Chicago Trip

Oh heavens this is going to be long!
We had an absolute blast!!! My Uncle Eric and Aunt LoLo (Laurel) Live in Chicago, in the Lincoln Park area with their twin boys Jack and Parker, so we went over to visit them. My dad flew in from Montreal where he has been for the last 3 months. We felt like royalty during our stay, they were fabulous hosts! We hit the Sears tower our first day, along with Michigan Ave. and Millenium Park (way cool place)! We had Chicago Dogs for Lunch, and the best (seriously) Chicago Pizza for dinner our first day :) The next day we headed out to their cottage on Lake Michigan. It was so beautiful and completely charming. At nights we gathered out on their porch to play cards, and just talk and hang. We had incredibly great food catered to us on the beach :) with beautiful sun sets. Since we have returned home, Becca keeps asking for Jack and Parker, the beach, airplane, and Joyce (inside joke). Thanks Aunt LoLo and Uncle Eric! We miss you guys already! Thanks to Jack & Parker for Beccas new nick name LBB (little Bo Becca :).

top of Sears TowerBec and I :)

on top of the Sears Tower with Pompa

Nathan and I in Millenium Park
Aunt LoLo & LBBHaving a pirate Bon Fire

Pompa & Ray RayMy little French girl :)

Me and Bec

LBB Playing cards :)

Ray Ray got a hold of the party Keg

My little brother Alex

Uncle Eric
J & P dug a hole for Becca to sit in because it was windy :) Such cute boys

Uncle EricMe, LBB, Aunt LoLo and my mom


Parker & Jack
Becca & Jack building a sand dinosaur
Nathan, and Becca on the beach
Ray Ray, Jack and LoLo on the hammock

Side entrance to there cottage

At the airport. What a Cutie!

Leaving Chicago :( This pic is funny to me

My Public Love Letter

Last night I was up thinking about how great life is. I have a husband who knows all of my weirdo habits, and quirks. He knows everything about me, and he completely loves me! That is an incredibly liberating feeling. Seriously! I don't have to hide a single thing about who I am, what I like, how nuts I can be! You know me so well I love it! I love it! I love it! When you stop and think about it.....isn't it great to have someone love you? And to love that someone in return? What an incredible feeling! Thank you Nathan! Thanks for Loving me, you are the best seriously! I am excited for our whole life together, I am even excited to be old and gray with you :) It took me a few years of being married to feel this way. That first year of our marriage life was turned upside down, and it was hard (really hard for me), but each year we have been married I have just come to love it all sooo much! It's true what they say...that it only gets better, that is for Sure! We both agree that we love each other more then we did the day we got married. So much more! Even if there are days when we just want to scream (and there are plenty of those days:). It is all well worth it! Thanks for everything babe! Sorry I went public with this but I just felt like sharing the love.

Menino Update!

I need more opinions. I posted one more today! I should have another duvet posted by tomorrow! I'll give you a little heads up, it's red Zebra stripe! It will be super cute!

MeninoStyle

The Game

This looked like a fun game (that I have seen everyone do:). So here I am....

1. Leave a memory that you and I had together, as a comment on my blog. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or alot. Anything you remember.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. If you leave a memory about me then I will assume that you are playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave a memory about you. If you don't want to play on your blog or if you don't have a blog I will leave my memory of you in my comments.

Shark Week

Ok this is sad that I am seriously writing a post about this, I am such a nerd! But here I go! So the other day Nathan was picking up a red box movie for us, and he asked what I wanted, I said I wanted Shark Week please!

I completely love Sharks, and absolutely HATE them! If there is a special on about them I am all over it. I don't know why I torture myself this way, because they completely freak me out!

I love how they always start these T.V specials out the same. They make it scary, build suspense! Then by the end of it they go on to tell us that sharks and humans must learn to share the water, that they are not out to harm us. We pose more threat to them. WHATEVER! Can't it be both ways? Yes maybe we are killing them off (ok yes we are). But they are dangerous to us too! Sharks and humans do not have to share the ocean, that's the dumbest thing I have ever heard. You have to have a healthy respect (mine is completely extreme) for nature, it's incredibly powerful. If you don't you will wind up being the guy (Timothy Treadwell) who lived with bears, telling us they are our friend (and was then eaten by a bear, go figure). On this Shark Week dvd they finally had one person on there with some sense in their brain. He said "sharks have perfect vision, they don't bite us by mistake thinking we are sea lions (always the excuse they give). HA! I knew it! Those pics above give me the chills!

The waterslide!

We had the Lord Family Reunion over the weekend. On the last day we had family pictures. Then after that we thought the festivities were over. I guess there were some water activities planned for that day. I came unprepared. Luckily my sister in law Summer saved the day with sunscreen! But I didn't have swim diapers so Becca decided to take her diaper off and go nude! Can't blame her the diaper was so full of water it about exploded! This is a picture of her with the diaper off, trying to give it to someone who will get rid of the thing. And the video is of Becca flying down the water slide! So funny

Menino Style

I am trying to start my own little business! Here is a link to a blog I have created with the first product on it :). I am doing a little test run I want some opinions. Have a look

http://www.meninostyle.blogspot.com/

Love Lauren

Bear Lake

We went up to Bear Lake Thursday with Nathan's mom and dad, and his sister Angie and her 5 kids. It was a lot of fun! Becca played with her cousins, and had a blast. It was so funny when she was trying to track one of her cousins down, she would yell "HEY COUSIN!". She wouldn't call them by name. Now I want to throw in a little history behind Bear Lake....Nathan's Grandma Critchfield, bought the home up there after her husband died at a young age. She would bring all 5 children up there to stay during the summer months. I have to admire her for bringing 5 kids up all by herself, all summer long. Critchfield is Nathan's mom (Leslie) side of the family. Keith (Nathan's dad) proposed to Leslie in their Bear Lake cabin. They have not changed the place one bit! It still has blue shaggy carpet, and wood panel walls. It is so fun to go up there with all of them. Nathan has been going there all his life. We Love it! That was a very short summary, but I wanted to share it. Hope all of you had a wonderful weekend! Love Lauren

Jut Say No To......

I know I have gone off on a little rant about this before, and here I am again. I also realize this a touchy subject for some (sorry, but I have to speak my mind on this topic). I just don't get it... truly I don't. We think we are so much smarter than nature. Why? Time and time again man has often times created much bigger problems for ourselves, and made things more complicated in the mean time. So why on earth would we listen to what man tells us is better for our bodies to eat? I mean come on seriously do I really need to eat 5 servings of veggies every day, and fruit! NO! I mean if we lived back in the day when there wasn't the convenience of grocery stores, we would not have such an abundance or variety of food to eat. So how would we have gotten our daily supply then?

Could someone please tell me why we are eating Fat-free, Non-Dairy sour cream, ice cream you name it (fat-free non-dairy cream....ponder on that)? I realize people have food allergies, but why do you think food allergies have shot through the roof? Because we have royally screwed our bodies up with pooh pooh food?! Doesn't it just make more sense to eat foods close to it's most natural form, the way God intended? Not having food that is so heavily processed in a lab with lots of other chemicals. Our bodies have become mans walking science project (and it shows). The more simple the food the better.

I am convinced that FAT is not the culprit for gaining weight. Our bodies have no idea what to do with these lab made foods so it stores it, and it makes us sick. Do this experiment sometime take...... Real honest to goodness whipped cream, and Cool whip place a spoonful of each in separate glasses of water in a day you will find that the cream melted into the water, the cool whip however will still be in a clump on the top. And that is what it will do inside your body...just sit there. Do I need to say more? I'm done ranting now, thanks if you actually read this :)

4th of July

Well I made my my Flag Cake (tradition). Had a huge brunch up at my moms house, then went swimming most of the day. Nathan and I attempted to play tennis, then we had dinner, and watched the fireworks from my moms balcony (best view ever)! The people who live my moms condo complex are extremely fussy over all there RULES (if you only knew)! I think they like to sit around and make up as many rules as possible to make sure no one is having fun (or making any noise for that matter). So among many of there lame rules is that children who are not potty trained cannot enter the pool (swim diapers are not allowed). So we came up with a simple solution, we took the swim diaper off Becca and set her free. I am pretty sure she peed all over there pool! So much for rules. Happy Fourth!

What goes on after bed time

It turns out that Becca has figured out how to turn lamp lights on. We would lay her down for the night, and she would stay up playing with toys destroying her room (all the while we thought she was sound asleep). We finally came up with the brilliant idea to unplug the lamp light in her room before we put her to bed (duh). She also loves to sleep in the nude (not in this video)! The other night we went in her room to find her diaper and clothes in a pile next to her bed. Such a funny girl!