Happy Anniversary!!!

One Year Today!

Merry Christmas

A clip from It's a Wonderful Life, which is such a great reminder that Christmas isn't about "things", but about the ultimate gift we have received....our life and the people we love. May your Christmas be blessed with many friends and family as we celebrate God's gift of Jesus who died for us on the cross. Merry Christmas!!!

Delf and Lelf

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

This was just WAY too much fun! This isn't permanent like Yearbook Yourself, so watch it while you can! I just love Dan's feminine dance move towards the end! This video will expire January, 15th of 09.

Easy Egg Bake That I've Only Messed Up Once!

The first time I made this I didn't let the ingredient's stand overnight and it was very flat. Apparently that's a no-brainer when it comes to egg bakes, but when it comes to cooking there's "no brain" up there for me! I've made it two other times now for work and for the Anderson's and since Lacee actually asked for the recipe I thought I'd share.............share because it might never happen again where someone will ask ME for a recipe;)

Ingredients:
6 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp. ground mustard
1/2 tsp. pepper
cubed ham
frozen brocoli w/cheese
half bag of colby jack cheese
6 pieces of bread

Mix eggs, milk, ground mustard, pepper, ham, and cheese together. Pour over 6 pieces of bread in pan. Sprinkle brocoli w/cheese over the top. Let stand in refridgerator overnight. Bake at 375 or 400 (depending on your oven) for 30 minutes.

Our Cyber Christmas Card/Key Moments From Our Year

January-Happy Honeymoon to us. We spent a week nesting at our house for a week after our wedding. Seven whole days of sleeping in....yes!

February-We chaperoned the annual Good Shepherd Ski Trip, perfect powder and awesome students!

March-I don't remember even seeing Dan this month...my Grandma got sick and I spent 4 weekends in a row in the ICU at Merit Care in Fargo. I did however get the chance to see my Aunt Carol from Denver and my Uncle Jeff from New York. It was nice to see my Grandpa as well so much. He cracks me up! Even though we were there for unhappy circumstances we somehow always have a great time. My Grandma is now on the mend and is back at home.

April-We went on a quick trip to the cities to visit Matt, Lacee, and Laila and stopped in Fargo for a Bon Jovi concert and to visit my Grandma in the hospitol. The concert was great!

May-I finished up teaching for the year not realizing I wouldn't be there the next:(

June-Riviera Maya, Mexico for our real honeymoon and then on to Wisconsin for a visit. We had a blast on both honeymoons! The favorite part for both of us was for sure snorkeling right off the beach.

July-Mission trip to Daytona Beach with Good Shepherd Youth

August-Last full month in North Dakota so I/we spent as many afternoons on the river with the Carter's and other friends as much as possible.

September-Leigh moved to Minnesota and started a new teaching job. Dan finished up at Good Shepherd and was then able to spend a week out in Wisconsin with his family.

October-We moved into our new house on the 10th. The furnace went out on the 14th. The cat pee began to show on the 20th. The other cat starts getting sick on the 31st....this was not our luckiest month.

November-Celebrated my birthday and Thanksgiving all on the same day with Dean and Kathy, and my Mom and Ron.

December-We finally feel somewhat at home. We have decorated for Christmas, the cats are on the mend, I miss my old job, Dan's been sick, but we are still trying to stay positive that this is where God is leading us. We have a few couple friends, the people at our church are so great, and the girls that I work with are heaven sent.

Random Thoughts From the Dornfeld's

-we recently discovered a small tree in our yard is fake. Our clue, after the weather had dropped to the single digits.....its leaves were not falling off. It's so weird.

-whoever tells you moving isn't stressful, or hard is LYING, a lot!

-in Paynesville you might not only SEE lots of Christmas lights, but also HEAR Christmas music piping from your neighbors front deck.

-we definetly need internet at our house, it's like living without your brain!

-I can tell we live in a higher humidity region. My joints ache in my knees for the first time in my life....yikes!

-Riker's new dog food now requires he go #2 three times a day instead of two, or else we find presents in the hall each morning. He also flatuates at decibles that can be heard for long periods of time, which is really quite disturbing.

-the cats are (saying this cautiously with fingers and toes crossed, lots of prayer, and luck) SLOWLY getting back to a clean bill of health

-we love our new house.....but let's knock on wood for that one that nothing else major goes out, quits, or has to be replaced!

-Even with all of the ups and downs of the last 6 months, with our move, we are so very thankful for so many things. This transition has been very hard, but with each week something else happens, we meet young people, feel more at "home", etc.....then we feel just a little bit more settled. Merry Christmas everyone!

Tropic Thunder

Ha, ha, hahahahhahah heeeh heehe heeee HAWWWW!!! EWe! hhaaahhehahahhehehehehe Gross! Weird! haa hahahah hahhah h hahheeeeh

Pretty much sums it up!

Thank you to our Bismarck Friends

This is a long time coming and something that I've wanted to do a long time ago, however, my camera broke and I haven't been able to get this out......until now. I got a new camera from my Mom and Ron for my birthday! This is a picture of SOME of our Bismarck friends that all got together, drove out to the University of Mary, and took this awesome picture (I believe Sam took the picture) for us. There's a few people missing, but at our going away gathering, at Josh and Tara's house, I was going through Tara's pictures for some reason. I came across all of these pictures of our group of friends and my heart sank because there it was right smack in front of my face that we were no longer going to be an intricate part of this group and that made me want to cry. Lo and behold about 20 minutes later they all come out and presented us with a going away gift and here it is..... THIS pictures. I started crying....wow...even though I am still sad that we won't be able to spend as much quality time with all of these amazing people, it made me feel better knowing that they took that time and energy to take that picture for us. For that and MANY more reasons we will forever be grateful and thankful for our friends that we made, have, and hopefully will forever have from Bismarck. We love you guys and why the heck have you only visited once.....c'mon! Just kidding.....we'll visit too:) Your picture sits behind our bar downstairs, which hopefully we'll be able to entertain from and tell new friends about our wonderful far away friends:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everone has a nice and relaxing Thanksgiving!

Shay Misses Riker

Our nephew Shay loved having Riker stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I thought these picture of him with Riker were SO cute. Kathy said that he was always crawling over to his kennel to visit him when he was in there.

Knefla Man/Lefse Lady

This past Sunday was coincidentally "exploring cultures" day in Paynesville. While Dan slaved away, at home, making his famous knefla soup, I made lefse, for the first time ever, with a bunch of German ladies! While my lefse turned out well and is in the freezer waiting for Thanksgiving, the knefla soup had to be compromised and made with potato dumplings:( They didn't do it justice. So, for Christmas, please send some the real stuff that you can only get in North Dakota. We were disappointed when we introduced our soup to our dinner group and couldn't provide the "real" thing! We must redeem ourselves!

Like I said, I made lefse for the first time in my LIFE last Sunday. As a proud Norwegian I wore my sweater and didn't burn one piece. This was achieved through heavy supervision, but who cares? Grandma Selma would be proud! As we (all 30 0f us) talked about all of our heritages I realized I was only one of two Norwegian's in the room. Weird! My favorite lady was the Dutch/Finnish Jewish lady that flipped with the best of them!

Which leads me into a new practical problem I deal with often: The lefse flipper. Is that ALL it's used for? The practicality of my being made it hard for me to grasp that one flat stick can only be used for one traditional task once or twice a year. I've compiled a list below of ways you can get your money's worth from a $20 dollar lefse stick.

-an ankle scratcher

-a teacher's pointer

-a replacement for Howard's cane when trying to get pretty nurses' attention

-you could use it as a door stop for your sliding glass patio door from opening

-a backbrace for a cat

-kung fu panda practice for Dan since he's watched the movie three times in one week

-a mouth shut "her" upper for all of the ornery mean teachers at my new school

-and of course, if you use it 20 times, as a real lefse flipper, it really only costs one dollar!

The Greenbay Packer Poncho Picture Coming Soon......

must figure out how to get pictures from our phone onto our computer......my camera broke!

The Happening

DUMB-DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE IN FEAR OF YOURSELF BECOMING DUM!

Mr. President Barack Obama

It's Official

irecycle

Too bad recycling isn't as easy as running some type of ipod, iphone, imac, or ishootmyselfinthefoot. I can't figure this dumb thing out! Every piece of garbage I come across has me wondering, and in some type of a panic as to whether or not it's recycleable. Aghghg....it's agonizing. I've resorted to just asking Dan about each and every item until he finally told me that even toilet paper should be recycled. End of conversation. I no longer ask.........him anyway. We called city garbage for a tutorial or an inservice, but they only sent us a lousy sticker! A sticker that yes, tells me glass/plastics, aluminum and tin, and paper products, BUT keep your junk mail and newspapers seperate. Where do those go then? I think I would have even appreciated some stereo type instructions to get us through this. Do we shred every single piece of paper? Do you recycle receipts? As you can see this is quite the paralyzing ordeal albeit I do feel good about the fact that we are recycling and doing something good. If anyone needs me though, I'll be sorting my new Minnesota garbage in our garage or digging out a spot in our backyard for our new compost site.

Random Thoughts from the Dornfeld's

-Our family is now complete with it's 5th member (Riker) rejoining us last night. We're so happy to have him home. He's been fattened up (which is a good thing) and is happy. After an hour of him being home we've evaluated and come to the conclusion that we need lots of rugs. Click, click, click on our floors at 3 in the morning is not fun! THANK YOU to Dean and Kathy for loving him and putting up with Sadie's reaction to him!
-Meeko came home the weekend we moved into the house. THANK YOU to Mom and Ron for watching him....we all know that Meeko is an extra treat to have at their house. He only had a few days of being ornry before he calmed down and welcomed his new surroundings.
-Suki is in the dog house right now (not literally) since she has decided that through her stress of our move, the living room is her litterbox. She is now banned to the storage room in the basement while her litter box gets professionally cleaned. We have all kinds of tricks up our sleeve to keep her from doing it again. It's worked one other time with her when I first got her so please PRAY that she "gets it" when she is allowed back upstairs. I can't stand the thought of not having her as part of our family.
-Parenting is hard!

Freedom Farm

We took 13 students down to this farm in Waverly, MN last weekend. A group of children came down from the inner-twin cities. Some of them had never been to a farm or touched a farm animal. It was fun to watch their faces of excitement or apprehension at holding a bunny. "Will it bite me," one of them asked? Too precious! They had a blast and hopefully our kids got something out of it too. We then spent the evening at the Mall of America, stayed in a motel, and then checked out Jacob's Well (a contemporary christian service) the next morning before driving home. It was fun to meet some of our students and see their different personalities. They seem like they'll be a good group, but have never had a youth leader before. They of course loved Dan right away as I got many reports from them as they randomly would ride with me in the Vibe!

SOLD!

We are here and so very thankful to finally be in our new home. We both love it a ton as well as the kitties have given it their approval too. Lots of room to run around the basement + carpet. Makes for much better sleeping arranchments for our feline friends. Riker has yet to join us, but I'm sure he'll like it as well.......if his grandparents let him go:) We took a picture literally minutes after we closed and then later that evening when Dan, my mom, and I were all dressed up for a community fundraising event that Audrey and Don took us to.

Flashback!

This might start a chain reaction here because I found this site from Brian, but it's just too much fun not to do! As you can see Dan and I have transported ourselves back to the late 70's. We're thinking about staying there for awhile....the economy is a little better than now.....I said a little!

Baby Mama

We had heard that this one was ok and that all of the funny parts were on the previews. We don't agree. We laughed and replayed scenes and laughed even harder so this one gets our thumbs up!

Memorial Bridge Demolition/Bismarck, ND

Dornfeld Road Rage Not Up to Par

Hi, my name is Leigh and I'm a road rager. Apparently, my road rage is non-exsistent in comparision to Twin Cities drivers even though I have a lead foot and a tendency to be quite impatient while driving. I dropped my cell phone down by my feet on Saturday morning while at a stop-light in Chaska. My split second retrieval cost me an insistent honking and irritation as the light had now turned green. This bothers me too, but I usually give the person a millisecond of time to get going. This person behind me was NOT HAPPY. When looking through my rear-view mirror I noticed that the assailant was a 70-ish year-old women scowling and shaking her fists at me and on the verge of giving me the bird. Talk about humiliation. So my hot tips for driving in the cities (which, by the way, I've been doing since I was 15) are:

1. Keep your hands at 10 and 2 o'clock on the wheel-NO EXCEPTIONS
2. Ignore all distractions such as scalding hot coffee in your lap or gorgeous historical homes
3. Never drive under 80 on the interstate
4. Don't do ANYTHING that would make your grandmother upset while driving!

Dan's Installation Service

Laying of the Hands....I think that's the correct term?
Pastor Joyce Piper and Dan
coffee, crocheted table cloth, nametags, and a pastor=a lutheran church
The bag ladies that weren't invited were so hilarious
They think their pastor can be a Packer and a Viking fan all at the same time

Update

The 4th time was a charm, but then I didn't have any electricity. No, I am NOT making this stuff up. It really is the house where everything goes wrong. Thanks to my husband's quick thinking and assertiveness he probably saved me a whole night without it. I am very grateful for that!

October 10th Cannot Come Soon Enough

I'm generally a happy person. My husband wouldn't agree with that as of lately, but co-workers, friends, and family would. You don't realize how dependent you are on modern practices until you go without. I've tried to be patient, but when things pile up over and over I lose my patience. I hope I'm not the only one. If not, then I guess I'm a horrible person. The first time that I did not have hot water was my brand new first day of work. Oh well, I thought...no shower this morning. I called the landlords and they "fixed it". The second day of work at my new job I didn't have hot water. It was flirting with being luke warm so I took one in under a minute and proceeded to shiver for the rest of the day. I don't think I completely got the shampoo out either. I called the landlords and they "fixed it". The third time I went without a hot shower was after being sick for two days, 101.5 degree temperature, and a head so full of snot that my teeth hurt. After that I thought a nice hot shower would clear my sinuses. Nope...not today. I called the landlords and they "fixed it". After 3 seperate times with no hot water I had had enough. I drove 2 hours to a relatives to shower and sleep for 24 hours. Last night I came home and checked the water....and no hot water. The landlords are "fixing it" today. If it doesn't work this time please excuse the grease that is sliding off my hair and the bad odor you smell. I don't consider myself very lucky, but I am still holding onto hope that the 4th times a charm:)

Check out our barn...and house!

I took these Friday morning to show Dan where we live! I love it when the steam is rising off the land in the mornings and the sun is trying to shine through. I've never been a farm/country girl so this has been a new experience for me:)

Two weeks in!

Ok, so it's been awhile, but we're still alive. I wanted to share some picture of the views from our rental house in Paynesville. I need to get out and take some when the sun is going down...makes for amazing pictures. Dan is still in Bismarck and I'm here, but he's driving down on Sunday, finally. People keep asking me if my husband KNOWS where I'm living thinking he might not approve since it's so rural. I live about two miles outside of Paynesville and no, Dan has not seen it, but we have a barn, a shop, a shed, a house, a garage, and lots of land with corn, trees, horses, and marshes. It'll be fun for the short while we'll be there. I'm working my tail off, or at least it just feels that way since I sat around ALL summer as my husband would say:) Work is fun and challenging. We'll close on our house on October 10th. Last night our new congregation members helped unload our 28 foot trailer. I bought pizza for 15 people and about 35-40 showed up. Yeah, Minnesota nice/small congregation nice! Anyway, just wanted to give you all an update and let you know we are alive just in transition! We'll share some photos of our new house when we get there!

Fun New Things to Enjoy in Minnesota!

-The radio stations are like a kid in an old fashioned candy store...SO many options that I don't know what to pick! It's so great....to get the wide range of different choices. Would you like to listen to the Stones at 7...yes please! Breakfast with the Beatles...um, sure!
-Even though we are moving to a small little community we still have all of the amenities that we enjoy only 30 miles away. These include Barnes and Noble, Chipotle, Noodles and Company, Starbucks, Endless stoplights (how'd that get in here), and shopping.
-A job.....I'm not even missing a pay check and so far I'm liking my new job. There's some new aspects about it that are going to be a fun challenge.
-Amazing scenery on your drive to work. If I had 3 arms I would have taken a picture for you. Picture large pond with granite rocks shooting up out of the water, large green trees paint the backdrop, and then steam rising slowly from the cool and shallow depths of the warm water.....trying to be more descriptive here so you can see it!
-Eventually our whole family will be there all together......awwwwww...it may take some time, but I'm thinking around September 28th, ahem, (Dan's installation service) that our little family unit minus the children will be in one place.

Please pray for our children as they will all be separated from each other. We know they are going to good hands and we'll be sending lots of anti-anxiety drugs with them so that they make it back in one piece, well at least for Riker anyway. Poor in-laws will have the nervous dog, my mom will have Meeko, and a family in Paynesville will be taking little sweet Suki. Poor thing...she might freak out, but at least she'll live! Since she and I will be in the same town she will be receiving bi-weekly counseling/cuddle sessions from me though!

Guess What I Did Today?

I hustled my husband out of the house to quickly make it on time to Miss Finley's 1st birthday party!!! The only problem is her party is next weekend, not this weekend. We had a nice chat with Grandma Deb, though and even more fun realizing that this is SO something I do! We should still be able to make it next Saturday too:)

Random Thoughts From the Dornfeld's

-I got the Gifted and Talented Job in the neighboring town about 14 miles from Paynesville. It's such a relief and exciting. I'm a little nervous because my job description is quite long. Some of the things I will be doing I've done before when I taugh G/T in Dickinson and some are brand new. I'm sure I'll relax when I get there and dig my feet in and get started. There's always that anxiousness about something new.
-We still need to sell our house in Bismarck.....any extra prayers would help so that we can get a house when we get there. I'll be crashing at people's places for the first week and then probably renting after that.
-We have our appraisal today on our Mandan home and feeling pretty good that it'll appraise at what we need it to.
-Working on getting pre-approved for buying a house in Minnesota.
-Paying bills and packing.
-As you can tell.....this is an exciting, but stressful week.
-Happy thoughts to everyone:) Please send hugs:)

It's Official.....we're Moving

After long talks and discussions we have finally made a decision and we are moving. It's a bittersweet decision since we have so many things that we love about Bismarck, but also exciting for our new adventure. I think I"ll miss my Carter family the most and then my amazing friends and my great job. I cried when I resigned:( We've spent countless hours getting our two homes ready to sell and getting me out of my classroom. Dan's office is next....whew!

We are moving to Paynesville, MN. It's 25 miles south of St. Cloud, 45 minutes from Albertville outlet mall, and an hour and a half from downtown Minneapolis. Paynesville is a small little town located right next to Lake Koronis. The population is 2,500, but with the lake it's 5,000. Our new church (Paynesville Lutheran Church) has 1,200 members. When we visited and Dan interviewed it was really great to see 80% of the congregation congregate after the service all together. We are looking forward with excitement, but also looking back with sadness. I knew we wouldn't stay in Bismarck forever, but I never thought it would be this quick.

We'll keep you posted on our new adventures out there!

Mayville/Lake Lida...Fugleberg style!

Lida Sunset
Hotel Shoreham
Grandma's house

I had the opportunity to hang out with my mom's family in Mayville and at the lake. My Grandma is doing SO much better. She's scheduled to be out of the home by August 29th. She still has a few more tasks to accomplish before she can leave, but she's very motivated to get there!

Jeff and Bruce were here from New York to see her too and then we had a blast hanging out on the water at Lake Lida.

The Dark Knight

Hands down an excellent movie.  Ledger was awesome as the joker and as far as Dan is concerned he agrees with the rumors that he should get an Oscar.  Wish Christian Bale would growl less as Batman.  The only complaint is the beginning was a little long, but other than that superb!

Dan

P.S. Dad, you should call me or I'll call you! 

Leigh

Awwwww....

See Mom, they do snuggle up together.  It's just hard to catch them!  So cute.  Riker is exhausted from being with our friends while we were gone.  He's skin and bones and just wants to sleep all day.

Disney/Daytona

A fraction of our kids.  This was our work group for the whole week and they were SO awesome.  We didn't need to re-direct for anything even once.  We were very thankful for them all!

The Magic Kingdom

I wanted to drive:(  

Three days at Disney and five at our mission site = a lack of sleep.  What we didn't get in sleep we got in enjoyment and fulfillment at watching the kids have eye opening experiences.  Our group worked at a disabilities facility in the morning and then played with kids at the Salvation Army in the afternoon.  We spent our am's with high-fives and lots of smiles and our pm's were full of extreme energy and hair braiding.  The little girls LOVED to do our hair and we loved to get our hair done.  Very fun!  We're just resting and catching up on sleep now....

1 Year Today!

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!!!

To the Swamp....Florida that is:)

And we're off....with 43 kids, 9 adults, lots of i-pods, and some eagerness to play and work.  We'll be going to Disney World/Epcot for 3 whole days and then Daytona Beach for our mission work.  I know, I know...it sounds REALLY rough with Disney World, but I promise we will be sweating and working hard too!  If you need to get a hold of us we will have our cell phones, although I can see Dan having it on him more than myself.  Riker is headed to some friends, (who adore him and call him Skittles), and our next door neighbor is watching over our house and the felines.  We'll have a recap of our trip as soon as we get back!