Shakopee Jack-o-Lantern 5K

Beth and I decided to do a 5K this year (actually Kari talked Beth into it therefore I'm doing it). It was a fun experience, I've never ran more than a mile in my life so it was cool to run 3.2 miles and we are actually getting kind good at it. We ran it in 32 minutes so not the worst time in the world but not to shabby for our first time. Here is Beth and I in action:

Kari dressed up like a Bee....... oh yea it was a Halloween run.

Happy Halloween!!!!!

Beth this year did some pumpkin carving.

City Slickers Camp'n

Beth and I decided to head up to Bayfield WI on Lake Superior and do some camping this past weekend. We had a blast. We got up there Friday around 6pm and it started to rain and then rained and then rained some more, it basically rained thru Saturday night then finally stopped just in time for a great campfire night and a wonderful Sunday. We took in the sights of Lake Superior and what Bayfield had to offer on Saturday, then on Sunday we did an amazing sea kayak trip thru the sea caves on Lake Superior........it was awesome. Here are the pictures:

Our campsite

We had to go buy a tarp so we could make lunch and dinner

Good Cook'n!

Yup, this is the temp we got to wake up to........

Hey when it's cold you gotta do something to keep you warm!

Me and Greaser

View from the top of Bayfield looking at Lake Superior

Gett'n ready to hit the Lake

Beaches on the Lake, other than the water not being salt water, it would be hard to tell if you were on the ocean or not

Ready to slide the Kayaks in

Sea Caves!

Beth and I coming out of a tunnel

Yup that's us going into the crack

Classic self portrait

Our future sail boat

Video of us getting ready to ship out

Lake Superior from Justin Barth on Vimeo.

Friday night storms

I swear I'm not a wuss when it comes to storms with lightning and thunder but Friday nights storm made me think again. We got hit hard, the thunder was so loud it was shaking our waters on our night stands.......well maybe a slight over statement but it was a wild storm for sure. It rained so hard after the explosions that it took down my neighbor's retaining wall:





We also decided to spend the whole weekend painting. We painted our master bedroom, master bathroom, and one spare bedroom......all that is left now is spare bathroom and spare bedroom

Take me out to the ball game...........

way to good not to post up..........

Josh, Robin, Jacob, and Jade's visit

We had a great time with Josh and Robin and the kids. They came up last Thursday night and stayed until Sunday. We did tons of stuff while they were here so it was a very good time, here is the recap:

Jacob and Jade watching Madagascar 2 shhhhhh

Nap......"Check" Cute Puppy Snuggling me....."Check" Blue Popsicle before nap........."Check"

Gett'n ready for the horse races!!!!

It's all good times at the horse track

Here comes pride in the back stretch, heart ache go'n to the inside

Jade love'n it up with Beth

The aftermath of a TWO HANDED KNUCKLES!!!!

So we bet every race that we were there, here is an action shot of Robin winning on her $2 bet. I won the next race on a $2 bet........needless to say we are thinking of retiring at a young age.

Outside the home of the Twins A.K.A. Metrodome

Well, we were not behind home plate but had a good view of the stadium

Smile!!!

Me and Jacob preparing my Special Pancakes

4th of July

We had a great time over the 4th of July. My parents came down to Hutchinson and stayed at Beth's parents lake cabin for the weekend. We watched fireworks on the lake, went to a winery, and lounged around quite a bit. Here are the pics

Gett'n the 4th started right

Yep the rumors are true, we did find a winery in Minnesota

We had to make sure they had good wine so we tasted it all

Beth's Grandpa brought down a king Salmon from Alaska for us to eat

Happy 4th

Still trying to figure out if that's fear in her eyes.....

My parents

My Dad doing some serious grill'n

Angie and J.R.'s wedding pics

We flew out to California this past weekend to marry off Angie and J.R. at a winery in Temecula, California. Lot's of wine and good spirits, the wedding was beautiful and we all had a good time, here are some pictures:

Sod is done!

This weekend we laid down our sod. It went from dirt to "insta yard" Looks super nice, Dahl, Jade, and Wyatt helped Beth and I and bailed us out for sure. They kicked ass for the 5 hours it took us to lay the stuff. It's just dirty hard labor to get that stuff in.

Here is all of our sod ready to go

They were able to get the pallets in the back yard which was a huge help

Yea, that sucks

there she is......finished project

Move over Wrigley field, there's a new baseball diamond in town

Call me Green Thumb

Yesterday we decided to get some yard work done. We planted a Red Maple Tree in the front yard, lilac bushes on the side of the yard and a poinsettia in back. Here are the fantastic pictures:

We don't have a truck and had to get the tree home somehow and we only live blocks away from Home Depot so we threw it in the trunk and I held onto it from the back seat...funny

Gracie is always a part of the action helping me out

Gett'n the tree in

There she is all done

Plants

Here are the plants we planted:

The purdy poinsettia

Tree in the back yard with the poinsettia

Our Lilac bushes

Lilac bush

Ethiopian Night

So Beth and I wanted to try some really authentic food that we knew next to nothing about. So we decided to find an Ethiopian place and try that, cause why the hell not. Well it was interesting to say the least. We had no idea what to order so we ordered a sampler appetizer and a meal for two that had samples of 7 dishes. So what's interesting is the Ethiopians don't use silverware, they eat with "bread" and dip it in the dish. I put quotes around bread because it was more like a porus pancake than bread. Needless to say some dishes were tasty the others were more like "umm, that's a new taste". But is was fun indeed to try something totally out of the box.

The place was called the Blue Nile

Beth having some type of Ethiopian beer

Our Appetizer, the white stuff was like a cottage cheese bread pudding, the green stuff was just a salad with a realy good dressing, there was some fried egg roll things and some sauce that was all spices.

The main dish for two. On this dish there were 9 different dishes they serve, half were meat the ohter half were vegeterian. It was served on a big porus pancake with a couple of sauces (I have no frick'n idea what type of sauces) and one chicken wing. The two baskets at the top are the "bread" you used to dip and eat the sauce.

Here is Beth taking the first bite!!

yea.......not so sure about this

More home stuff

We are always doing something to the house, it's like a blank slate, all the walls are white and it's just begging to be worked on. Anyways, in the past two weeks, we have added 4 more in-ceiling speakers, 3 pendant lights and blinds. All have gone off without a hitch, I'm pretty excited that I have not messed up anything yet...... Here are the pictures

Our blinds, we didn't put them up thankfully some dude from Lowes did, it was unreal, he did the whole house in an hour and twenty...... not to shabby

Not fun cutting 9 inch holes in your ceiling.

It is fun to stick your head in the ceiling

Finished project

Our pendant lights

Gracie wishing she was outside

I'm kinda late putting up these pictures but Matt, Kari, Beth and I went up to Duluth the other weekend to hit up some snowboarding (Beth and I) and skiing (Matt and Kari). We rode Spirit Mountain Mountain Mountain, no that's not a typo it just had an echo to show how large the Mountain was...... it was a fun weekend and good to get back up on the board. I do miss the mountains sometimes......

Matt and Beth

Beth and I at the summit

Kari and Mat getting "psyched"


hang'n out on the chair lift

Matt getting ready to get sick

Home Improvements

I'm doing all sorts of stuff to our house now that we are settled. We got our house wired for in-ceiling speakers, 4 in the living room and 2 in the kitchen. I found a place online that has a really good price for speakers and thought I would buy 2 of them and test them out. After testing I love them and I'm getting 4 more. It's weird cutting a 10 inch hole in your brand new ceiling.... but fun.

This is the rough in Centex gave us. (before I started)

Cutting the 10" hole in the ceiling..... kinda stressful

the complete hole

Finished product

Both speakers in.... not to shabby!!

Next I'm doing the other 2 in the living room and the 2 in the kitchen. good times

Work'n

We put up a ceiling fan last night. I managed to get it up with no issues, I didn't burn, short and ruin anything at all. I did have to call Josh (brother-in-law electrician) to make sure I was connecting the right stuff....

Finished product........ P H A T

Hawaii Slide show

Here is a little show thingy I just slapped together, I'm going to make a better one with music and stuff but I thought I would get this up first.......more to come.

Hawaii.......

We have over 3,000 pictures so it's hard to pick out ones for the blog here are a couple of them. I think I'm going to do a slide show or something and post that instead so everyone can see all the highlights, but in a nut shell this is what we did:

We were in Hawaii for 2 weeks, with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, and Beth's parents. We all get along so it was a blast. We first flew into Honolulu and stayed there for 3 nights. Activities we did included: Pearl Harbor, toured the U.S.S. Missouri, cage shark dived with sharks, north shore and Waikiki Beach.

Pearl Harbor was great to see all the history that was there and how many lives were lost.

U.S.S. Missouri was a huge battleship that is inactive but was very neat to see.

Cage Shark Dive was a blast, we saw mainly Galapagos sharks and Sand sharks. We had to get up at like 5am to make it there, we were the first boat out there, it's 3 miles off the North shore of Oahu. They then chum the water and then you get into the cage (I've got some bad ass underwater pictures that are being developed right now)

Waikiki Beach was alright, it's mobbed with people so I don't consider it a beach.

Then we flew into Maui for a week and that's where we meet Robin and Josh and we all rented a house for the week. We did tons of stuff in Maui like snorkeling and the road to Hana. It's whale season so we saw tons of those guys in the water. What was weird was when you were snorkeling you could hear them in the water.... very cool.

Then we flew over to the big island for 3 nights as well. We did a plane ride around the whole island and saw the volcano national park and free flowing lava into the ocean. We also tried to see Manta Rays in the ocean but got skunked, they never showed up. Beth and I did it again and saw 5 of them..... that was unreal, I'm going to post just on that next when we get the video in the mail. Then home.

This is the bay in Maui that we loved for snorkeling, we saw so many things

A turtle we saw on the shore

Beth and her Dad

Me and my beautiful wife

My parents on the "Road to Hana"

We did a flight around the whole big island of Hawaii
Getting ready for take off

Yep that's right, snow capped mountains in Hawaii

The plane

Lava going into the ocean

Waterfalls

More Hawaii pics

Man do we have pictures, they are so many here a a couple of the good ones I think...



Diamond Head, Waikiki Beach

all of us out to eat for Sue's birthday!

The Ladies in the "Jungle"

We found this awesome bay to snorkel in, we saw almost every Hawaiian reef fish and also some eels, and octopus

Beth, Robin, and Josh in the jeep

More pics to come

We are in Hawaii!!

So Hawaii is a blast so far, right now we are in Maui but we spent 3 days in Oahu, Honolulu. I'm on vacation so I don't want to type but we have taken some bad ass pictures, here they are:

Us right by Hanuma Bay

Hanuma Bay

U.S.S Arizona (Pearl Harbor)

List of all the people that died on the Arizona

U.S.S Missouri

Our caged shark dive

Sharks!!

The guide hand feeding them..... very cool

All of us in the cage

Beth and I in the cage

Hawaii!!!

Finally it's here, we are headed to Hawaii for 2 full weeks tomorrow. I'm super pumped. We fly into Honolulu and stay for 3 days, then off to Maui for a week, then off to the big island for 3 more days, then home on the 18th. I'm proud of my parents, they have been working on snorkeling for the past month and they are getting good at it. It will be a blast to see them in the ocean checking out stuff. I even convinced them to do a caged shark dive! Here:

I hear the sharks are attracted to poop, so if we get to scared we are totally screwed.

Angie and JR's engagement party

So last weekend we drove down to KC to have a surprise engagement party for Angie and JR. JR knew about it but Angie did not. We showed up late Friday night on their door step. Saturday morning Beth and I went to get groceries for the party, keep in mind Angie didn't know that there were around 30 people coming over later that night, she just thought it was us celebrating their engagement. We came back from the grocery store with bags and bags of groceries. Still Angie didn't put it together, she just thought we were getting way to much food for just the 6 of us. Then we started cooking at noon and didn't stop until 4pm for a break, still she missed me cutting up a whole bag of carrots, a huge head of broccoli, and 3 pounds of bacon. Not to mention JR and Jim preparing a huge pan of bacon wrapped water chestnuts or Beth making nearly 90 mini sandwiches . I gotta tell ya it was funny to be getting ready for the party, making a ton of food and Sue putting up lots of nice decorations and Angie not catching on at all. Anyways she finally figured it out when JR's parents showed up at the door, cause they are from AZ and then she knew something was up. Pretty funnny.. Here are the pics:

Nope not a clue yet...

People showing up and Beth's wondering when she will put it together!

Ah ha, she puts it together!

Beth and Jenny cooking away

Angie and JR

Christmas

Well we had a good Christmas, we had a house full though. My parents came over, so did my sister and brother-in-law and their 2 kids and dog. Then on Christmas day Beth's parents came over, her sister and finace as well. Here is a recap of everything:

I had the most amazing time with Jacob playing "drawing"

Gracie giving Jade a kiss

We had a couple presents to open

Jade just similing away like always

I didn't want to get in the way but wanted in the picture

Our yearly Alaskan King Crab feed, 10 pounds of amazing crab meat

Jacob got a John Deere Tractor

Sue got her Clay Cyote wall hanging that she's wanted since June

My dad being fancy making a crab dip

Video

I for some reason can't get the video linked into the other post so here it is

Here is Jacob riding it for the first time:


Untitled from Justin Barth on Vimeo.

Now this is after about 5 times "down stairs" he's a natural, I think I saw him later in the day do a 3 point turn.

Funny story: I was downstairs with Jacob and as you can see in the videos he is hauling stuff from one end of our basement to the other. I asked him to move the plates in the corner to the other side of the basement, Jacob replied "I can't, those plates are for Jesus" I started laughing and said ok that works just move the blue ball.

Here I find out later that Beth had him move all that stuff to the corner so he had something to haul with his new John Deere, Jacob of course had to have a reason why he was hauling stuff and Beth came up with because it's "Jesus's Birthday" funny....


Untitled from Justin Barth on Vimeo.

Robin got a Wii for chirstmass and here's Jim and Josh boxing.


Untitled from Justin Barth on Vimeo.

Working from home

Well along with buying a house comes with stuff you have to do, people to meet and so on and so forth. I'm working from home today because I had to meet up with a plumer and our project manager guy for our house. The plumer is switching our sink around, they have the hot and cold mixed up. Here is my set up, the dogs are always helpful.