Celebrations!

There have been so many things going on lately! We are happy and excited, of course, that Chris has finished his first year of law school. He worked really hard, studied some long hours, and as he would say, some days were better than others. He now has a few weeks off before starting again. Everyone says the first year of law school is the worst...it really wasn't all that bad.

Speaking of finishing school, my youngest brother, Brian, graduated this weekend down at Iowa State. It was a fun weekend, and Jenny was fortunate enough to get down there to celebrate.

Jenny, Brian, Josh & Amy.

Brian, Mom & Dad

Even the grandmas were able to make it. It was a good time, with ceremonies, dinners, helping to pack Brian up one last time, and of course, Chicken Gyros from the ever famous Ames Gyroman. So good!

One Year Down!

Chris has finished his first year of law school today! No more finals...at least for a little while! We will have a little more time to spend together and with the rest of the world for the next few weeks. Then he's back at it. I'm ready for summer...the kiddos and I are all getting restless. At least we are doing fun projects in school. But, it's time for a renewal of sorts. I hit up the Home Depot last night and got some plants and flowers. I'm excited for spring...although the temps would have me thinking its not really here yet. I'm hoping, still, to dig up some hostas and transplant them. Although I'm not looking forward to the digging and transplanting, i'm looking forward to the finished product! And, I really want to get this tree that I saw down in Ames this past weekend. It was everywhere on campus. It's called the Eastern Redbud, and man was it stunning! I'll have to get one and post as well! Sorry for the lack of pics....we'll get them on there soon!

O---klahoma

We just got back from our spring break trip to Oklahoma! Oklahoma?! Yes, quite the random place, but we had a lot of fun! We decided to drive as far straight south as we could this week and go golfing for the week. Oklahoma City was the final destination, and we golfed there, and at Enid. (We had never heard of it either). We don't have any pics of the golf, cuz we were golfing, but here are some pics of the Oklahoma City art museum. Here are some pics of the marvelous Dale Chihuly blown glass exhibit. The glass was beautiful, and to think each was hand blown is amazing. The statue above is over 3 stories, and somewhere between 1-2,000 pieces.

The pictures below are of pieces that were in the bottom of his swimming pool. They were covered by a clear flat bottom. It would feel like you were swimming in some surreal glass ocean. Very amazing.

The larger pieces in these photos are about 2 feet diameter.

On our way back home, through Kansas, this is what we ran into. We saw the smoke from a distance, and wondered if we would see the fire from close up. Here it is right next to the freeway. Apparently this is a normal occurrance as they burn the open ranges. There was a sign on the side of the road that said if there was lots of smoke, to not drive through, but park on the right side of the road....hmmm...probably wouldn't do that as there is fire right there.

We forgot to take pictures of ourselves on our trip, as we were golfing every day. So, here is Chris!
We also got to meet up with Jenny's cousins, Kimberly and Krista on the drive back. It was great to be able to catch up and chat a bit with them! Now we are back in the snow.....isn't it spring yet?

The Big 3-0

Last Saturday, Jenny turned the big 3-0! So, what else to do than celebrate by doing something fantabulously fun! We hit up the Water Park of America in the afternoon with some friends, and tried out the body boarding thing, along with some fun waterslides. Thanks to Nicole for some water park pics...hope you don't mind that we brought them over here ;)

Here's Jenny catching a wave.

Nicole and Jenny.


Here's Jenny and the guys after coming down the family water slide. It was quite the crazy waterslide, but lots of fun! It was a great day!

Later on that night, we headed back to the Popp house for some games, guitar hero and AI Kareoke Revolution. Josh rocked it out on guitar hero, while both Johns were also great at the real thing!


Here are 2 of Jenny's roomies from Concordia and their spouses. It was great to see them. We were (and still are) excitedly awaiting little baby G any day now! Jen was hoping to share her birthday!
Nicole & Greg found a very fitting knitting shirt. ha!


Jenny was also way impressed with a bag that Amy made. Isn't it fun?! Beautiful job! Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate! It made turning 30 great fun!

kittii wii

I noticed we haven't posted anything on here in quite a while...so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We had 5 Christmas celebrations...which were wonderful, but were quite busy. Funny that we didn't take a ton of pictures at Xmas time. It was nice to just enjoy time with family and friends. We really enjoyed both having some time off and getting to spend time together not studying or rehearsing scenes from a play. It has dropped into the below zero temps the past week and has been really cold! Here's a pic of Muggles playing indoors...it's quite funny to try to play with her sitting right up by the screen.

She has also developed a new love for Jenny's hair. She will attack it if it is in a pony tail or bun, and even more so when she has in braids. She will bite at them until she removes the binder.

Toyland, Toyland....

Ah, Babes in Toyland is over. Above, here we are in "Toyland" as carolers. This is why I have not posted anything in over a month! I have been busy busy busy with the play. It was fun, but took up quite a bit of time. It's weird to have a "normal" life again...although with Christmas just ahead, it is still pretty busy. It was a blast to be on stage again...our last performance was a riot, and everyone really got into their parts, which was great. I will greatly miss most of the cast and being onstage with my accountants and elves! ;)


Here I am as Chief Accountant. I love the glasses and the outfit. We had a song where we danced with clipboards, while it's weird, it totally worked.

Anyway, other than that, Christmas is coming, the cookies are getting baked, the presents are starting to show up under the tree, and Chris is done with finals! YAY!

Here is after our opening performance, lots of family and friends came to see...even a student saw the play. It was quite fun!

Tonight's plan....the 2nd Annual Popp Christmas Cookie Party!

Raking, raking, and yes, more raking.

Leaves seem to gather like mad in our yard every fall. Even after losing 2 large trees in the past year, we still have a multitude of them. We spent the better part of today raking and hauling leaves to the compost place in New Brighton. We ran out of time and must continue on later this week. We also decided to quit using leaf bags and just load up the trailer, throw a tarp on top and haul it away.

Here is our backyard leaf pile. We had a bout 3/4 this amount in the front yard. The pile is about 6-7 feet deep. Fun stuff!