 

We dropped by St. Louis... 

We looked out at the world from the top of the arch...

And finally rode off into the sunset. 

We came home quite sun kissed and happy. 

12 days, 3700 miles, and 13 states later, it was a spectacular honeymoon. 

A Lake Sunset

A lake sunset is a perfect occasion for taking your little brothers out in the canoe. 

And to let your fiancé use your iPhone to take cool pictures of you while you are doing so. 

We each only get so many sunsets, catch as many as you can. 

Jason Aldean and Horses...

We had a pretty fun and full weekend. After spending Friday and Saturday on wedding prep while Josh was at work, I was more than happy to dress up and take him out for his early birthday present. Jason Aldean and Jake Owen in concert!!

Ok, maybe he took me on the motorcycle, but still. 

It was a sold out show and the place was packed! Once we found our seats, my mother's side of my genetic material came out and I was cheering and dancing and screaming with the best of them. :) 

Sunday I didn't have work so we made the trek out to visit Uncle Doug and Aunt Sherry. In addition to having cows, a barn, chickens and wide open spaces that made me feel right at home, they have horses! This would be yours truly on a horse for the first time in like 10 years. 

When I was a teenager riding horses for hours on end I used to imagine how nice it would be to go horseback riding with some guy who liked me. Yep, it is pretty much even better than I imagined. The perfect way to spend our last day off together before we get married in t-13 days! 

The Wabash Bike Ride

This post could also be entitled "The Recycle Bike Shop Epic Century" as well as quite a few other things, but I figured I would save the epic-ness for the actual post instead of just the title. A few weekends ago, the guys from the shop as well as Josh and myself set out to ride our bikes down the Wabash trail from Council Bluffs to Shenandoah. The goal was to ride the 45-50 miles out, camp and cook out, then ride back the next day. 

The Wabash is a beautiful trail and we had experience with the first 15 miles of it from the Taco Ride last summer. This being the first bikepacking trip for all of us, we were pretty stoked. 

It was also Baby Jayne's first time out of the garage since last year. We got a bit of a late start, but headed off, enjoying the weather, the scenery and our company. 

Pulled off at Minneola for a rest break. Minneola is the home of the famous Tacos for which the Taco Ride is named after. Pushing past Minneola, the trail became much less traveled. Eventually it became so sandy there were a few times we had to get off and push the bikes while leaving footprints in the sand. 

We did get a few hours of nice weather and lovely scenery. Then, about the time it got dark it also started to rain. We struggled on through the ever increasingly muddy trail and the last 12 miles took us almost 2 hours because of how horrendous the trail had become. I was never so happy to see the lights of a city as I was to see Shenandoah rise up out of the darkness about midnight. 

Rolling into a very asleep town at midnight thirty, soaked to the bone with no idea where the campground is always makes for good times. We found this shelter (which turned out to be where we were supposed to camp anyway, we just didn't know it) and moved the picnic tables to set up our tents. Of course there was no grilling out during a downpour, so we did our best with cooking over our little camp stoves until we all ran out of fuel. With the food we had managed to cook settling in our bellies, we crawled into wet sleeping bags and conked out. 

Josh and I had to leave earlier than the rest of the group the next day because I had to be at work by 3. After our experience with the trail and the rain the night before we decided to take the highway back. We got directions and a very hazy map from a gentleman in Shenandoah and gave it our best shot. The awesome thing about the highway was that it was paved, so we could make much better time and not sink in like on the trail. The tough thing was the hills. Baby Jayne (like a typical tandem) really grinds her way up hills and we used our granny gear more than once. The rolling hills and the fog made us think of what it would be like to bikepack in Ireland or Scotland. 

We met up with the trail again at Silver City and did the last 15 miles back the way we had come. Sure was nice to be on flat again and once we got within 5 miles we could almost smell home and put the pedals down. Literally. My phone was pretty fogged up from all the moisture it had been through on the trip, hence the fuzzy pictures. We counted it up and between riding out and back and a few little side tours, we went 100 miles. My legs were pretty sore, but it was a blast. I knew I had lost my mind when, while struggling up a hill, I heard my own voice saying, "You know, we should bikepack through Ireland sometime...." Many thanks to Mike Turman from Recycle Bike Shop for taking the awesome pictures (the not blurry ones)!