A mixed bag June so far

The Lust Family at John Adam & Amy's wedding
Lusty Ladies! heh heh

Crazy June weather in Spokane! This was a thunderstorm on Wednesday night.
Sometimes only a sister knows when you need a giant (and delish) sugar cookie sent straight to your door.
I love you to pieces Scarlet! You da best!!!

Where is our sunshine and summer?!?! Despite the less than fabulous Spokane weather, we've had a nice June so far. Blinn was in Chicago for a conference a week ago and had a good time. He had a steak that had been aged for 40 days! Eeeks! He was glad he tried it, but wasn't sure if he needed to have that aged of a steak again. :) I served on jury duty for two weeks and sent a bad guy to jail. ; ) It was actually quite an interesting experience! Last Saturday we celebrated my cousin John Adam's wedding and danced off every beer we downed!

We're heading down to Almira this weekend to ring in Father's Day with Big Mike. We'll swing by Davenport on our way home to say hi to my Dad as well. I think we really lucked out in the Dad department; I may be a bit partial, but I'm pretty sure we have the best two out there.

Memorial Day Weekend Fun

At Lowden Hills, our favorite!
My review of wine at L'Ecole.
Our house, and our special guy Gus.
Blinn and Gus in our veggie patch!

This weekend didn't quite turn out as it was planned, but we still had a great time. We were going to meet Kristin and Jay in Walla Walla for a weekend of wine tasting, but unfortunately Kris was sick for most of the week, so we decided to postpone our time together so that everyone feels 100%. Blinn and I headed down to Walla Walla on Saturday had a great time! We visited seven wineries and had a delicious dinner at Whitehouse-Crawford that night. So fun and now we're ready to get our wine on! Heeheehee.

Sunday brought Lyssa and Charlie to our house for some drinks on our back deck! It was a lovely but quick visit with them and Cliquot. We spent most of Monday in our yard. We planted some vegetables in the back yard and finished all of our potting.

Since it is Memorial Day we want to express our gratitude to those who serve our Country now and those that have served in the past such as Myron Blinn Carstensen and Kenneth George Blumenschein.

Our Weekend with the Waldhers

Our ride to Pomeroy

Liz strategizing

Post-game drinks!

Liz and Joe were fabulous hosts to Blinn, Gus and I this weekend. We took our first trip down to Pomeroy to watch Coach Waldher and the Pomeroy girls softball team take on Dayton; and of course to hang out with Liz, Joe, and Odie. The Pirates had NO bench (some girls were sick, some were rodeo-ing, and some were shopping for prom dresses), and unfortunately (okay, maybe fortunately)the first game was called in the 3rd inning 34-2. The second game wasn't much better, but Liz provided the comic relief! Two Elizabeth funnies I need to share: 1. Yelling at her pitcher to "try it overhand next time" after the girl had walked about, oh let's say 10+ batters; and 2. "Hey Brenna, where's your cup?"- that was directed at Liz's FEMALE catcher who got hit with a pitch- I'll let you figure out where.

After that blow out, the 3 of us went over to Waitsburg to have some beers at their brewery. Bubby definitely deserved it! Our Saturday ended with Blinn and Joe golfing while Liz got dinner ready. We had a delicious breakfast the next morning, rounding out a wonderful weekend with our sissy and bro.

Kickin it with the Carolinians

Bladdie & Jakelet (?)

Hermanos a Del Red

Gus's new haircut!

Post title courtesy of Blinn himself.

Jake and Scarlet arrived back in the Evergreen State last Saturday. We met up with them and the extended Carstensen/Engelhardt family in Soap Lake for dinner and karaoke. Fortunately, the barmaid at the Del Red did not remember Blinn. ; ) Both dinner and the post-party were a ton of fun, and after a busy week of seeing many friends, and family, Jake and Scarlet made their way up to our house in Spokane on Saturday. We met up with Justin and Theresa for lunch at Red Robin (Scarlet and I refused to let Jake choose Applebee's for our dining experience), and then went to the Season Ticket to watch basketball for a bit. It was SO nice to spend time with them, and we're looking forward for our visit back east later this year!

This post is a bit picture heavy. There have been many requests for pictures of our Gus Bear! How can we deny his fans?! Gus visited the groomers on Friday afternoon and got his first "real" haircut. As I'm writing this, I realize that I've become one of "those people" that talk about their dog as if it were a child. For the record, I don't care. :) Anyways, he looks dapper and charmed even the harshest critic...Jake.

Next weekend we're heading down to Pomeroy to visit Joe and Elizabeth! Bubby is the high school girls softball coach! Maybe Joe will have some more jerky for us...hint hint. This will be our first visit down there, and we're really excited! Go Pirates!

We're (okay Addie is) Bloggers!

I've been debating about doing this for a while now, and I finally decided to join the cool kids and enter the world of blogging! Yey! I hope that this will be a fun way for people to see what Blinn and I (and of course Gus) are up to. Not gonna lie, we're not all that exciting, but it seems like a good way to keep in touch.

As I'm sure most of you already know, we live and work in Spokane (the 'Kan) and have been married for 2 1/2 years. It's been a ton of fun and I know there's lots more good times on the way for our family. Blinn works at Northwest Farm Credit Services as a loan officer in their Capital Markets division. I'm just wrapping up a stint in Commercial Appraisal and heading back to Sterling as a Construction Special Project Specialist on April 14. YEY! We love banker's hours!!!!

Let's see, what's new? We just had a great weekend with friends and family...Addie turned 26 and Ter became another year closer to joining the AARP, so we jointly celebrated our birthdays on Sunday with brunch. Mom and Dad Lust and Mom and Dad Carstensen along with Justin, Em, Ryan, Liz (Joe was winning 2nd place in a golf tourney!), and Grammie and Papa all made the trip up to Spokane. It was super fun and a great way to spend a Sunday morning. Now we're looking forward to another fun weekend and a visit from our East Coast siblings...Jake and Scarlet!!!! They're flying in from North Carolina on Saturday and we're SOOOOO excited for that reunion!

So that's what's up with Bladdie as of late!