Bored Already

I know I haven't posted in a while but its because I'm kind of already bored of blogging.... is that bad?

Weekend In Milwaukee!

I want to share with you some of the fun things we did last weekend in Milwaukee, WI. We went to visit our friend Matt who is finishing his last semester of college. Joe and I and Matt's girlfriend Laura drove 5.5 hours to get there but it seemed to go by pretty fast. We arrived about 11:30 on Friday night and just hung out in his studio apartment. After spending several days there I feel as though Joe and I could manage just fine in a space that size. On Saturday we planned to go snowboarding but we changed our minds and hung around all day and then went to an amazing restaurant called Thai-Namite:

On Sunday we went to the Milwaukee Art Museum. It is in a spectacular building designed by Santiago Calatrava:

We saw many amazing works by famous artists. Among them were Warhol, Lichtenstein, O'Keeffe, Close, Hanson, Donovan, Diebenkorn, Albers, and Kelly. Here are a few of the photos I snapped:

 Joe got a little carried away with the magnifying glasses in the print gallery:

After the museum the boys wanted to check out the indoor mountain bike track that they have been drooling over online since they found out it existed. It is called Ray's MBT. Laura and I went along even though we weren't going to be biking. We filmed the boys and took photos. Here are a few photos of our evening there:

Matt and Joe had a blast and they would love to go back again, Laura and I might bring bikes just in case we get brave enough to try some of the stuff out because it really did look like a lot of fun. Here is a link (Crook3d Tr33) to a video of our time there. Matt edited all the clips together that Laura and I filmed.

We left for home about noon on Monday and arrive by 5:30. We spend the evening watching a movie and relaxing before the work week started on Tuesday. We had a great time the entire weekend and we would like to go back. Thanks for being interested in Happenings in the Life of Joe and Haley Barrett!

♥ Haley

Live Simply

Here are the photos of our living room in its current state. We tend to rearrange a lot so it's possible that this look might not last long. We don't have a separate dining room or room in the kitchen for our table and chairs so that's why they are kind of crammed in against the wall. As I have maybe mentioned before I don't like a lot of "stuff" so I like to think that we live rather simply. To much stuff is distracting and can hinder you from living life. Below is the link to the message from Sunday mornings service at Renovation Church. It really hit home for me and maybe it will for you too. It's semi related to this post about "stuff" so I want to share it with you.

 

Sharing Isn't Just For Children 1/30/2011

 

Enjoy!

♥ Haley

Weekend Update!

I want to share with you what we did this weekend. Unfortunately I did not take many pictures and the ones that I did take are currently stuck in my camera because Joe's computer crashed and my USB ports do not work. So I will try and find photos from other sources to accompany this post.

Friday after work Joe called me and said that his computer was finally a very large paper weight and that he was going to buy an Ipod Touch to replace it. So we went to Best Buy and while he picked up his new toy I exchanged some shirts that I had bought the day before for a different size. After our trip to Northtown we went to the lovely Lyden household to hang out with friends and play games. We bought Brian the game Axis and Allies several years ago for his birthday and when they first looked at the directions they put the game right back on their storage closet shelf and it has sat there ever since this weekend when they finally brought it out and decided to tackle it. To make a long story short the game is similar to Risk but much much more detailed and complex. It took them over an hour to set it up and over 4 hours to finish even one game. I did not play because Nicole was also there with baby Natalie so we hung out together. We were there until about 12pm and then went home and went to bed. Here is a photo of the game that I found online (Source):

 On Saturday we were going to have our 3rd Saturday in row with nothing planned but that changed with a wake up call from Joe's sister Megan. She first called my phone and I didn't answer, then she called Joe's phone and he couldn't get to it so I sent her a text that said What's up and she immediately called again. By this time I knew it was important so I answer and she asked if we could come and pick her and a friend up because She flipped and rolled her car into a ditch on her way to go shopping in Duluth. Everyone was okay (not a single scratch or bruise! Thank God!) just a little shaken up, but Joe and I jumped out of bed and went to the rescue. The accident happened on 35N in Rush City which is about an hour away from our house. After we got everything out of the car, because it is most likely totaled, and talked to the insurance company we were on our way back home. We brought Meg and her friend home and we hung out at the In Laws for a few hours until we decided what we were going to do with the rest of our day. We ended up going back to the Lyden's to play more games. The girls went out shopping and brought pizza home for the boys. After hanging out until about 9pm we went to our friend David's house and visited with him for awhile. Then we went home and went to bed. Here is a picture of Meg's car after she rolled it. It is hard to see the damage because of the color and the snow:

On Sunday we went to church and came home to have lunch, we planned on staying home and relaxing because had kind of a busy weekend already but we hadn't seen Lindsey yet so we went to David's again and hung out with them. We watched some snowboarding on the Winter X Games which was awesome! After that we went home for dinner and then we were off to our Sunday Night House Group. It was another great night of community with the girls. Also you may have remembered from my previous post that we were supposed to watch Joe's brother Micheal fight this weekend, well it was canceled and he is supposed to be rescheduled sometime soon so when it happens I will definitely post about it! Overall not quite what I was expecting our weekend to look like but it was good!
 Sorry for the shortage of pictures; I will have more next time!
♥ Haley

Next Purchase!

Holga 135

  

I have been thinking about getting a Holga for a long time and I think I have decided that I am going to do it. The Holga in the photo is the 120mm camera but I will be purchasing the 35mm version to save on film and developing costs. "The Holga's low-cost construction and simple meniscus lens often yields pictures that display vignetting, blur, light leaks, and other distortions." I have seen some amazing images taken with these simple cameras and I am excited about experimenting with it. Here are a few examples of what can happen:
Here is a link to the website these photos are from. It has a lot of great information about Holgas. I love the look of these photos and I know that I can take any photo and photoshop it to make it look like these but there is something intriguing about having it on film and not know what you are going to get from each shot until they are developed. I'm excited to eventually make this purchase, I will be sure to share the photos with you as soon as I have them!

♥ Haley

Sweet Pillow Case Dress

So I found this D.I.Y that I will definitely be trying sometime soon

(Source)

Here is the link to the blog where I found it, along with the instructions if you are interested too!

For Now, ♥ Haley

Weekend Update!

Hey everyone! Theses are some of the things we did this weekend:

Friday we went to Rob/Cash/Turneys House and hung out for our dear friend Holsty's going away party. He is finishing his last semester of college in  Milwaukee, WI. He will be missed until his return. (We do have plans to go visit him in a couple weeks!) We ended up playing an intense game of risk, followed by Sorry. It was a fun night. Rob made nachos and Jim baked us pizzas, everyone knows I love food and I'm not afraid to eat it! Here is a photo of the game:

Saturday Joe and I hung out at home again ALL DAY! That never happens 2 weekends in a row. I didn't even get dressed until about 6:30 when we decided to go watch a movie with Lindsey and David. Lindsey had a craving for strawberry shortcake so we went to the grocery store, bought the stuff, and went back to Davids and devoured it! It was really good. Down side was the strawberries were $6/lbs! Crazy winter weather! Sunday we woke up and ate this for breakfast:

Gotta love fruit loops and Naked Juice! We went to church and Lindsey joined us which was nice! After church we came home and had BLT's for lunch and then headed off to Stillwater for the day. I was looking for some vintage chairs so we thought Stillwater would be the perfect place to spend the afternoon. Here is a collection of photos from our adventure...

We had fun looking at all the cool stuff, but the weather was freezing and by the river it is really windy. All the chairs that I was seeing started at about $150 and only got more expensive, I was looking to spend about $25/each. I did spot a chair that didn't have a price tag so I asked the guy how much it was and he had to call the owner to find out. I was expecting it to be out of my price range but when he got off the phone he said she would take $40 for it. I was shocked and I really wanted this chair so I told him I would take it! Here is a photo of our new conversation piece!

You might think it is ugly, Joe did too at first but it looks pretty sweet in our living room, You will have to come check it out! Now I just need to find one to match it! Wish me luck... On our way home from Stillwater we stopped at Red Robin for an early dinner. I had Chili and Joe had the Royal Red Robin Burger. I must say it was one of the best burgers I have ever tasted. Here is a pic of my soup:

We went home and immediately re-arranged almost the whole house to get our new chair in a lovely position. I think we did a good job, (I will post a pic of the new set up later). In the evening we went to our usual Sunday night house group. It was amazing to really use the small group time to get to know each other better and I hope we can continue to have more conversations like that one. Overall it was a great weekend, on the downside I kind of had a cold so I wasn't feeling the greatest. On the upside we get to look forward to Joe's brother, Michael's, first MMA fight on Saturday! You can pray that he doesn't get the crap kicked out of him and that its a good, clean, fair, fight and that he Wins! 

Until Later, ♥ Haley

Cookies!

I got to bake cookies at work today! According to Olivia (the 3yr old I nanny) it was the best day ever!

Here we go....

I have finally figured out this whole blog thing and am ready to start sharing my life with all of you. I guess I can start with our adventure from new years weekend at Joe's parent's cabin in Emily, MN. (You may have read about it on Joe's Blog) We went there with his parents to enjoy some time in the woods during the winter, which I had never done before.We attempted to sleep outside in our tent, but I chickened out (and Joe wasn't gonna stay outside by himself) with the possibility of a bear roaming the woods and the hurricane like winds and the supposed 7-11" snowfall. We did some 4 wheeling and winter hiking to track down the "bear" we saw in the tree, which later we discovered was just a porcupine. We took some great pictures, which you can also see on Joe's Blog, and had a great time playing cards and relaxing in the toasty cabin all weekend. In the end we realized we would have been just fine winter camping. Since then I have continued working about 4 days a week as a nanny and we have, as usual, filled our weekends with friends, family, and fun. This last weekend we hung out at a friends house and went snowmobiling and Saturday Joe and I enjoyed the entire day at home with each other. Sunday we went to church and then celebrated Joe's sisters 18th birthday at Famous Dave's. We finished the night with our House Group from Renovation Church. Now that you're all caught up I hope you would check back frequently to see whats new in our lives!

 

I love this photo of us! We are blessed to have each other!

This photo was taken on our New Years Day walk through the woods at the cabin. The snow looked so beautiful as it had freshly fallen. Everything was covered with snow, as the sun was shining through the branches of the trees they lit up with a glow!

Happenings in the life of Haley and Joe Barrett