Hey Everyone!
Here are the pictures from Grandma and Grandpa's 60th Anniversary party. If you want prints, let me know which picture you want and what size you would like and I can get them made for you. Either give me a call, talk to me in person, or email me.

As I sit here on my computer at 8:57 in the morning, I am thankful to be an American because I get the day off of work. There are other reasons why I am thankful, like the whole freedom of religion and speech and such, but being able to write on here and know that I am getting paid while I do it is truly a benefit of being an American. My 4th will be pretty tame. I am doing laundry right now and I may take the day to pick up my house a little bit. I'm sure that I'll catch some sort of fireworks tonight, but I'm not sure where yet. I haven't done too much in the past month. I did participate in the Bateman Invitational, but I think I will stick to playing golf only once or twice a year. I wasn't very good. I guess the golf genes weren't hereditary from Grandpa Klopp. I took one weekend in June to visit some friends in Duluth and take pictures at a wedding in Two Harbors. Last weekend I went up to my parent's cabin to do some 4-wheeling and fishing. I've been hanging out with my girlfriend quite a bit, which is nice because I hardly get to see her when she is at school. We went to the Como Zoo the other day. By the way, the zoo was much cooler when we were little, but it was still fun to visit. We went fishing yesterday but didn't catch much, as usual. I've been playing church league softball on Monday nights. We are 3-2 for the season so far, which isn't too bad. It gives me a little exercise which is always welcome. Other than that, I've just been working, playing with my dog, Rhoda, and living the American Dream!

I work with this guy named Corey Bateman. He lives on a golf course. Well, not exactly ON the golf course, but the 11th green is just beyond his backyard. Anyways, last year he hosted a golf event and BBQ at his house as a precursor to the company golf outing. I was unable to attend for some reason. I'm thinking that maybe I wasn't invited..?... Somehow at work the topic came up to do this again and the name "the Bateman Invitation" was created. This year will be the 2nd annual event. I gladly made invitations to this gala, adorned with a score-card and course map on the back. So, come June 16th I will be displaying my expertise on the course. Actually, I am terrible at golf. I have only played about 5 times in my life. Tonight I went to the driving range with another guy from work and realized just how terrible I am. Yeah, I had a few good hits here and there, but most of the time I either sliced it bad to the right, barely hit the top of the ball so it would roll about ten yards, or whiffed it completely (which in my book is just a practice swing). I get frustrated with being so bad that it just compounds the problem exponentially. I think my options are to: A) slow down and take my time, B) play the game a bit more to develop my natural talent, C) buy better clubs to replace the hodge-podge set I have that seems too short for me (or so I'll say), or D) quit the game all together. I think (A) might be my best bet. For the two times a year that I actually will play, it makes no sense for me to go out and spend buko bucks on new clubs, or the cost to go play all the time. Well, at least I have the BBQ to look forward to!

We are participating in the Start! walking program at work, which is sponsored by the American Heart Association. It basically involves wearing a pedometer for a few months and keeping track of how far we walk. The incentive, other than being physically active, is that your name is entered in a monthly drawing for every 50 miles you walk. Some of the prizes include a company blanket or jacket, some sports tickets, or the one thing that everyone is shooting for: two free vacation days. I have been putting on about three miles per day on average. I think I heard somewhere that the average person should put on five miles per day. I have no idea if that is correct or not, but if it is, I need to pick up the pace and get away from my desk for a while. One of the main reasons why I joined the Start! program was to get out and take my dog for walks in the evening, such as tonight's outing. We walk to the intersection down the road and back. It's about a 1.6-1.7 mile walk. One goal is to have the dog adapt to walking on a leash rather than roaming free like she usually does in my yard. I walk on the left side of the road and she usually walks on the shoulder in the grass with her head buried down all the time taking in all the smells. Tonight I stopped to talk to one of my neighbors and I noticed that Rhoda had some ticks on her face, just two or three. But I started looking around her ears and I picked off about five or six more. I saw that her legs had a few more on them as well. We continued our walk down to the end of the road and back to the house, where I cornered her and trapped her in the bathroom where I could give a more thorough inspection for ticks. All in all, I pulled over 40 ticks off of her, most on her legs and around her ears. I have her on some flea and tick medication so I am not too concerned about the ticks and getting Lyme Disease, but still.... that's a lot of things to be crawling on you at one time. Now I have that gross feeling that they are all over me. I hate that. Well, so far today I have 4.30 miles on. How far do you go in a day???

I have a valid reason for not updating this in a really long time: my basement has consumed nearly every free moment of time that I've had in the past two months. A typical day for me was getting up at 6:00 to the soothing "feed me" whines and whimpers coming from the dog kennel, then I would find a simple task to do in the basement (such as painting or hanging a pre-hung door), then a quick shower and off to work by 8:00. When I came home from work, the routine was similar; take care of the dog, fix some sort of meal for dinner (usually pasta or frozen pizza, anything simple) and then work on the basement until 10pm, 11pm, or later. I put forth all these efforts in a bold attempt to complete the transformation by Easter, which also happened to be my birthday as well as my grandpa's birthday. I thought that it would be kind of nice to celebrate these occasions with my family in my new basement, also considering that I bought the house from my grandpa. I had a time line created, but it had one flaw. After I scheduled time for everything that needed to be completed, the deadline ended up two weeks after Easter. By the time the Easter/Birthday/Extravaganza arrived, I had the basement about 98% complete, including the laminate floor that I installed the day before. The only thing that I have left is the final trim and another coat of paint on everything. When that is complete, I PROMISE that I will put before and after pictures on here. I even surprised myself because it does not look like the same basement anymore. Now all I have to do is start saving money so I can furnish it..... :(