Memorial Day Weekend

Happy Memorial Day Everyone!

"Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored."

~Daniel Webster




So since it's been quite too long since our last post, it seems we have some catching up to do here on our blog. Well, first we had to play catch up in all things life -- meaning we are finally getting back into the swing of things after 2 weeks of being home. Yep, it took us a long time to get used to things again. Although we both started new lives when we got home from our road trip, with Dave starting a totally new trimester at school (this is his first trimester where he has real patients and works in the school's clinic) and me switching professions and working long hours to save lives, it's been hard getting used to never really seeing each other again. I guess that about sums it up.. We just cannot wait to be through this stage of our lives and moving on to bigger and better things, like owning our own office!

So I finally remembered to grab the digital camera cable from the car and to upload these pictures from the last day of our road trip. 'Bout time!

Here are Jay & Kendal and all of their wonderful children (minus Zack who had to take a test that morning)! Kids, left to right: Ruslan, Elena, Kenny, Alex, & Natalia

Natalia and Ruslan took us around the back yard and introduced us to their horses and dogs. It was a perfect morning for playing outside!

All the kids were excited to show us their new kittens. Mom didn't really want us to touch them, but they were super cute to watch! :)

Now on to other topics that we meant to post long ago:

These are some pictures I took on my way home on my first day of working at Revolution. It had been a gloomy, rainy, muggy day on May 5th and just as I left the office, the clouds were breaking and the humidity was lifting. And what a pleasant sight! It was the first double rainbow I'd seen in a very long time!

This was as I drove down a hill right by our office. Since I was driving, I could only get the right halves of the rainbows, but they were perfect bows, complete on both sides. Really cool to see!

And here are pictures from Ella's baptism a couple weekends ago. After the service, we spent time at Scott and Laura's house for a celebration with family and friends.

The proud parents with Grandpa Putzer and Grandma Haraldson

Ella was just adorable!

Besides working a ton in the past couple weeks, something exciting we did this weekend was went out to Waukesha, WI to screen for our good friends Jay and Heather Davidson. They graduated from Northwestern in December '08 and are opening their office TODAY! We went out to help them screen on Friday and Saturday. Nick E and Loretta also drove out with us and are hanging around to help thru today. (We had to leave on Saturday night because I had to clean a house on Sunday morning and babysit Sunday night, Dave had extensive studying to do, too..) It was very exciting to see a brand new office and two passionate chiropractors ready to get cranking on saving lives and changing the world! It made us want to be at that level all the more! Thanks to Jay and Heather for all the training this weekend as well as the delicious food!!

Today, Dave and I are relaxing by currently watching a movie (we got rid of cable a couple weeks ago since we barely used it and were just throwing money away) and getting some computer related work finished. Later, we'll be going for a bike ride or walk on the local trails by our apartment complex then heading out to discover a new co-op in near-by Minnetonka in hopes to find the selection of organic foods we love. We can't wait to just sit down in our own company tonight with a good bottle of wine and just chill! It's going to be a great day!! We hope you all are enjoying your time off from work and school, but of course remember our soldiers of now and the past.


- Elise

May Birthdays!

We need to wish miss Eva Schwartz a very happy BELATED birthday! She is the only family member who has a birthday this month (that we know of). We knew it was on Friday, but just didn't get a chance to hop on here to post it. You'll have a little something special in the mail soon, Eva! I'll be mailing it on Monday!

Eva S - May 7th. LOVE THIS GIRL!

Jay D's Birthday is TODAY, May 10th!


And finally, Matt M's birthday is May 14th. Here is a picture of him (the giant) dancing with me at our wedding - red shirt with his back to the camera (sorry!). This was the only picture I really have of you, Matt!

We hope you had a great birthday, and Matt - wishing you an amazing day to come! We love each of you!!


- Elise & Dave

Happy Mother's Day to our Moms!

Our cards will probably not arrive until Monday as we dropped them in the box just minutes after the evening pickup on Friday, so we apologize for that. But we hope you both are having a fanTAStic day Mom S and Mom V! :) Thank you for bringing us into the world!

Dave and I have been with Laura, Scott and family all morning. We just came home now so Dave can start studying. It was Ella's baptism today -- on Mother's Day! How special for first time mommy Laura! So most of the Putzers were in town (Laura's family), Scott's parents - Ann and Mike, and some of the other Putzer side as well as a few close friends of Scott & Laura.

Again, we did take pictures and video of the baptism, but I don't have my cable for the camera here at the moment. I think it is still out in the car from our trip! So I will get the pictures uploaded later this week once I locate that cable!! The service was very nice and the baptism went smoothly. Then we headed to the Haraldson's house for a feast in honor of Ella's special day. There was barbecuing, cake, beer, backyard games..everything we needed. ;) Such a fun and relaxing morning!

Dave just left me to head to the school for studying. I guess I'll finish my day with cleaning up the apartment and maybe a nap? Check back around Tuesday for those pictures! May birthdays post is coming up next!


- Elise

We Made It!

It's official, we made it home alive! After living from our car for 2 and a half weeks, we arrived home in Bloomington, MN at about 11:15pm. We had originally planned to be home by about 8pm, but we had a little set back, which I'll get to later in this post.

So on Saturday night we were heading to Jay and Kendall's house in Fort Collins, CO. It was dark and pouring rain when we approached their driveway, where we were greeted with a gate. So Dave called Kendall and sure enough they did not have a gate in their driveway. Somehow we had their old address from over a year and a half ago. We ended up driving another half hour backwards to their place and were welcomed by all of the kids! We didn't expect that because it was quite late for them to be up, around 10pm. But we had fun visiting for a little while!

The next morning, the kids showed us all around the house and outside. We met their new kittens (born last Monday-ish), their horses and their dogs! We did take pictures but I don't have the camera cable with me at the moment.. I will post those next time! We also were treated to a delicious breakfast with the fam! Then we hit the road for aunt Mary Ann & uncle Art's place in Neuvelle, NE. Yes, a quick stay with the Fleischman's, but we had to make the 7 hour drive (which was about the longest time we had to drive on our entire trip by the way).

We arrived at the Newman's house around 6:30pm just in time for dinner. And man were we spoiled -- ribs, steak, and a spread of sides. I got Art's rib rub recipe, too. Definitely trying that soon! Absolutely scrumptious! It was amazing to see how much Ryan and Kyle have grown in the past year since we last saw them. But we could tell as Kyle inhaled two plates of food in the time it took us to finish half of one. Almost a teenager...! That evening Dave and I were both dominated at Mario Go Kart on the Wii. Then we played Trival Pursuit..and were dominated by team Mary Ann-Art. Team Ryan-Dave came in a close 2nd. We were served a perfect strawberry shortcake for dessert and hit the sack early after a full day of driving.

Monday morning we headed out to Lincoln, NE to visit Dr. Dan Sullivan's office. We were pretty excited to visit with Dr. Dan because he is a graduate of Northwestern (Dave's school). He had a lot of great insight for Dave as far as classes, boards and school in general goes. He also gave some great practice advice and gave us each an incedible, much needed adjustment!

We headed back toward Omaha then to meet Art and Mary Ann for lunch while the boys were in school. It was then that we noticed our rear driver's tire was looking low. Dave checked it -- 20psi. *Crap* we said. Even after refilling and rechecking later, it was right down to 20 in a matter of hours. So we got a recommendation from Art and headed to the tire place hoping to get our tire patched in an hour or less. Well, after waiting almost an hour and a half, the guy came out with bad news. Before we purchased the Matrix back in July '08, apparently the tire had been previously patched. But, it was a tire that was unpatchable because of steal belts lining the treads. So this past owner had patched that tire anyway, which over time wears away due to the treading pattern, so our tire was unrepairable. We ended up waiting another half hour for them to put on a new tire. So we were delayed about 3 hours, which is way we got home soooo late on Monday night.

Poor Dave started school at 7am today, officially a T6 and about half way through with school. I didn't have work until about noon today, so it was nice to sleep in a couple extra hours after Dave left. I start full time tomorrow though, so I suppose it's time to hit the sack! We hope you've enjoyed following along on our adventure across the mid-west!


- Elise