Balzer Cousins Reunion

I was so blessed to have cousins to play with in my same home town. Most of my memories growing up involved my cousins in some shape or form. Needless to say I adore my cousins. The sad thing is that since we have lived far apart as adults, we don't get together as often as we would like. It's been 5 years since Joni, Jeremy and I have actually got to hang out and that was at my wedding. This weekend, though, we got to go up to the mountains together. We had a blast. For some reason, Joni has a memory like an elephant and brought up so many memories that had all of us in stitches. We just had so much fun hiking, sitting by the fire and swimming. Paul got such a kick out of our hilarious cousins, too. We are really hoping Joni and Lance will join us in Denver. (hint hint)

Whew, it's done...well almost

Here is the before and after pictures.

History Books

So Lance is the first class of United pilots trained after September 11, 2001. It's like a historical event. One of the traditions of pilot training classes is that whoever gets the last seniority spot (decided by social security numbers) has to keep the "8 bowling ball" by his side at all times and its heavy! Because Lance's social security number starts with a 9, he is the proud carrier of the 8 ball. He walks around with that at all times when studying, training and hanging out with the fellow flight students. He hands it off to the next class mid October. But we think he will make history books for the first 8 ball holder since 9-11.

Happy Birthday Paul

We have had an insane week/weekend. On Saturday we went up to help our friend/contractor put in the floors at the condo....it was not going really well. Needless to say, we stayed up there until right before Marika's shower and then went up again Monday after work. So, normally on birthdays at the Houge household, we celebrate all week (I think we copied that idea from Jewish wedding traditions). Anyways, Paul only got one night of celebration because of our projects. But we had fun Tuesday night. Rafael and Lance celebrated with us. I made salsa, paul's fav hot dish and thai custard with coconut ice cream. It was eclectic in taste:) Rafael thought my birthday was a couple of days ago, too, so he brought me a gift, too. A good time was had by all.

Marika's Shower

Sunday was such a fun day....my EMU friends and I threw a shower for Marika. She is such a cute bride-to-be and very much in love. Her fiance's, Nathan, family came to the shower including his sister from Kansas. We had a tea party and played fun bridal games and enjoyed being girlie. Marika received some great "honeymoon" gifts! I cannot wait for Marika's wedding, too (it's on my birthday)!

Did I mention Paul is a stud?

Ok, so Saturday morning Paul gets up and runs a 10k race to raise money for an Air Force charity. He came back home with a 1st place trophy! Go Paul, you are a stud!

Cousins

Life has been crazy the last week and I am catching up on my online scrapbook. We have been enjoying Lance's stay. He has so many stories of life as a pilot, sometimes I am scared to fly when I hear about other pilots. No, he has assured us that it is safe. Friday night we went to a park and ate dinner with Lance, Jeremy & Kim and their newly adopted son, Aran. Pictured is Aran plowing our rug. We had a blast hanging out and cannot wait for my cousin, Joni, to join us for a weekend.