Mandi the Professional

I had to have my professional picture taken at work for Ernst & Young to use for client proposals, etc.  Wow - sometimes my own maturity surprises me!  I still feel like such a kid, but I guess we're all grown up now! :)

The Real World - Greece

This following is a summary of a story of a young American couple set out to explore Greece, with no knowledge of the language; their exposure to the alphabet is limited to fraternity and sorority symbols.

Episode 1 - Mandi and Jacob enjoy a delightful traditional Greek dinner in Athens, "oopa"ing along with the live Greek music. When the bill comes, Jacob's fine-tuned auditing skills notice a mysterious $20 addition. He demands an explanation. Mandi fears for his life as the restaurant and manager request him to join them in a private room to "discuss". The next day's meals consist of Hard Rock Cafe and McDonalds.....




Episode 2 - Mandi and Jacob take a leisurely
walk down the cliff to the ocean in Santorini. After enjoying a carafe of wine while watching the sunset, "discussions" ensue regarding options for the HIKE back up. Jacob would like to accept the locals numerous offers to ride one of their donkeys. Mandi refuses as these poor donkeys are sweaty, dirty and over-worked! They don't even have any water to drink! They finally compromise and take the cable car back up.





Episode 3 - After a LONG day of sight seeing, Mandi
and Jacob buy a soda from a restaurant and sit down at one of their little outdoor tables to wait for the bus home. The waiter comes to the table and begins RUDELY talking in very broken English. Eventually, they figure out that he is trying to communicate that it will cost an additional $5 to sit down at the table. Both Mandi and Jacob feel this is completely ridiculous and further more there is no need for this man to be so rude about it. True to their natures, Mandi simply walks away from the restaurant. Jacob, on the other hand, pours his soda all over the table, including splashing on the couple next to them, which of course are conveniently also riding the same bus home. Oops....

Episode 4 - Mandi and Jacob borrow the hotels bicycles to tour a few of the local wineries in Santorini. Three wine tastings and 18 hills later, they are a drunk, sweaty mess and figure out why no one else at the hotel had borrowed the bicycles....

Episode 5 - Mandi is horrified by the number of stray cats and dogs in Greece. Jacob is constantly lecturing Mandi not to pet or talk to the mangy animals because several of them have followed them for blocks after this type of treatment. Little does Jacob know, Mandi is secretly trying to find one small enough to fit in her purse for the flight home. Do you think Tex would mind a sister/brother named Zeus?

Episode 6 - In order to navigate all of the sights in Santorini,
Mandi and Jacob rented a four wheeler. Although they enjoyed a long day of sightseeing and a nice dinner on the coast, they did not plan for a 20 degree drop in temperature following the sunset. Jacob and Mandi looked a bit like dumb and dumber on the COLD hour ride back to the hotel.


All jokes aside, we had a GREAT trip and hope you enjoy the pics. :)

Fourth of July in Maine

We headed to Jacob's parents' lake house in Maine for the 4th of July.  We had a great time reconnecting with his family and enjoying the lake setting...boating, swimming, cookouts, campfires! 

Our Niece Allie enjoyed fishing off the dock.

Jacob & nephew Reade sport matching Army shirts.

Reade goes canoeing with his Daddy, Colby.

Mandi in her 4th of July gear.

Niece Allie showing her her mice friends.

Major Hair-cut

Well...I got my haircut! I decided that I'd had enough of my long hair and decided to donate 14 inches to the Locks of Love organization. It has been somewhat of a change and definitely drawn quite a few comments. It's always funny to see people's first honest reaction before the required compliments set in. Some are more honest than others! This is a picture of Kel and I at my cousin, Jessica's wedding on 6/24/06.

The First Apollo Wedding

My cousin, Jessica, got married this past weekend in Fredonia, Kansas. She made a beautiful bride! Family from all over, including my Mom, David and Kelli, made the trip to be there for the celebration. No the man pictured is not her husband.....it's my grandpa. We had a great time and we couldn't be happier for them!

Here is my mom and her two "not so little anymore" brothers.

Grandma Michel's Passing

For the first time in years, all three of my Dad's girls made the trip to Lincoln at the same time. Unfortunately, the occasion that brought us together was the passing of my Grandma. Mary Evelyn Michel passed away on May 19th at 84 years of age. It may have been the only family gathering so far to include all 8 of her children, all 21 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. Yes, it's a motley crew, but one she was very proud of :)

The service was very nice, starting with a church service and ending with the graveyard burial. 

Following the funeral, the weekend quickly turned into more of a celebration of life.  The whole family hung around together and enjoyed each others company.

This is my Uncle Mark and his offspring and husbands.

My Van Ackeron cousins Andrea, Sarah Ann & Ben.

The three amigos...Kayla, Kelli & Erin.

Jacob, Dad & Kel

Kel and I

My Dad and his old man.  This is one of my favorite pictures of them :)

Below is my cousin Adrienne & her husband Scott & their son, Tristan.  They live in North Carolina.

My Aunt Marna and Uncle Ronnie

My Aunt Susan and Uncle Jake 

Easter Sunday

Jacob and I stayed in KC for Easter....we decided Easter is extremely uneventful when you don't have any kids to go Easter Egg hunting or any extended family to cook a big meal! In fact, our Sunday went exactly like almost every other Sunday - church followed by lawn work. Except instead of looking forward to exciting Sunday night TV, we were disappointed with re-runs! Maybe we should hide some eggs for Tex next year...

Surprise!

Kelli surprised my Dad by coming in town to celebrate his 60th Birthday on April 30th....and yes, he was very surprised. I had invited my Dad over for dinner on Friday night, however little did he know that Kelli and Mark were here too! We made an all appetizer dinner - got a favorite fried appetizer? You name it, we had it! Kelli has a list of her favorite places that we hit up everytime she's home. I think I got my fill of Pizza Shoppe and In A Tub until she comes back in June.

First Annual Kentucky Derby Party

We had our First Annual Kentucky Derby Party on May 6th. I think some might have thought I was joking when I encouraged obnoxiously big hats!!! I guess next year they will know that I wasn't :) It was a great time despite the fact that the race occurred an hour earlier than I thought. Those dang time zones got the best of me! Lisa Sutterby was the lucky winner of the friendly gambling pool. Now that we've mastered preparing mint juleps, I'll have to do a little more homework on the horses next year!

Top o' the mornin' to ya!

Although we didn't make it to the parade this year, Jacob and I managed to get off of work early on St. Patty's Day to endulge in a few green beers at Harpo's in Westport. It was quite a bit colder out than it has been in years past :(

Taby's Birthday

I imagine you can tell by our lack of blogging, that it's busy season at work. We have led extremely boring lives for the last few months. We did make it out to celebrate Taby's birthday the first weekend of March. Jacob took this picture of my high school girlfriends, (rt to lt - Courtney, Sarah, Taby, me, and Gretchen). We went to the new Voo Doo lounge at Harrah's. Fun night!

White Wisconsin Christmas

We also visited my family in Wisconsin for Christmas where we squeezed in our annual fresh cheese curd run. Yummmmy! We left Tex in Wisconsin while we visited Jacob's family in Maine and I was starting to worry that he'd never want to come back home. The quality family time and beautiful white Christmas were easily worth the eight hour drive.

Christmas in Maine

We visited the Folks Family in Maine for Christmas! Although the travels were lengthy, the trip was well worth it. Santa spoiled us rotten and made packing for the trip home a bit challenging. We even made the short trip over to the mountains to go skiing. Having mainly only skiied in Colorado before, we were bit skeptical of Maine skiing, but we were really impressed.