The Bohlens: July 2010

Farmers' Market Bounty

Every Thursday there's a farmers' market downtown right near my office. I often stroll but rarely buy. Last week, some multi-colored carrots caught my eye and I got on a roll. Carrots, yellow peppers, red peppers, cherries, zucchini!

The zucchini has since been made into muffins, the carrots eaten with hummus and the peppers sauteed with onions and potatoes for dinner. The cherries never even made it home!

The strange thing was that the purple carrots are orange once you peel them.

The Van Cleaves Visit

Ryan's sister Stephanie and her family visited a couple weeks ago. We had a gorgeous HOT weekend!

A few garage sales, a trip to the Arboretum, some ice cream by the lake, church, lunch out, and some good naps!

Bubbles!

Sticky!

Cool baby.

Ice cream - mmmm, blue!

Amazing sculpture/building at the Arboretum

Uncle Ryan

Brenna and Daddy

Splashing in the fountain - watching the tadpoles.

Brenna and Daddy take II

Gorgeous flowers - these pictures are for you, Val!

Roses

A backyard visitor.

Ready....

JUMP!!!

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Still For Sale!

For anyone looking for baby gifts, I'm still selling burp cloths. Lots of fun new fabrics!

I've had a recent influx of orders for burp cloths - 14 sets in the last 6 weeks!

Landscaping

Our landscaping is finally done! With all the rain we had, it took longer than expected. We're really happy with the end result!

Do you remember my potted flowers?

They've filled in! BEAUTIFUL!

Before.

After.

After.

Hydrangea, hostas, day lilies. HAPPY!
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Before and After - Nightstand

An ugly, worn nightstand has gotten a new life - inspired by some of the blogs I read. It took me almost an hour to choose a paint color. I was going to replace the hardware but ended up liking the original pulls with the new color.

Before.

During.

After.

A picture of it placed in the guest room coming eventually. I'm in the midst of repainting the lamp for that room and will take a photo of the final set up.

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Eerie Sky

We had a storm a few weeks back and the sky turned that eerie yellow-green of MN summer storms. I couldn't resist a few pictures.

Old Friends

The second weekend in July I headed south to see my friend Marshall. He is one of my closest friends from college - we spent many an hour at Cocost (best Chinese ever!), drawing on napkins, doing crossword puzzles, watching Love Actually, spending Sunday evenings at Panera, and IM-ing endlessly. He's great! His wife Sarah is great (you may remember them from here - we got engaged the morning of their wedding)! And his daughter Norah is fabulous!

I hadn't seen Marshall since our wedding. And had never met Norah. They were in Ames for a wedding so I headed down. In typical Marshall-Dana style, we ran errands, grabbed lunch and spent the remainder of the afternoon talking like old times. There's nothing like great conversation with an old friend that flows like no time has passed. Despite making the 3+ hour drive both ways in one day, it was a wonderful day! The only thing better would have been having Sarah there too!

Here's Norah - what a doll!

ZBB - DMB - BBQ

We spent the 4th of July in Madison - a long weekend with my sister, Kelly!

Six of us went to the Dave Matthews concert at Alpine Valley. To tell the truth, I only went for the opening act - Zac Brown Band - my fav! ZBB did not disappoint - a fabulous show! For all the Dave I've heard since meeting Ryan, I was shocked to not know a single song he played. A little disappointing but still a gorgeous night and great people watching.

We tailgated, ate Ryan's birthday cake out of cups (a slight plate shortage!), played bean bags, grilled some tasty Costco dogs and thoroughly enjoyed the HOT July weather!

The following night we had a BBQ at Kel's house. Some of her friends came as well as our friends Nate and Sara with their son Jonah. And Ryan's cousin Rachael, her husband Ben and their three girls. The best part was that we spent all afternoon in Kel's GARAGE! Her grill is down there (condo rules) and it was the best place for that size crowd. We felt a bit silly but had a great time!

Driving to Alpine.

CRAZY amount of people packed on the hillside for the show

Dave

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Birthday Ball Game

For Ryan's birthday we bought tickets to a Twins game. Ry bought them from some work friends who have season tickets so we got to sit near the other couples. Great seats! Great food - dollar dog night for Ryan, I got tacos. Not so good ball game.

A great first experience at Target field for me and Ryan's third game.

Beautiful night!