Rapid Renovations

If you know the Espes you know that there are generally quite a few projects going on at our house (make that my parent's house-Sheldon and Val). :) Recently though, they have been very busy and accomplishing a lot of projects in a short amount of time. I was so impressed when I came home. Good work Mom and Dad. A couple friends asked to see pictures of the new upstairs built in bed unit, so here they are. The first two pictures are just of the living room at Christmas. I thought it looked very "homy" so I decided to share them, too.

This is what you see when you first arrive at the landing coming up from the stairs.
The bed! Mom put her pew/bench thing next to it with a little coffee table in front of that for another sort of sitting room area.
On the far right you can see the storage/closet area that is attached to the bed part. Very cool work done by our family friend, Bob.

Merry Christmas To One and All

Because of a nice big snow storm our family was able to all be together an additional 24 hours! As noted before, we haven't been doing a whole lot but it's been really relaxing and enjoyable. Our daily activities consist of: reading, visiting, eating, and occasionally games, walks, and movies. :)
Dad thoroughly enjoys his fruit cake. Check it out. It is THE most dense bread/cake I've ever seen. And, it tastes disgusting, in my opinion.
Updating my blog for you, Amber! :) Ok, not just for Amber.
Our Christmas dinner table that mom worked so hard on. She really loves making everything look nice.
Our new family picture. Story even woke from her nap to join us. (She had gotten a lot of exercise and was very tired!)

Starting A Tradition

We decided that this year we would start making lefse. Mom made the dough, Dad, Aaron, and I rolled out dough and cooked it on the grill, Heidi floured the kneading board, and Erica enjoyed eating it later (Ingrid did the same after she came home a couple days later). :) It started out a little rocky but by the end we had thoughts of starting our own buisiness...at least Aaron did.

Girls' Weekend

In mid November three of my good girl friends and I got together at Rebekah's family's cabin in Bemidji. We all worked together at Bluewater the summer of 2007 and have remained good friends since then. We had so much fun just catching up and laughing a LOT! :) Pam recently came back from her YWAM (Youth With a Mission) around the world trip and so we were so excited to hear about all of her adventures and lessons learned throughout the trip.
We tried being "creative" with these jumping pictures and laughed very hard throughout the process of taking them. (Leah, Pam, me, Rebekah)



We thought this twisting tree was so interesting. Crazy how it just wrapped around itself. It was so beautiful by the lake, and being it was autumn the changing leaf color added even more beauty.

A Visit Home

The week before Thanksgiving Tom and I made a visit to see my parents. We pretty much just hung out, as well as visited with our friend, Alex who is new to the Roseau area. My dad really enjoys taking pictures with his tripod, especially in front of vehicles, thus the two pictures shown here.

Roommates

I have been blessed, throughout my college career, with great roommates. This year I live with Lisa (just below me in the door picture), Ashley (below Lisa), and Jill (the bottom). We have quite a bit of fun together and hang out a lot. All three girls are music education majors at NDSU, so I'm the odd ball as an early childhood education major at MSUM. They still let me live with them. :)

Red River Run

On Halloween morn Leah and I ran the Red River Run 15k (9.3 miles). We were very nerdy and dressed up as Robin and Minnie Mouse. :) We had a great time, though, and were thankful for nice friends and fans for coming out and supporting us....those two people include Tom and my roommate Lisa. :)
It was a perfect day and a very beautiful run through Lindenwood Park.