for the love of beef (part 7)

On June 7, 2002 Jake and I were on a date and he decided that he needed to check some cows "out on the hill".  As a girl who was raised on a beef farm, there is something strange about checking cows in summer.  These cows aren't calving and mineral could wait until tomorrow.  I was enjoying the hot afternoon, the sun setting and the evening turning cooler and a ride through the cows would be fine with me.  There were three gates that you have to go through to get to the back pasture.  I love the fact that Jake always gets the gates.  Every once in a great while he will ask me to open the gate.  Sometimes I offer. But, most of the time he gets the gates even today. When Jake got to the farthest pasture paddock he pulled up under a grove of trees and said "hey, get out I want to show you something".  Then right there under those trees - he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.  I of course said yes.

The next step - like most things Jake and I do we jumped in head first listening to good advice, but finding our own way.  We decided to plan a wedding and build a house in the same year.  It was a lot of work and parts of it were stressful.  I wouldn't do it again, but I also wouldn't have done it any other way. Jake mostly focused on building the house - serving as the contractor.  That was of course after we found a banker to take a chance on us.  The first bank literally laughed in our face.  After she stopped laughing, she said "how old are you?".  I was sad at the time, but learned a valuable life lesson that things that are meant to be cannot be stopped, even by a banker.
I planned a wedding. Jake didn't get involved on many of the decisions like invitations, flowers, food, DJ, decorations or cake. I did run everything by him and he said "whatever you want".  Jake planned a surprise honeymoon.

We found a spot with a gorgeous view.

They dug a hole and built a basement in almost pure sand.  Turns out this sight was a glacial moraine. A glacial moraine is where a glacier stops and melts leaving behind whatever it picked up.  In this case on top of hill lays river rocks and sand. We had a lot of help from friends and family - in this picture is Nick Greiner.

They formed the walls after they removed the snow from the sub floor. 

 . . . and a roof

I was only called in for tedious jobs that Jake lost his temper with. For example after too many expletives Jake's Grandpa and I finished this fire place. 

We stained all the wood work, doors and windows with the help of his Aunt Rosie.

Building a house and planning a wedding was a great experience and really helped Jake and I become who we are today. It would be hard to top 2002-2003 as the most growth in our relationship. But you never know what we will get into next . . .