STAPE SCOOP

Just a little randomness before I get to the important stuff.

I am in Nebraska with Cole and Sage for the fourth of July weekend.

Art will arrive tomorrow, Jon has to work, as does Joe. We will not be seeing Joe, Steph, or Toby.
I'm sad, hard to believe that it is July already.

Where did time go?...oh yes, in Vanuatu....

This last weekend we had a wedding shower for Jeff's fiancee Ronda.

We threw it at Joannes house and it was fun. It was mostly family, and we missed

having Dianne, Des, and Heather. If you had been there, then it would have been family.

I thought I would post some pics for those who have never seen Ronda.

She is a beauty.

We served a sit down luncheon in Joanne's basement.

I asked Ronda to write something about herself and her relationship with Jeff. I thought it might be a good way for you to meet her before she joins the family.

A Little About Ronda.....

Where do I begin, a few fun facts about me. I love taking pictures and scrap booking! I enjoy going shopping like most typical girls, and my favorite color is pink! I am the same age as Jeff and our birthdays are only about two weeks apart. I am an animal lover at heart and adore my kitty Hayley. I have a little sister who is 18 named Renae, and she will be my Maid of Honor at the wedding! I have spent most of my life in the Green Mountain area where I met Jeff, but that's enough about me, on to the story of how Jeff and I met.

I met Jeff when we where in seventh grade together, unknowing that someday I would be his wife. When I first met Jeff he was an extremely shy guy who hardly talked to any girls, he was just too focused on school and basketball. But with my outgoing personality I was able to persevere and get him to open up.

We started off just talking in the one elective class we had together, and by eight grade we were on the same team and enjoyed talking in English class. Later that year we had to do a group project, and immediately I wanted Jeff to be my partner, so I asked. We ended up doing this apple head doll project, which I knew was not really Jeff's idea of a good time....dolls and boys...enough said. While I on the other hand, having some of my Mom's artistic flare in me was overjoyed at the prospect of creating my own doll! So we carved small faces into our apples and left them to dry, in the mean time my mom and I chose some material and diorama materials. When Jeff brought his head over for us to make our dolls his was small and shriveled and mine was a lot larger and more normal looking; that was fodder for an ongoing joke between us about how the size of the apple heads was retrospective to our maturity. We completed the project with flying colors and aced the project :)

As time went on we started playing basketball in front of my house and by the time freshman year rolled around we were great friends! I was so excited for High School because that meant dances, and new classes, and so much more. I asked Jeff to the only dance he ever went to in High School which was freshman year, Sadie Hawkins. That night when he showed up he was so shy and cute; he had the bowl cut, and a nice dark blue shirt on. As we took pictures he began to get nervous, especially since this was his first big date. At this time I was almost a whole head taller than him, and he was just so adorable. We went together ,a big group of us to Marie Callendar's for dinner and the off to the dance. He was just so shy and reserved that he only danced one slow song with me....but that didn't stop us from still having fun.

As the remaining years passed in high school we became closer and closer friends, we also began to have more and more of the same classes together as our interests blended. I have few fond memories of us in BiologyII, like the one day we had to bring in urine and examine it to see what it felt like to be in the medical field and the whole time Jeff kept complaining that it smelled bad, and all I could do was laugh! We also had fun memorizing Biocritters and doing cat dissection. We have shared a lot of fond memories over the years, but little did we know that senior year we would finish off with one of our most fond memories to this day. This memory was our senior trip to Europe, we had both done our independent traveling but this was our first three week trip together!

We traveled from Spain to France to Italy to Greece, and in each country we would both share a memorable event that we will still laugh about to this day. One brief one that I will share is when we were in Italy Jeff got approached by an Italian man who said, "I love American women!" We still laugh about this because I was just walking around in my short shorts and was excited and proud to be there. I didn't care what anyone thought. Another time was when our cruise ship stopped in Turkey and we were going through the bazaars I was just so confident and didn't look at anyone just where we were going and Jeff was trotting along behind me just laughing at me buying this leather coat. We both have our own unique and special memories from that trip which we will think back on fondly.

After this time we both went our own directions or college he went to Mesa State for a little bit, while I stayed here at home and went to CU-Denver, where we would meet up again. This time it was our Core Composition II class which...how funny is this....It was in English class as well. We stayed friends through this time and when I went to Las Vegas for my little sisters cheerleading competition we again met up. We did all kinds of fun things and had a blast together. As time went on we remained friends and companions and eventually had the opportunity to start dating. As the months passed by we have done many events:

The Melting Pot, Hanging Lake, Glenwood Springs, Cancun, and so much More!

It seems to me that perhaps destiny played a small role in our lives, because how often do two people's paths continually cross without a little divine intervention? The love between Jeff and I has ebbed and swayed like the waves of the ocean, but we know that every time we have a fight that the tide will eventually come back in and our love will hold steadfast to whatever comes our way. I look forward to marrying Jeff in July, and to becoming part of a new family, and hopefully to having one of our own someday.

Thank you Ronda. I enjoyed this I had no idea that their relationship went back so far.

I'd post more but ...

The boys are shooting of pop bottle rockets, I need to go supervise, we all know how that can go. Would you not think that a 14 year old should know how to properly light a firework or that a 9 year old would know better than to attach a grasshopper to a fire cracker.