The Sand in My Snow Boots

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T10:08:00.001-07:00

Scary Skeleton!

Here's the thing...

2011-10-29T13:05:00.001-07:00

I'm busy, all the time. But I promise an updated post tomorrow. Here's how I spend my day, in picture format, to tide you over:

First there's a little playing and laughing:

Then Emily says "Come on Mom, let's get real. Feed me!"

Then we do a little tummy time, which either frightens or delights Emily. We're not to sure yet.

We have a few more bottles, and try to get in a few more cute picture ops. Lesson #1 in taking baby pictures: try not to use the flash...
"Whoa Mom! Are you trying to blind me!?!"

Then after a long hard day, we all curl up for bed time.

The End!

Happy Fall!

2011-10-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

It's official, Fall is here! The weather is much cooler, all the leaves have changed and are starting to fall off the trees. That means eventually Travis is going to have to get out there soon and bag them up!

Fall is my absolute favorite season. I'm such a geek for pumpkins, candy apples, hot apple cider, corn mazes. You name it. So last weekend we decided to take Emily to the pumpkin patch. I know she won't remember it, blah blah blah, but we have to start family traditions at some time!

So we went for about a half hour :o) They had a corn maze, a hay ride, a little petting zoo, and lots and lots of pumpkins. Of course, you had to pay for it all, so we decided to wait until next year for that stuff. We took pictures with the pumpkins, walked around and watched everyone else, and enjoyed a hot cup of apple cider.
You can't really see it, but Emily and I are holding a tiny pumpkin - just her size!
We tried to do a photo op with her sitting against the pumpkins, but she wasn't having any of that! Those pumpkins are scary! She was happy as long as I was holding her and she could see what everyone else was doing. Any time I attempted to sit her with a pumpkin, big or small, the waterworks started! Oh well, at least I'm trying to create some good family memories!

Two Months!

2011-10-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

Here we are, just chugging along past two months old! Some things we've accomplished this month:
-smiling all the time, recognizing mom and dad
-a half laugh. Not quite a full thing, more of a "har!"
-the start of babbling
-sleeping through the night consistently! Usually between 9:30-6. Mom loves this!
-we started daycare this month. Mom hates it, but you seem to be doing just fine.
-you're still drinking 4oz bottles, but I have a feeling we'll be bumping that up to 5 in a few days.
She's getting so big! We have our official 2 month appointment this Friday so she'll get weighed (yay!) and her first set of shots (boo!). Emily has also started flirting with rolling over. I think she might go back to stomach first because she's started to do this:
"Just hanging out on my side!" The TV is behind her, and it is quite tempting apparently. But then she can see it sideways so she stops and lays on her side. Well, she'll get there!

In non baby news, I'm back to work full swing and will be seeing clients again starting November 1st. We just heard that the national exam is being held in December, which allows representatives to qualify for direct pay from Social Security. Our company doesn't let reps go to hearings unless they've passed the exam, because trying to bill clients once their awarded is just a big headache. This way we get our fee directly from SSA with out any issues. So it's study time! I've got study materials, and the other junior reps have started a study group so that we can all work together.

The best news? The test is being held in St. Louis! Ok, well New York and L.A., as well, but that's not quite as exciting. Hopefully we'll go to St. Louis since that's the closest city to us. Then maybe I can get a visit in!

Other than that, not much is going on in baby land. The weather is turning cooler, the trees are changing, and it's officially my favorite season. Happy Fall!

Murphy's Law

2011-09-18T14:48:00.001-07:00

I am dead tired, and Emily is finally napping. You'd think I could nap too then, right? Of course not! Sometimes the brain just won't shut down, so here I am, updating you on my life.

Why am I so tired? Well, I'll tell you. Yesterday Travis and I drove down to Baxter, MN, about 2 hours away. Again, you ask, why?

To buy this:
A new car! (say it like on the Price Is Right). This is my new (to me) 2008 Ford Escape. It has tinted windows, cruise control, all wheel drive, yada yada yada. Last weekend we were perusing autotrader.com and found the add for this little gem. So after talking to the dealership this week, we went down this weekend and scooped her up. Since we just paid off my car, we got a sweet deal and my payments are lower than on the Kia. Yippy! I figured it was time to have a more "family" vehicle to fit all our stuff in. Hey, babies come with a lot of stuff. And this way, when we go to Florida next time, my mom has even more room to cram full of Christmas stuff for the drive back :o)

Travis had a benefit gig with the band last night, which happened to be down that way. Since I wasn't ready to leave Emily overnight, I drove back and he stayed down there for the gig. Grandma babysat for us during the day. Boy am I glad I came home.

Last night Emily was a lot more fussy and noisy in her sleep than normal. She's been great at sleeping through the night lately. Last night was no exception, she was just getting a really unrestful sleep. I had to go in her room twice to turn her Sleep Sheep on (google it), to help soothe her.

I went in again around 5:30 this morning, and she was awake in her crib. I thought she needed to be changed and fed, so I went to pick her up when I noticed bubbles of spit all around her mouth. It literally looked like she was foaming at the mouth. I immediately picked her up and began pounding on her back because I wasn't sure if she was choking on her spit or what, but I knew she wasn't breathing evenly and I was scared out of my mind.

I got the suction bulb and started sucking all the foamy spit out of her mouth, which helped a little. Then I could tell she was super congested and snotty, so I sucked out her nose too. Our heat has been on for the past few days, and I think it's a lot drier than she's used to. She threw a fit, gagged a lot and cried, but I got it all out. When I picked her back up she immediately passed out on my chest.

Scariest moment of my life.

I spent the next two hours with her sleeping on my chest so I could make sure she was breathing. She got more sleep, but needless to say I didn't. She's perfectly fine today, probably doesn't even remember it. It was a little traumatizing for me though! I guess we'll be breaking out the humidifier tonight.

Here's a few cute photos to leave you with:

Sucking on Mr. Teddy's ears and nose. Yummy!

Sporting the skinny jeans. She's so stylish!

Have a great week!

6 weeks!

2011-09-10T10:40:00.001-07:00

Emily is 6 weeks old today! How did we get here so fast? She continues to amaze us daily, especially now that she seems much more interactive. She recognizes us and smiles at things we say. We haven't seen a repeat of the laugh yet, but she definitely tries. Here's a good picture of her laugh face:
This was the first time we sat in the Bumbo. She loves it! I originally didn't want to get a Bumbo because I thought it was pointless. Basically it's a little rubber seat for, well, sitting. But we had gift cards to burn and nothing else to buy, so we brought Bumbo home. It's actually really cool because she can sit in it on her own, can't escape, and it has a little support for her still-wobbly head.
It provides a nice alternative to the swing or play mat for entertainment. Emily also seems to be pretty interested in the TV. I think she likes the colors, and it's visually stimulating. Now, before anyone gets on a soapbox, I'd like to state that I am not sitting my child in front of the TV to occupy her while I do other things. But she will look at it while she sits in my lap for a few minutes, just like she stares at the ceiling fan, the curtains, and other random things in the house. We've also started a Saturday morning cartoon ritual apparently.
She looks asleep here but she was just blinking. She was also very interested in sucking on her hand at this moment. Ignore the mess that is my living room right now. It is what it is.

When my parents were here in August, my Dad planted some rose bushes in our yard. Travis couldn't find a florist that was open to buy me roses the day after I had Emily, so he went to Lowe's, bought rose buses, and cut off all the flowers to bring to me. Dad decided not to let them go to waste, and spent a good chunk of a morning planting them in our backyard. Then he spent a good chunk of time trying to keep them alive, watering them, spraying them with grow formula, and tending to all things roses.

Well Dad, your effort paid off!
Aren't they pretty? We've been having great weather lately, so they popped right back up. We'll see how long they last though, since we're supposed to get our first cold front next week. Boo!

One month

2011-08-28T08:42:00.001-07:00

Well, this is a few days early, but Emily will be one month old on Tuesday. Where does the time go? Seriously, I feel like we just came home from the hospital. And considering that we're not getting much sleep, I'm definitely spending way more hours conscious than I normally do.

Speaking of which, all of you non-parents out there take your sleep for granted. Big time. Now, Travis and I are extremely lucky in that we have a baby that sleeps, for the most part. There are very few nights where we're up every hour or two. Emily has been a sleeping champ since she was born, really. But there are far too many nights for my liking where she doesn't go to sleep until 11:30 or so, and then is up again at 1 or 2, and then again at 4:30. The 4:30 am waking is really the pits, because by the time she's changed, fed, and burped then I only have about 20 minutes left until the alarm goes off. So then I lay in bed thinking "I should just get up. But I need these extra 20 minutes!"

The lack of sleep leads to some very zombie like moments during the day, and occasional conversations at night where I'm not sure Travis is really awake, and I'm not even sure if I'm awake for that matter. However, things are getting better. We just had two nights, in a row, where she slept through the night. TWO NIGHTS! Hallelujah!

Here's what Emily has been up to this month:
. Holding her head up and looking around all the time.
. Eating over 4 oz between formula and breast milk. What a little piggy!
. Making and holding eye contact
. Smiling! She's even starting to laugh a little. So far Aunt Stefanie is the only one to get an intentional laugh. But she's trying!
. Going longer during tummy time and pushing with her legs.
. Sleeping through the night on occasion. She loves napping in her swing, but she's napping less and less. Normally I'm lucky if she naps once a day for a few hours.

This is a "give me food!" face. And yes, we have to use the bib because she is a messy little dribbler.

RAWRRR! I'm Queen of tummy time!

In other news, last weekend was the 100th Bear River Fair. We decided to take a trip up there with Emily and take part. There were soft ball games, bingo, a photo booth, lots of exhibits, pony rides, karaoke, and two dinners. We actually didn't do all of that, but we did watch a lot of softball! Emily slept through the entire thing. Oh well, there's always next year!

Travis is taking another week off to help me out since I'm working and watching Emily at home full time. This excites me like you wouldn't believe! Emily is a much more active baby than I would have ever imagined, so working and taking care of her is actually a lot more difficult that I expected it to be. I'll leave you with a sweet photo from his last "vacation" to watch Emily.

Rough life!

Introducing...

2011-08-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Emily!! This is what I've been working on in my absence. Emily Faith was born on 7/30 at 3:02 pm weighing in at 9lbs 2 oz and measuring 22 inches long. She's a big girl!

I was officially 9 days late on her birthday. The night before I went to the fair again with my in-laws to watch Trav's band play. We ended up having to park really far away, and I think all the walking did me in. My water broke at home around 4:00, so we went to the hospital and got settled in there. Labor progressed pretty fast until I got the pain meds at 11:30, which seemed to slow everything down quite a bit. They started me on Pitocin to make my contractions stronger and I started actively pushing at noon. 3 hours later, Emily finally made her debut!

We've all been settling in and adjusting to life with baby. Thankfully she's a pretty good sleeper, and we've only had to get up once or twice with her every night. Of course, I check on her a lot more than that but that's what new, paranoid mothers do!

Going home! I'm still looking pretty tired here, even after two days of resting!
Here she is getting a little burp time in with Daddy.

Not to sure about hanging out on her boppy.

So that's what we've been up to lately. Hopefully I can keep up with my posts during nap times!

Twiddling my thumbs

2011-07-25T12:54:00.000-07:00

Just patiently waiting. I was hoping to have baby news, but no such luck. I'm officially past my due date at 40 weeks and 4 days. Yayyyy....

I've tried walking, eating spicy food, eating fresh pineapple, being really energetic and cleaning my house, driving down a bumpy road (not intentionally, just got lucky with that one). Guess what? Old wives tales are just that, tales. Basically they suck and are always wrong. Emily is going to come whenever she wants to. Maybe she heard me say that I don't like rubies, so she wants to be an August baby for the peridot?

In other news, our weather finally cooled off. We sent that heat packing east and enjoyed a weekend of under 70 temps. Yep, you read that right! Today has actually gotten up to 80, but it's breezy and beautiful. This is more like Minnesota summer!

Travis had a gig with the band Friday night. Everyone was worried about me being all by myself, so my mother-in-law and sister-in-law came to keep me company. I kind of find this amusing since I spend every day by myself (well, with the company of Maya), and Trav works about an hour away. But whatever, we had a good time and that's what matters.

The one part of Friday that was not fun at all: getting stung by a bee. How the heck did that happen, right? Me and my big old pregnant behind were out watering my flowers on the front deck when one snuck up on me from behind and stung my foot. Seriously, it was like a covert sting operation. The scariest part: I've never been stung by a bee before.

So imagine this if you will: I'm 40+ weeks pregnant, and I just got stung by a bee. I'm home alone. This is my first bee sting ever. Commence irrational panicking. First off I ran into the bathroom and started filing up the tub with cold water, because that mofo burned! As I sit there, I try to remember what I've learned about bee stings. Which really equals about zero. I assume if I'm allergic that there would be some swelling. Well, my foot is swelling up anyway, I just got stung by something! So once the radiating burning has numbed by my ice cold bath water, I hobble over to my computer to do a little research. Here's a hint if you're ever in my situation: don't Google images of bee stings. Stick to the "web" search. Thankfully I found some helpful information to inform me that at this point, 20 min after the initial sting, that if I wasn't in anaphylactic shock already then I am likely doing ok.

Of course I sent my hubby a text to let him know what happened, just in case something serious really did come out of this event. And then my brother called me. Cue me missing Trav's phone call, his mind naturally going to the scenario of me being passed out somewhere, and getting repeated phone calls until I finally switch over and tell him I'm fine. Hey, if I have to have a heart attack for no reason, so does he.

So this weekend he did his husband-ly duties of finding the bee's nest, buying insecticide, and killing them. But not without taking a picture first:
This is underneath our front porch steps. As you can see, the little buggers had one nest and decided at some point that it wasn't good enough, so they made an even bigger nest next door. Seriously, how did we miss this? How the heck hasn't my mailman been stung every single day by these buggers? One will never know I guess, but hopefully they're good and dead now.

So that was our big excitement this weekend. Here's my latest (and hopefully last!) bump picture at 40 weeks:

Are we there yet?

2011-07-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

Baby yet? No baby yet, and it's starting to feel like I'm going to be pregnant forever! Really I'm only 38 weeks pregnant, and we have 11 days to go until my due date. But trust me...those 11 days seem like way to long! I'm hot, my feet are swollen, I have some bizarre hip pain making it difficult to walk.....so yea, I'm done being pregnant. I'm ready for Emily to make her appearance!
I know you don't believe me about the heat thing. We live in Minnesota, how hot could it get? Well, let me tell you - upper 80's when you live in a house with no A/C might as well be 100 for all I care. There is no way to get cool. I've seriously contemplated filling my bathtub with cool water to go "swim" in.

In other news, we finally got the quote back for our flat roof and signed the contract to get it redone. It came back a little higher than I expected at $3600, but we're biting the bullet and getting it done. Hopefully that will happen this week, or at least before Emily arrives. They have a few others to do before ours, apparently it's replace-your-roof-season. But then it'll be done and we won't have to worry about it for another 10 years or so. So we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming of replacing windows, installing garage door openers, etc, etc. Ah, home-ownership. AKA: "money pit that you can only hope will repay you in equity 20 years from now." Ain't it grand?

Happy 4th of July

2011-07-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

Errr, belated!

We were blessed with beautiful, if not a tad warm, weather this weekend for the 4th. Hooray for no rain! So we all piled in the pontoon boat for cruise around the Side Lake chain and did a little BBQ'ing for dinner. Since it gets dark so late in the summer (around 10pm) we decided to forgo the fireworks. A day of sun can really wipe you out, you know!

Here's part of the lake we were on. I believe this is Big Sturgeon, which I normally get confused with Little Sturgeon. It's easy to do!
Even Maya came along! I think she liked boating way more than laying out on the beach, but she's such a busy-body that it's hard to tell. She was all over the place, sniffing the wind, checking out other boats and looking for shady spots. Of course, being next to mom is always good too.

Most of our crew got in and swam. I thought that getting on and off the boat might be a little too difficult for me so I just dipped my toes. The water was only 4 feet deep where we anchored, so it was shallow enough to stand and see if there were any creatures swimming around. Say hi Trav!
But no drowning!

Of course we didn't get any pictures of the picnic, because we were eating! It was a great day out for a boat ride though. Despite using 50 spf, I still got some sun and so did Travis. His is already starting to turn a nice shade of tan, while I just look like a lobster. Oh well!

Here's my 37 week picture. This was one of our hottest days yet and I didn't do my hair or make up, hence the "from the neck down" photo. Apparently Emily has reached the "small watermelon" size, and it sure looks like it from this shot!

Happy Summer!

I'm drowing

2011-06-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

No seriously. One drip at a time.

We've had rain for over a week, with only one day of reprieve. So naturally my family room roof has to start leaking. Right? Is it too hard to expect my roof to do it's job - stay dry and keep us dry? I guess not.

We had a leak a few weeks ago that Travis was able to fix. Now we have a new leak. Joy! The very special home owners that used to live here had a wood stove in our family room, which apparently was a bedroom at one time. They took the wood stove out, but left the stove-pipe opening and the whole pipe stack that sticks out of our roof. There is a bucket over it, but apparently there is some cracking going on down farther that is causing it to leak. The side that we actually see from the family room was filled in, so it looks like an upside down top-hat sticking into our family room. This is where the leak is.

Let me tell you: this makes our "special" house just that much more special.

So we're coming to grips with getting the roof replaced. At least it's only part of the roof, and not the main one. Plus it's a flat roof, so it should be relatively easy to replace, re-tar and throw some rock down. We had some guys come out last week to give us a quote. We asked about some different things, like even re-trussing it to put a slant on it and then put shingles on. The hard numbers? $4,000 to do that. $3000 to put rubber down. So I'm hoping when we get the actual quote, it's like $2000 just to re-tar. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Oh yea, did I mention that my due date is less than a month away? Replacing a roof is exactly what I wanted to do one month before having a baby. So here's hoping that the bid comes in lower than I expected, they get it done quickly, and we figure out a way to pay for it!

Here's proof I'm about ready to pop!

36 weeks down, 4 more to go!

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

Today is the day that we all thank our Dad's for being who they are. My Dad is pretty awesome, I have to tell you. He's always there when I need him, even when he's 1500 miles away (give or take), with a shoulder to cry on, an ear for listening, and good advice when I need it. One of my favorite things about my Dad is that he kind of thinks he's Superman, and he's ready to do anything or help out in any way he can. But honestly, he's always been my hero so maybe that Superman thing is true. Here's one of my favorite pictures of us:
Love you Dad!

The other hero in my life, dearest Hubby, has been hard at work this weekend since it's Outside Project Weekend 2011. We do have plans to grill burgers and go see a movie, and he has yet to see the present on the dining room table for him. All in good time...

So here in northern MN, the hardy green thumb ladies usually start rolling out their flower beds and whatnot sometime in May. This year has sucked for weather though, and we've had cold and rain for more months than I care to count. I think we've all decided "screw it. I'm planting anyway!" Today was a balmy 63 degrees, and although the weekend has been overcast the rain has held off a bit so we went ahead with our plans.

We have a window well in between the house and garage that we cleared out sometime last year. Our intention was to fill it with rock and some landscape lights. These were very good intentions for upwards of a year or so. Well this weekend we finally decided to go for it! So we went from this ugliness:
To this!
Looking good! The lamps kind of blend in, but there are 4 on this side of the fence and 1 right on the other side. I originally wanted white rock, but the multicolored river pebbles were not only $1 cheaper per bag (x30 bags = saved us $30!), but they also got a little better with the overall "brown-ness" of our house. I did my part by weeding out most of the longer bed, which I have to tell you - not so much fun at 8 months pregnant. I also held the weed tarp (that goes underneath the rock to keep weeds from sprouting up), and I was an integral part in positioning the lights. Not to shabby when I'm feeling like a blimp! I let Travis do all the heavy moving and lifting of the actual rock, naturally. :o)

I also took the opportunity while at Lowe's to pick up a few flowers to dress up our front porch a little. It looks a little drab, and we really need a bench out there or something. But honestly, I think my true Minnesotan neighbor wives are ashamed of the lack of flowers our house has. So I needed to do something! Here's what I came up with:
Some hostas and impatients
and a pretty, red Salvia with some white impatients. There's also some "dusty miller" mixed in which is like a white, furry fern. I thought it looked pretty cool, so we'll see how it fares. Actually, I'm no green thumb at all, so fingers crossed that all of these do okay!

Here's my latest bump picture at 35 weeks:
Have a great week!

change, change, change

2011-06-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

If you know me, there is one distinct thing that always presents itself first. I am a redhead. Classic redhead with freckles, light skin, the whole nine yards. And you would also know that I have long red hair. I've flirted with short hair now and then, but most people know me as the girl with long, red hair.

Until yesterday!
That's right folks
I took the plunge and had it all chopped off! My Dad said that now Emily can't pull my hair. I guess that's a plus as well. My main intention was to be quicker in the mornings. This hair cut definitely takes less time to wash and dry, although I'm still working with styling it with the straightener. One thing I love: it's abundantly cooler than the mop of hair I used to have. Lighter too! No more hair headaches!

Summer is slowly starting to peek out here. Our high today was a balmy 70 degrees. We're also having more sunny days that rain, so the weather is looking up! I'm looking forward to a few days at the lake before Emily gets here, big belly and all. Or at least getting a kiddie pool for the back yard. Our backyard is wide open for the whole world to see (putting up a fence is on our 'to-do' list), but no shame here! I'm carrying around 30 extra baby pounds, I will swim in a kiddie pool when it's hot if I want to! Travis may or may not be on board with this idea, so far he doesn't have much to say on the issue. But I think a pregnant, happy wife definitely equals a happy life!

Here I am at 34 weeks pre-haircut:

6 more weeks to go!

Not much of an update

2011-06-06T17:56:00.000-07:00

I just have to complain and whine for a minute. On June 1st our heat was still kicking on. Today, June 6th, it was 85 degrees. I'm not sure why we went straight from winter to summer, but I'd like a little bit of spring! Having no A/C and being 8 months pregnant in this weather is a little like purgatory. Just waiting for whatever comes next, but you know it's not good!

This weekend we had glorious weather. It was only in the low 70's and sunny. A friend from work invited us over to their house on the lake for dinner and a "booze cruise" around the lake. Obviously I passed on the booze, but we had a great time! They have a very pretty house that sits up on a hill from the lake, so they have a very pretty view of the lake. Definitely convinced me that we need to buy a house on a lake....some day!

The only downside is the mosquitoes that come out at dusk. Between those suckers and the heat, my ankles are a little...larger...than normal. So I'll just keep them propped up for the time being!

My hubby the rock star :o)

2011-05-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately this is one of the best pictures I got all night. It was dark and I was sitting closer to the back. You'll notice that there is a microphone in his hand - that's right, Travis sang! Well, sort of. He sang the Beastie Boys song "Fight for your Right". I did have a funny video of Trav making his big debut in the band, but Blogger doesn't want to upload it.

The guys did great and we all had a great time. They're playing at a lodge on the Lake Vermilion that brings in a lot of local talent, and a fun crowd! I managed to make it all the way until 1am when they stopped playing on Friday night, but I definitely paid for it Saturday! Another friend who is pregnant came, so I managed not to feel like the only bump on log. Last night was a black light party, but this Cinderella has had enough of one night turning into a pumpkin!

Yesterday I went to a shower for one of our cousin's that is getting married this fall. They had it at a local Italian restaurant with awesome food. It was actually really nice going to someone else's shower and just being able to enjoy myself! The bride is the sweetest person ever and is going to look gorgeous on her big day. I can't wait!

Here's my latest bump picture at 32 weeks from today. Only 8 weeks left!

When it rains, it pours...

2011-05-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

But inside my house? I'm not so sure about that. Last night after Trav went to band practice and I made myself dinner, I went to close the curtains in our living room and what did I see? Water, pouring down my family room wall. Two walls actually, since it was in a corner. Just. Freaking. Great.

So there I stood, for an hour, wiping drips as they came through the ceiling. Since Travis wasn't home, I didn't really know what to do! Eventually it stopped though. In the light of day, once Travis was home, he discovered that some of the tar had cracked (it's a flat roof, so just tar and peat gravel, no shingles here). Thankfully that was an easy enough fix for him today, but we'll definitely need to look into replacing the whole thing pretty soon here. Just what I wanted to deal with right before having a baby!

I was the lucky recipient of a second baby shower this week, hosted by a few of my real estate friends. It was amazing to see all the hard work they put into the details, such as mini-candy bars labeled "Alison's Baby Shower", balloons with Emily's name on them, hand-made invitations, and even hand-made thank-you's complete with stamped envelopes! It was amazing!
Here I am with the awesome diaper cake they made. It was decorated with onesies, wash cloths, socks, rattles and toys. So cool!
My amazing hosts - they even dressed in pink to keep the theme going!
Here's my 31 week picture. Only 9 more to go! This looks like I'm still carrying pretty high, but I know she's in the right position with her head down because she's been getting the hiccups every now and then, which always feels lower. Typically she pushes her butt out against my stomach, so the bulge is likely a little baby hiney! Travis has started getting worried that I can go into labor at any time now. If I make a weird noise or rub my belly, he gets a little nervous look on his face. It's kind of funny! So for his sake I started packing my hospital bag - which is a little ridiculous since we only live two blocks from the hospital. He can always come home to get stuff! But if it makes him feel better, then we'll just be prepared!

Spring has finally decided to show up in our neck of the woods. Last weekend Travis mowed the grass for the first time, just to see if the mower worked. Well, in a weeks time our grass has nearly grown a foot! Plus our chive bushes are growing like crazy!

In other news, I registered for my first two classes for my MLIS degree. I tried to only take one, but found out that I needed 4 credits for my financial aid so I found a 1 credit genealogy research class to go along with my core intro class. I start the first week of September - so here goes nothing! Next weekend is Trav's big gig with the band - stay tuned for pictures!

Sweet Freedom

2011-05-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

If you know my husband, you know that one of his passions in life (after me of course!) is music. He plays guitar and loves to jam out whenever he's given the chance. Such a chance came along a few weeks ago when a friend from work invited him to come jam with their band, and maybe be the sound/lighting guy. Through a succession of events, Travis became a member rather than being behind the scenes. The name of the band is, you guessed it, Sweet Freedom. They're a local country band that plays quite a bit around here.

*Crickets*

Uh, yea, that's right - I said country. Yes, I'm still talking about my husband. Being in a country band. Does anyone else think this is funny? I sure do! For the entire time I've known Travis, he has always hated my country love affair, saying that country music puts him to sleep. But hey, when opportunity calls then you answer, right? So he's been having fun going to practices, and they're having their first gig on Memorial Day weekend at a lodge up north from here.

Of course that means that they needed to take publicity photos, right? Of course! Actually they'll be playing at the local fair this summer and the fair people wanted a photo to put in ads. So that makes a little more sense. Since they did this on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to go along and meet everyone. The lead singer also happens to have a bunch of horses and we were going to his house - bonus!

Lead singer's wife was actually doing the photographing, but I figured I'd bring my camera along to take a few for our own personal use. I got a bunch of shots, but it was so bright and sunny that a lot of them were washed out or just poor lighting. Here's a favorite with decent lighting:
And a great blackmail photo if ever I need one:
I have no idea why they were making smoochy faces at each other, but this is hilarious! That's Sonny with Travis, he works with us as well. He can be quite a ham!

The idea was to take pictures of them by the waterfall that we went to, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately not many of those came out, but here's the waterfall.
It's hard to see, but there is a big one in the back left that is original. The falls on the right were created by a log dam.
And here's me in front of them! It was quite windy, and this was after traipsing all over the area to get good shots. I was a little pooped at this point!

In other news, today is Trav's 27th birthday! I can't believe he's that old, considering we met when we were 20! (I know 27 is not old, just go with it) It feels like just yesterday we were celebrating birthdays in the typical college style - a la a cheap dinner and too much booze! Instead we BBQ'd and had his family over. Tonight we're just going out for dinner. Here's Trav with his new video camera for lots of baby videos!
Thanks Mom and Dad!

So that's all the fun and exciting stuff we've been up to lately. I leave you with my 30 week bump picture. Only 10 weeks left!

Nursery: complete!

2011-05-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

We've finally finished the nursery, and what better timing than on Mother's Day? Although I don't really feel like this is my "first" Mother's Day without an actual outside-baby, we celebrated anyway by going to dinner and a movie last night. And Travis is currently cleaning the bathrooms as I type this - nice :o)

So without further adieu, here are pictures of our completed nursery:
So our theme is a French-romantic theme, sort of shabby chic but without all the white furniture. I found these wall decals on Etsy, my favorite go-to site when I'm looking for something unique that I can't seem to find anywhere else. It doesn't help that I live in a one-horse town with my only retail choices being Walmart and JCPenny. Little did I know that the decals were coming from China, but they made it in about 3 weeks and I'm very happy with the results.
This is our dresser/changing area, complete with a Diaper Genie stationed nice and close for those stinky diapers! We also have a hutch that goes on top of the dresser once Emily is out of diapers, so I didn't want to spend much money on what went over it. The shelf was free thanks to a Lowe's gift card, and the stuffed animals were all gifts. The frames and artwork totaled $32.

The artwork is a page out of the original "Madeline" book and "Madeline goes to London". My big idea was to actually frame 3 or 4 pages out of the books. For those of you that don't know the Madeline books, they go something like this: "in an old house in Paris covered with vines, lives 12 little girls in two straight lines, they left the house at half past nine, the smallest one was Madeline" by Ludwig Bemelmans. Now if you actually glance through a Madeline book, you'll see that all of the artwork is by Bemelmans. Bravo to him for being a much better artist than I, but they weren't exactly what I had in mind to put up in my daughter's room. Most of the artwork is dark or, like in the first book, all one color. We also ran into an issue with finding appropriate sized frames that didn't cost an arm and a leg. (See above re: my limited retail options) So we settled on the first pages from the books. I think they turned out pretty cute!
Here's our rocker, and hanging above it is the antique baby painting that hung in my Dad's nursery, my nursery, and now Emily's nursery.
Here is only some of the clothes we have for Emily, grouped by age/size (of course). There is more in the dresser, and a ton in that laundry basket that I haven't tackled putting away yet. It's like laundry day x 1000, so I just do a little at a time. You can't see our diaper stock in this picture, but we also have tons of diapers at this point. So we should be good for...6 months? Let's hope so!
Here I am at 29 weeks! I can't believe we just have about 10 more to go!

In other news, I think our weather has finally decided that it's Spring. We haven't seen any snow in about a week (fingers crossed!) and it's been a tad warmer. Yesterday was nice and sunny, and Walmart and Lowes have all their flowers/outdoor stuff out. Travis has started playing in a band with a co-worker's husband, and they have their first paying gig on Memorial Day weekend. It's 3 nights, and from what I understand this band makes pretty good money, so that would definitely be a nice added bonus right now! However, every time he goes to practice with them, he comes home with a new instrument. We have an additional guitar, electric keyboard, and a banjo....yes, a banjo. This is a country band. My husband is playing music in a country band. We're all a little shocked! He keeps promising that all the new instruments won't be staying here, which is a good thing. I told him our house is starting to look like a second hand store for baby items and musical instruments!

Easter showers

2011-04-26T15:15:00.001-07:00

Hopefully bring May flowers! This weekend we got a bit of everything: snow, rain, and sun! My parents flew up for the weekend and my baby shower. Unfortunately the very first morning we woke up to snow. Sorry guys! The day proceeded to be rainy and gross, but all the snow melted! Easter Sunday was a beautiful day, and of course the day they left was absolutely gorgeous.

The shower was so much fun. I was a little nervous because I don't really love being the center of attention. But a ton of ladies came. We ate, played games, and of course - opened presents! Travis and I are so blessed to have such wonderful, giving people in our lives! Baby Emily got tons of clothing, of course. She will be one very well dressed little girl! We also got some fun toys, lots of diapers and baby care items, and a Baby Snugrider that our car seat can snap right into and transforms into a stroller. So cool!

Easter was pretty successful, if I do say so myself. I offered to host it here since my mother-in-law was busy shower planning. Really, we didn't make that much because Trav's grandma loves to cook and bring stuff. So we made the ham, a cheesy potato casserole (family recipe I found in the Bear River Lutheran Church cookbook!), and a 24 hour ambrosia-type salad. Memaw brought a cold bean casserole, pineapple casserole, and two pies. Yum! Everything was so good and everyone was stuffed by the end of the night. I consider that a success!

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the weekend. I'm not sure how that happened. My Dad did video record the entire shower, so maybe I'll post that if I get a copy. Then I can torture you all with 2 hours of present opening :o)

Pink has landed

2011-04-17T19:29:00.000-07:00

Pink is slowly taking over our house. No, not the singer - the color! Travis finished painting the nursery tonight, and I'm so excited! After living for years with beige walls, let me tell you this: any pink is pink. Whether it's muted or barbie doll pink, it's still very bright! Once we get stuff up on the walls and the bedding set up though, I know it'll look great.

Last week was kind of interesting at work. All of the reps except me got to go to Las Vegas for our annual continuing education conference. I'm not sure why I was overlooked for this trip, but Vegas at 6 months pregnant sounds like zero fun. The city changes every year though, so while I'll likely have to go next year I'm sure it won't be in Vegas again. Since I was the only working rep in our territory during the week, I got to see clients on two days instead of just one. Woo hoo! Now it appears that this will be the norm for awhile since the others are getting so busy with hearings. I love client days and actually meeting the people we help so this excites me!

Next week is a four day week for us, yay! The company gives us Good Friday off, so Travis and I will be driving down to Duluth to pick up my mom & dad for the weekend! I'm so excited to see them and to have them see all the progress we're making up here. Then Saturday is my baby shower! (I'm pretty excited, can you tell?)

Here's my latest bump picture at 26 weeks:
Finding pants that fit is getting a little tough lately. Looks like I need to do some shopping!

We have windows!

2011-04-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

That's right ladies and gentlemen, we have windows. Not just hanging out in the house - successfully installed! Travis is finishing the inside trim as we speak. I don' t have pictures yet because they still look a little ugly at this point. Once they're finished then I'll post some. We have to paint the outside trim as well. The weather turned for the worse so Travis will finish the paint when it's a bit drier. Currently our house looks like it has a black eye because the new trim is bright wood. But eventually it'll go back to looking normal!

Next weekend: we paint! There is an end in sight to our nursery renovations, and then I can start "nesting". I'm quite anxious to begin this part of the process! Up until now, it's been all nit, grit, and ugly stuff going on in there. I'm ready for it to be pretty!

Here's my latest bump photo at 25 weeks. Don't get too excited about that short sleeve shirt - it's still pretty cold here! I had a cardigan to go over this. But I'm starting to get to the "hot all the time stage" so I like wearing layers. It is warming up a bit here in northern Minnesota. We've been in the 40's all week! Woo hoo! On sunny days it's even nice enough to go without a jacket. Look out, summer will be here before you know it!

One check

2011-04-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

We've got one more check off our baby to-do list. Closet doors! The nursery had sliding doors, and only one was functional. Not so great. So we planned to get new bi-fold doors to put up. Of course, nothing can be easy, right?

Once again, our special house makes things harder. Standard doors were too tall and not quite wide enough. Luckily Travis found some doors on a local auction website, so we not only got closet doors but a few extra doors too. I'm not sure what we'll use those for, but we got them all for $10 less than what one new set of closet doors would have cost. I'm ok with that! So first he had to trim off some of the bottom on the doors to make them short enough. Then he had to add more trim to the door frame so there wouldn't be a huge 3 inch gap on each side of the doors. Then he had to sand and paint it all. 3 weekends later, we have the finished product!

Aren't they pretty? Much better than what was there before, trust me. Did you notice the little special touch I added to them? Those aren't just any old closet door pulls:
Pink crystal knobs! Aren't they fabulous? It's ok, you can be jealous :o) I originally just wanted one, but found the pair on Amazon for $13. I think it looks way better with two anyway.

I have a new favorite food obsession this week. We bought some "Garlic Garlic" seasoning from Tastefully Simple, and it has a dip recipe on the container. 2 tbsp seasoning, 1/2 cup of mayo and sour cream each, mix and enjoy. OMG is this heaven. I suppose you could use it to dip veggies in, but I've only tried it with potato chips to date. It's so yummy! After you eat it you'll be able to ward off friends, enemies, and vampires alike: bonus! I've also been craving milk like nobodies business. At least that's healthy!

Here I am at 24 weeks in my jailbird stripes:

Blizzards. I dig them.

2011-03-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't lost my mind. To 99% of the population, a blizzard looks like this:
But this week, we were supposed to get a blizzard. On "Blizzard Day 2011" our weather looked more like this:

That's right. Sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful day. I think the weathermen that air the doomsday snow and wind pictures on TV are really just lying. So I've decided that if that's what all our blizzards are going to be like, I'm totally cool with that.

In other news, being pregnant is hard work. Really! Think about it: 100% of my day is now spent growing another person. I don't think that's to be taken lightly. We went to Target yesterday to finish off our registry, and then walked around the mall for 45 minutes and I'll tell you what - I was pooped. I spent the rest of the evening on the couch with barely a cognitive thought going through my tired brain. But you know what's really cool? Visible kicks! Travis felt his first kick the other night, and I now sometimes see her kick instead of just feeling it. Like I said: it was hard work creating that :o)

We're in the middle of all types of nursery themed projects. Travis has nearly completed the new closet doors, and we're measuring for new windows in there. Of course because our 90 year old house has to be you-neek, nothing is standard size. So our "special" windows are going to cost about $75 more per window. Special windows indeed. We bought paint, but Travis said there is no sense in painting until we have the windows installed and the trim back up. So we wait. The color I chose is called "Water Lily Bloom":
I wanted pink but I didn't want PINK!, so I thought this was a nice muted shade. We'll see how it looks on the walls! Here's my latest picture at 23 weeks. I'm starting to feel like I look huge!

You know you're a grown up when...

2011-03-13T16:58:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been feeling very "grown up". I've always sort of felt like a 12 year old living this adult life, despite getting married, having a real job, buying a house, etc. Having a baby certainly brings on that "adult" feeling, but until she gets here I think that it still doesn't feel real.

What really makes me feel grown up? Purchasing our first set of real, matching bedroom furniture! Shocking, right? Travis and I have never had matching furniture in our room. Or very much at that. No headboard, office furniture as a nightstand, and one lone dresser. Quite the college set up if I ever did see one. So we decided to bite the bullet and buy some furniture for ourselves before everything became about the baby.

Our beautiful furniture came this week and I couldn't be happier!

Our lovely headboard/footboard combo and nightstand.
Separate dressers! *Angels sing*

The set is pretty Mission style, although I wouldn't say that that's my "style". I was just drawn to this set and I think it's beautiful. A little big for our room, maybe, but we can live with it! Best of all? We got it 1/2 off and it's all paid for!

So for right now I feel a little grown up. As soon as the newness wears off though, I think I'll revert to feeling like I'm 12 again, playing wife and soon to be mother.

In other news, I believe we have a shower date set! The moms have picked Easter weekend, April 23rd and my parents got their plane tickets all booked. So now we have to get the registry done. I started one on the Target and Babies R'Us websites, but holy-overwhelming-baby-madness. There is so much stuff. And it all has to be researched. Is it safe? Is it soft? Is it necessary? Welcome to my headache! Slowly but surely we'll get there. Plus, I keep telling myself: my parents survived lead-based paint and cars with out seatbelts (never mind carseats!). I survived a trip down our basement stairs in my rolling walker. Our baby will be ok!

Two years later

2011-03-06T15:44:00.000-08:00

Two years ago I had just walked down the aisle to meet my groom. Two years ago I was hearing about honeybees working hard and mating for life. Two years ago I married the love of my life and haven't looked back!

So where are we two years later? Three states away where it's still snowing in March, living in our own home, preparing to welcome our first baby into our lives. Wow can two years change things! I can honestly say that our second year of marriage was a lot smoother than our first year. There have been some bumps along the way, but hopefully life continues this upward slope!

On Monday Travis starts working in the office full time and will no longer be working late nights doing the janitor work. Hooray! I'm sure he's not looking forward to the early morning wake-ups, but I'm looking forward to having him home in the evenings and actually eating dinner together. Hooray for normalcy!

This week I have an appointment to interview a home daycare woman for when little Emily makes her appearance. This has been such a headache of an experience. Living in a small town sure has it's drawbacks at times. We only have two daycare centers, which are more expensive than in-home care, of course. I'd prefer to use in-home care anyway, so I asked around for recommendations and such. That yielded little fruit, so I turned to our local social services website and printed off all the names of licensed in-home daycare workers in our town. I called every single one, and only found one opening. One! I got on a couple wait lists, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully this woman is wonderful and I feel comfortable with her so we can just move foward with her. Fingers crossed, wish me good luck!

Here's a progress picture for you. Can you believe I'm already at 20 weeks? We're halfway there! If time flies for the next 20 weeks like it did the last 20, we'll have a baby here in no time!

It's done!

2011-02-27T20:14:00.000-08:00

The shower is done! DONE! I can take a shower in it tomorrow!

Aren't you impressed? I sure am! And beyond excited!

Visions of sugar plums...

2011-02-27T16:32:00.001-08:00

Friday was our big anatomy scan, and surprise! We're having a girl!!

I was so, so shocked because every bone in my body thought this was a little boy, but I guess she proved me wrong!

We had to drive down to the cities because my doctor likes her patients to see a specialist in ultrasound technology. She doesn't trust our small-town radiology department I guess. So of course we'd rather be safe and sorry, and we took the day off to make the 4 hour trip down.

The ultrasound itself was beyond amazing! They can see and do so much with technology now. We were able to see her brain, her spinal column, and her little heart pumping away. He was even able to show us in color the blood pumping in and out of her heart. Everything looks good and she's right on track! We got to see her little hands and feet, all toes and fingers accounted for. Here are some of the shots:
The top is a sideways shot of her nose and lips, and the bottom is her profile.
There's her little foot! He said it measures about 1 3/4 inches right now. That's so tiny!

The next big question is if we've picked a name. We've had names picked out for months so this is an easy one! We've decided on Emily Faith. Faith is my middle name, and my Dad always said they picked that because they had faith that God would take care of me and make me healthy. Of course we hope and pray for the same thing! Emily has been a long time favorite name of mine, and is one of the few that we can agree on!

On our way back from the cities we stopped at an outlet mall along the way to look at some baby clothes. Ok, well, I had every intention of buying stuff :o) At one point Travis said "you know she can wear other colors besides pink, right?" Haha! Yes dear, we can mix in some other colors. I've been happily spending the day online window shopping for nursery ideas. I think we're going to go with a light pink and brown, French "shabby chic" look. I even found a website that I can purchase a floor to ceiling Eiffel Tower wall decal. This is going to be one fabulous little girl's room!

In other news, Travis is finishing the shower as we speak. Hopefully I'll have pictures before the night is over. I'm ready to be showering in my own shower!

Spring? Is that you?

2011-02-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

I'm in disbelief. While we don't have roses and grass popping up yet, it is a balmy 41 degrees right now on the Iron Range. Can you believe that!?!? The snow on the roads is starting to melt, and I can actually see blacktop out there. One thing I'm not prepared for though: all that mud. We've had tons of snow this year, which means my dirt driveway is going to be a muddy river when everything actually starts to melt. Travis is currently outside trying to take snow off the roof of our garage. It didn't look like that much, but I think it's actually like 2 feet of snow up there. Holy moly! Look out river towns: this spring is going to be flood city.

A lot has changed at work since my last post. The former CEO's daughter has stepped into his place and is now running the company. She is a mother of two and so much easier to talk to, so I let her know right away that I was pregnant. All she said was "oh congrats! That is so exciting!" So that's a big weight lifted off my shoulders.

Since Travis has to be at work much later that I do, we began driving separately. This led to spending around $140 a week in gas. A week!!! Any increase we saw in our net income from my raise went straight into the gas tank. So I asked our new CEO on Friday how she felt about me working from home again, and she said yes! As of Monday, I'm a work-from-homer again! That will save us $280 a month, hooray! Travis is also going to start doing some office work as well. He had gotten to the point where he was only working 4 hrs a day, which, in my opinion, is a waste of time for the drive time and gas money spent. So we talked to the new boss and she was more than willing to give him some more hours, plus they need the help!

This week we also got the second piece of our nursery furniture: our dresser/changer combo! It's basically a dresser that you can attach a changing pad to on top. We also have a hutch to go on top of the dresser when baby is out of diapers. It came assembled though, so I have no clue what to do with it for the next 2+ years. It is currently sitting in our living room, just hanging out.

Since our options are somewhat limited up here (Target or Wal-mart) we decided to look at JCPenny online. We have a Penny's here, so we could ship to the store and return easily if need be. We got this set on sale from Penny's, and let me tell you: best decision ever. Penny's customer service is awesome! We had the crib and the conversion rails sent to the store so we didn't have to pay for shipping. They called us to let us know it had arrived, so we went Saturday morning to pick it all up. When we got there, the little old lady at the register had Travis help her get the box out of the back, but when he brought it out the box was bigger than me! There was just no way we were getting it in or on top of Trav's Dodge Neon or my Kia. The lady at Penny's even offered for us to use her car! We ended up going back the next day with Trav's mom's SUV, and he strapped it to the top. Travis put it together that evening, and after only a few bumps, it was all set up!

The dresser was being shipped on a truck to our house. I called a few times to check on it's ETA, and got really excited when they said it was at our local UPS. It took another week to get here, which started to make me anxious. Come to find out, they had to coordinate with a moving company to deliver it. The moving company called us to confirm delivery, and delivered it fully assembled. They even brought it up to the nursery and squeezed it through our narrow hallway!

So long story short: I would repeat this entire process again in a heartbeat. Couldn't be happier.

Here's a progress picture for you too!
17 weeks and there is no hiding that I'm pregnant! I still just feel fat at this point. I'm ready to start feeling baby move!

Work work work

2011-01-30T12:12:00.001-08:00

Waking up at 5:45, on the road by 7, in the office by 8. Leaving at 4:30, home by 5:30. Dinner, dishes, packing lunches, ironing clothes, bed time. Oh yes, so this is what it's like to have a day job.

Is it over yet?

I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but there is some kind of chemical imbalance in my brain that just does not make me suitable for a typical office job. Maybe it's the 50 minute commute? More likely that I've been doing my exact same job from home that I'm now required to do in the office. That probably has something to do with it. Oh well, it's a paycheck, right?

Travis also started his new job as the custodian of our new office. His hours are 9-whenever he finishes. He's been getting home about 8 every night. The first day we rode in together - and that was the only day we did that. I hate being in the office until 4:30, so I was extremely unenthusiastic about being there until after 7. No thank you. So I go in early and he drives himself in. Not the most cost-friendly, but we have a feeling his hours will be changing to be more like 12-8.

Actually, we're in for a lot of changes. We got a shocking call yesterday morning that the owner of our company passed away suddenly on Friday night. He was in his early 70's, but it is always tragic when someone passes so unexpectedly. I had talked to him a lot on Friday and he was in a great mood, and seemed to be in good health. He had just stepped back into the role of CEO, so I'm not sure what will happen with the structure of our company. I'm also not really sure what will happen with my new position and if that will stay the same.

So hug your loved ones extra tight today.

Oh baby it's cold outside!

2011-01-23T15:53:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, January in Minnesota. How quickly I forgot from last year. I was just saying to Travis the other day "it's the end of January! Pretty soon Spring will be here!" And then we were blessed with a week of barely zero degree temperatures. More like negative temps. Oh joy!

So the hubster and I haven't been doing a whole lot of outdoor activities lately. One good thing from this: our shower is now grouted! It looks fantastic. Travis isn't officially done with it, as he still has to seal it all, sand down the ceiling and paint the ceiling. I don't want to show you any pictures until it's done, so you'll just have to take my word for it - it looks great!

Since we've been trapped indoors, I came up with a project for us this weekend. Naturally. See, we ordered our crib and dresser/changing table last weekend and we should be getting them sometime this week. Because it's being shipped, I wanted to take them out of the box and set them up so that we can check for damages and/or missing parts. Our plan is to turn our office, which is right next to our room, into the nursery. So my plan for this weekend was to clean out the office, and move the desk and computer to the family room.

The actual moving part of it all was short and simple. We're only talking about a desk, computer, chair and a few filing cabinets. The very involved part of the process was going through all the junk that we had accumulated that I didn't want to be visible in our family room all the time. So here we are on Sunday evening finally finished with our project. The nursery is ready for furniture!

Here's my 14 week picture:
Still not a whole lot of change, but I think we're finally seeing "bump" instead of "bloat"! Haha! My monthly appointment is on Tuesday, so send good thoughts and prayers our way!

Tomorrow Travis and I begin our new jobs at the new office. For some reason we have to be there from 9-6, which is a very long day for me. I'm bringing a ton of food and snacks because my biggest worry is getting hungry and not having food available to me! We're thinking that as of Tuesday, Travis will be working at night while I'm on days. This would be great if baby were here now and I could keep working from home. That's not the case, but lots of things can change from now until then. So we're just waiting to see what happens!

That's all from the Iron Range for now. I'll leave you with some pictures of our snow mountains in the front yard. Have a great week!
I guess we'll be "those" neighbors who leave their Christmas decorations out until Spring.

Vacation!

2011-01-16T15:46:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to getting all our vacation pictures on the computer. I won't bore you with all of them, just the high-lights.

We left around 6:30pm on Monday night and drove straight through the night and Tuesday until we got just south of Atlanta where we stayed for the night. Driving crazy hours like this used to be no big deal, but I have a feeling that we're getting too old for those kind of shenanigans. After spending the night in Atlanta, we awoke bright eyed and bushy tailed Wednesday morning and drove the rest of the way home.

Along the way we stopped in Gainesville, FL. Go Gators! You may think we were stopping to see old college friends, or take a quick peek at the campus, but no. Travis wanted to stop for lunch at Mi Apa Cafe, home to some of the best Cuban food ever! We got our food to go and ate it at the rest stop so Maya could stretch her legs.
For New Years Eve, Mom and Dad took us on a dinner cruise on the Intercoastal Waterway. This was so much fun! I couldn't take advantage of the open bar, but I did enjoy my chocolate cake dessert!
Here we are waiting to get on the boat, which is behind us. It had 3 levels, the very top being all open with tables to hang out at. We ate dinner on the first level. We were even provided with New Year's hats!
After dinner we spent the rest of the evening on the top deck viewing small homes like this:
The rest of our days were spent at the pool, or shopping, or at the beach. And of course we had to go to world famous "Boston's on the Beach". If you go, you have to get the fish dip!
I'm not sure what was going on in this picture, but I look excited about something!
The view from Boston's patio, where we enjoyed 2 fish dips, and a plethora of other seafood dishes. Yum yum!

After lots of hugs and tears, and setting my parents up with Skype so we can video talk with them, we left earlier than intended. Our original plan was to leave very early Wednesday morning and drive straight through to St. Louis. After our previous 24 hrs in the car plus another day driving, I nixed this idea. So we left on Tuesday and drove to Atlanta, staying in the same hotel as when we drove down. Wednesday was an easy drive to St. Louis then.

I have to say this: even though we spent 2 years in St. Louis, 2 days is just not enough time to fit everything in! We had a great time even though the weather wasn't so hot while we were there. My sister in law took us to the art museum, which we actually had never been to before. It was really cool! They had a huge Waterlilies by Monet, and mummies! Travis took pictures of some of the Oceanic art but they turned out pretty dark. So the only pictures we have of our time in St. Louis is of us outside the museum.
We left Saturday morning and drove all day, getting home around 10:30 that night. We were greeted by this:
This was after Travis shoveled out our driveway, front porch and sidewalk. Then a few days later, we got another 4 or 5 inches. He is not a happy camper with Mother Nature this week. Hopefully next year we'll have a snow blower, or better yet - a 4 wheeler with a snow plow!

And just for fun, here's my 13 weeks picture:
Here's hoping for an early spring!

Surprise!

2011-01-09T18:52:00.001-08:00

We're pregnant! I'm actually about 12 weeks along, but we've been keeping it to ourselves until we could tell all our family in person. Best decision ever! I'm due on 7/21, only 6 short months from now! As of now, I'm feeling good and getting some energy back. I had some nausea and food aversions, but those are getting a lot better.

I'll have to do another post to update about our vacation, I don't have the pictures uploaded yet. I just wanted to let you all in on our special news. Visiting our family was awesome. I am so greatful that God has blessed us with such wonderful, supportive family. Everyone has been very excited for us!

More pictures to come!

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-27T13:49:00.000-08:00

Here I am, dear blogger. I know you thought I forgot about you. Life has been hectic and crazy as per usual around the Christmas holiday. We've had parties to go to, presents to wrap, and of course, our never-ending shower renovation.

No, the shower is not done yet. It's close though! Travis has put up almost all the tile. Unfortunately, Christmas festivities put a halt on tile installation and we will likely not finish it until we get back from our vacation. But I'm ok with that, and I think Travis is ready for a break.

We have been nothing but blessed this holiday season. I had to work a half day on Christmas Eve, and my boss called me first thing that morning. We had talked earlier that week about a new (but sort of old) position for me, working as a junior rep for the company again as well as doing my current job. We played phone tag for awhile, but he eventually got a hold of me so that I could accept and negotiate a $10K pay raise. Sweet! He also offered Travis a job as the custodian at the new office that we'll be moving into in January. Not the most glamorous job, but just a starting off point until something else comes open for him. It pays great, and is full time with benefits. He accepted!

Christmas Eve was spent at Bear River Lutheran Church, where most of the pews of the small church were filled by our family. Afterward we went for dinner at Grandma Fran's house and got to spend time with family from all over Minnesota. Christmas day saw us going back to Bear River to spend the day with Trav's parents and family. His brother took a shift on Christmas day for another coworker with kids, so they waited until he got home at 4:00 to open presents. We received lots of wonderful presents this year, the big ones include a circular saw, a wooden folding table with 2 chairs, a new set of silverware (much needed!), a vacuum, steam mop, and a beautiful new peacoat for me!

As I write this, we are currently waiting to head out on our trip to Florida. We're driving the entire 30 hour trek, taking about 2 and 1/2 days. We plan on leaving tonight around 8 and driving through the night and tomorrow until we stop tomorrow night. We're hoping to make it to Dalton, GA which is just an hour north of Atlanta. If we don't make good time, we'll power through until we get to Chattanooga, TN. Then we'll finish the rest of the trip on Wednesday. I am so looking forward to see my parents! So far our plans include mani/pedi's with my mom, a New Year's Eve dinner cruise, and dinner at a Japanese steak house on New Year's Day. Let's not forget lots of shopping! We'll be there for a week, and then take a day to drive to St. Louis to visit my brother's and their families. I'm ready to get a move on!

So naturally I will be neglecting my blog while on vacation. But I hope to have lots of pictures to make up for my disappearance! Stay tuned!

Shower, week 2

2010-12-13T16:38:00.000-08:00

I'm so very glad that my husband has the Mr. Fix-It aptitude that I so obviously lack. Here I thought that we'd have the new shower installed and tiled in a week. I am so naive.

In the words of my brother, "Every home improvement job takes at least 3 trip to Lowe's." In our case, Lowe's has been a daily occurrence. We need more screws, more cement, more stuff that I don't even know why we need it but it goes in the shower somewhere. But hubby has been trucking along, slowly making progress.
Here is it is after putting up the tar paper and putting in one layer of cement. Apparently that stuff has to dry for at least a day. Notice also the little step out that will be tiled and hopefully act as a water barrier.
Here is most of the cement board up and taped. Once we've water tested the pan liner and added another layer of cement to the bottom, Travis will fill in the bottom areas with more cement board. Then we'll be ready to tile. Which is a whole other story. Of course we can't agree on a tile we like. I think it comes down to good taste (me) and not so good taste (hubby). Hopefully we'll eventually compromise. I'd like to have my bathroom back by Christmas!

I also have to include a picture of our new lined curtains for our weird family room window. It is extremely long and short.

You'll notice our Diva Dog on her new favorite blanket. That's the electric blanket we got on sale on Black Friday. I believe that I have used it a handful of times, and Travis has used it a handful of times. Maya? She sleeps on it every day and every night. She will no longer sleep in her crate because she believes her rightful place is on her electric blanket on the couch. It's not on, but we're in trouble if she figures out how to operate the hand held control. She'll be nice and toasty all the time!

I guess Maya has a good idea though. As I write this it is currently -6 degrees. We're expected to have a low tonight of -27. Our Florida trip can't come soon enough! 14 days until we leave!

I love my house, I love my house...

2010-12-06T18:28:00.001-08:00

Really, I really do. But sometimes I want to throw something at it. Or give it a good, swift kick. You know?

We have lots of projects planned for this house, but nothing that is super urgent or needs to be done right now. Or, at least, until this past weekend. While most families are preparing for Christmas, decorating their homes and shopping for gifts, we are dealing with this:
What is this, you ask? Well, this my dear readers, is my 2nd floor shower. Sure not looking like a shower right at the moment, right? So let me tell you why it looks like this right now.

Friday morning I'm quietly taking my shower, minding my own business, when I hear a small little "crack" under my feet. Hmm, not so good. Ever since we bought this house, our shower floor has always felt like you were standing on un-solid ground. The previous owners put in a fiberglass shower surround and floor. Lo and behold, we discover that they bought the cheapest one that has foam underneath it. Foam!??! What good is foam!?!? Maybe if I weighed 50 lbs then this wouldn't be a problem. While I will not disclose my actual weight on a public forum such as this, I can tell you that it's not anywhere close to 50 lbs. So my big fat butt broke our shower floor.

We do have a full bathroom on our first floor, thank goodness. We really did not need to attack this problem right before Christmas. However, I hope to have an employed husband come January, so we're utilizing his free time now. So now I'm sure you're thinking "has Travis ever replaced a shower before?" Well, umm, no. But this is a learning experience! He's already doing a great job.

After looking at our shower options, we decided to put tile in instead of another fiberglass surround. The reasoning is that a surround cost just as much, if not a little more than doing tile. Surprising, right? So far Travis has ripped out the old shower, and the drywall they put up. Honestly, whoever put it in was an idiot. They used plain old drywall instead of the cement board that won't get wet and moldy. We also discovered that they used regular insulation behind that, instead of the plastic protected insulation which we replaced and you can see in the picture. (That was my idea! Hey, I watch HGTV - I know what I'm talking about!)

The biggest surprise so far? The sub-floor actually had a hole in it right underneath where it cracked. No wonder it always felt like you were standing in a hole! Today he got the new sub-floor in, and put in a new drain. Tomorrow is cement board and hopefully cement over the sub-floor. Somewhere in there goes a water proof membrane too, but at this point that's all up to hubby dearest. He's pretty ambitious, that man I married!

Hopefully by early next week we will have the tile laid. Please pray for us.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-28T14:38:00.000-08:00

It may be a few days late, but I'm still stuffed from our Thanksgiving fare thanks to plenty of leftovers. I hope you all enjoyed yours as well! Thankfully we didn't have to make the turkey since my mother-in-law offered to bring one. So Thanksgiving morning was spent washing china, setting the table, and cooking up all the sides!

Here is a picture of part of our table:
We were waiting on a card table that the family was bringing to extend our table a bit. 9 people sure wouldn't fit at this table!

And here I am cooking up a storm!
Somehow we forgot to take pictures of everyone at the table. Too busy being hosts I suppose!

Of course, once Thanksgiving was over and all the food was packed up and put away that could only mean one thing: Christmas decorating! I'm very excited to be able to pull out all our stuff and go to town decorating for the first time in this house. It's always difficult trying to figure out where things should go, and oddly I feel like I don't have enough decorations!
Although we put the lights up earlier this month, I waited patiently to turn them on until Thanksgiving night.
The living room, complete with our new little "wood" stove.
Dining room.
Last but not least - the tree! And yes, there are even some presents under there already. :o) The only problem we've run into is that our tree is just a tad too tall for the family room, coming it at 7.5ft. The poor angel's wings are pressed right up to the ceiling. I'm not sure what we'll do about that, unless we get a new, shorter tree. I already have this fancy tree in mind for next year. A girl can dream!

I hope everyone had a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving!

T-minus 2 days Till Turkey Day!

2010-11-22T15:30:00.000-08:00

Our Thanksgiving feast is nearly upon us, and I for one am excited. This is the first time we're hosting at our house. I can't wait to break out the fancy china!

So far our menu is pretty traditional. We'll be having turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, stuffing, maple dill carrots and some crescent rolls. Desert is being brought by Trav's grandma, and all I know is she's bringing pumpkin pie and custard pie. I am salivating just thinking about it!

I'm also looking forward to the annual Bear River Christmas Bazaar in which you can find goodies made by local "artisans". Travis plans on bringing some wreathes to sell as well. We're hoping to bring in some cold hard cash! We've also set up a sign outside to advertise our wares.
Hopefully we get some customers soon! Since we've had about 8 inches of snow today, I'm thinking that's got to get people in the Christmas spirit!

Winter Wonderland

2010-11-14T17:04:00.001-08:00

We've had our first big "winter storm" of the year this weekend. Yay snow! There's something to be said for being able to hunker down at home and drink hot chocolate while it snows outside. We got an early Christmas present from my Mom & Dad that made it extra special. They gave us a faux wood stove that looks like a little fireplace and blows out warm and hot air. So we've been sitting by the "fireside" all weekend!

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment:
Travis cut a path between our yard and the house on the left side of this picture. That's where Maya's best friend, Charlie lives. They play everyday, but unfortunately neither one of them are taller than 15 inches. They need a path!
So far we've had about 6 inches, and it's still snowing! Although supposedly the sun is supposed to come back out tomorrow. But I think it's official, we won't see our grass until April!

So maybe I'm a hypocrit

2010-11-08T14:43:00.000-08:00

After all my preaching last week about waiting until after Thanksgiving to start with the Christmas festivities I have confession to make: we put up our outside Christmas lights. But hold on a minute! I can explain!

I live in the land of snow and ice. The Northern Tundra. We might as well be Canada right? I didn't want my husband on our second story roof in December when we will most likely have snow and/or ice. We have crappy insurance and I sure don't want to test it out. So yes, he got up there and put the lights up. He also strung some up on the garage and on our front porch. We have some lawn figures, but we're waiting to put those out - I know you can only handle so much. And the neighbors are doing it too.

Speaking of snow, we surprisingly have had none. Zip. Zero. A small town to our north had a little bit, but we haven't seen a single flake. That's fine for now, but we better have some by Thanksgiving. What are the holidays without a little festive snow? We've had an unusual "warm" streak with highs in the upper 50's. Cold by my mother's standards, but not by a Minnesotan!

Halloween is over - bring on Christmas?!

2010-11-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

It sure feels like now that Halloween is over, everyone is ramped up for Christmas. Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE Christmas. There are no if's, and's, or but's about it - Christmas is by far my favorite holiday. I come by it naturally; my mother is equally as crazy about the holiday. And I go all out. Christmas tree, decorations, dishes, blankets, carols all month long, you name it. But I'm just not ready!

Whatever happened to Thanksgiving? I mean, sure, we all get happy about the day off and the good food. But it feels like a speed bump along the way to the "big day". I think we all need to just slow down a bit and chill out. Let's get excited about turkey day!

One reason I'm particularly excited about Thanksgiving this year is that I get two days off for the holiday. My office is closed on "Black Friday", meaning that it may be possible for Travis and I to score some good deals! We haven't shopped on Black Friday for a few years, but cleaned up on gifts for our family and some things for ourselves. Gotta love a sale! The best part about where we live is that in a small town you don't get swarms of people. Sure, there are crowds, but nothing compared to a big city!

For the record - Halloween was a bit of a bust around here. I bought a lot of candy, planning on lots of Trick-or-Treaters since we have quite a few kids in our neighborhood. We only got about 10-15 kids, so we have tons of candy left over! (Although that's really ok in my book.)

So bring on Thanksgiving!

Leaves, leaves, leaves

2010-10-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

They're everywhere! Run for your lives!!! AAAAHHHH!!!!

You know what comes with a nice, big yard with lots of mature, pretty trees? You guessed it: leaves! For days on end! And this picture is just one small portion of our yard. We have birch trees, maple trees, a willow tree and apple trees all shedding right now.

Travis and I went back and forth on when to start raking and if we should maybe get a second rake so that we could both rake at the same time. Then we could rake all weekend. And maybe next weekend too.

I finally gave in and we bought this:

The Mac Daddy of All Leaf Blowers.

You know what's still sad about this? One tank of gas only got about 1/3 of our yard done. Travis spent a his entire Saturday blowing leaves. Let's pause for a moment to think about how long that would have actually taken with a rake. Can you imagine? I believe this was money well spent.
This is just one of about 4 piles of leaves that Travis managed to wrangle up. Now we just have to decide what to do with them. My mom is a fan of burning, although I'm certain we'd have the DNR fire fighters arresting us in no time if we do that. We could easily fill a bagillion trash bags. I suggested putting an ad on Craigslist. You never know what people will take for free. Think we'll get any takers?

Another giveaway!

2010-10-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Go check out The Painted Hive for her giveaway this week. Up for grabs is a beautiful grain sack inspired pillow cover. I happen to think it would go lovely with my bedroom curtains, but hop over and enter for your chance to win too! I love this Aussie's style, her decorating always looks peaceful and "quiet" to me. Her rooms have a spa like feel that just make you want to relax.

You say it's my birthday

2010-10-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

That's right, it's my birthday! Well, yesterday was technically my birthday. But this is my birthday "weekend". For my birthday I decided I wanted to go drive up the North Shore to look at the fall colors, then head back to Duluth to have dinner there since the restaurant choices are far superior to what we have in Hibbing. Unfortunately most of the leaves have fallen already but we still had a good time.

The day started with opening presents:
These are winter riding pants, kind of like snow pants
Except they have suede on the butt to help you stick in the saddle!
And I got winter riding boots! Of course I had to try them on. Now I'm all set for riding this winter!

Then we drove up the North Shore to the Split Rock Lighthouse, that overlooks Lake Superior

It was a gorgeous day, so we had great views. There are a few paths you can take to several overlook areas, including the area around the light house itself.Look closely, you can see a cave!

There is also a picnic area on a beach that is part of the park. We were going to forgo that area but Travis decided he wanted to go have a look anyway. As we park he says "So are you hungry?" and pulls out our "winery day" picnic basket from the trunk, complete with wine, cheese, crackers, and goodies! I was completely surprised. He knows how much I miss going to the wineries in Missouri, and decided to make a winery day for me. He's pretty sweet ;o)
Our view!
Risking life and limb to climb out on the beach after a few glasses of wine.
From our spot on the beach we could see this little island, that is connected to the beach by a little land bridge. You can kind of see some people walking on it to the right. Just beautiful!

We ended the day in Duluth by dining at Bellisio's Italian Restaurant. They have the largest wine list I have ever seen. We had a wine flight and enjoyed some delicious food before heading home. It was a wonderful day!

I love a Giveaway!

2010-10-15T18:11:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine makes handcrafted soaps, bath salts, shampoo, face wash....you name it. I personally think she is awesome for taking on this endeavor with her husband, and she's having great success! She's also having a giveaway! Go check out Reef Botanicals blog for more information and the link to her shop. Go I say! Go!

You win some, you lose some

2010-10-04T13:35:00.001-07:00

You know, life can't always be about the win, right? You gotta have some loses to stay humble. Like with my cooking and math skills. Or lack thereof. I know these are two things I do not excel at. At all. So I usually leave the cooking up to my wonderful hubby, and I like to let him do all the math too - or carry a calculator.

Normally Travis is a super good cook. He's very imaginative, but doesn't stray to far out of my realm of comfort. We also like to use our crock pot quite a bit, especially now that the weather is turning colder. So imagine my surprise when I walked in the kitchen one morning to find this:
Why yes, that is my husband holding up half of our ceramic crock pot insert. Hmm, interesting. Apparently he dumped frozen stew meat in and it fell just a wee bit to hard. Not only did the meat crack the thing in half, but the entire base fell out and into 3 pieces. Great! Luckily we have a 24 hour Wal-mart, so he was able to go buy a fancy, schmancy new one to cook our beef stew that day. And it has an metal insert! (Plus a retractable cord, and a locking lid. It's pretty cool.)

Not too long after the crock pot incident, dear hubby and I were perusing Overstock.com for some gym floor tiles for our "new" home gym. Let's pause here so I can explain. Our basement is basically one little room after another. Kind of freaky actually. But there is one room that so far has just been a pass through to the "Christmas Room" where I store all my Christmas decorations. (Please keep your eye rolling to a minimum here.) This room is about 8'x16'. So we decided that it would make a nice little home gym. Our treadmill was already there, but no plugs to plug it in. Hubby ran an extension cord across the basement to the one and only 3-pronged plug down there. I bought a fitness ball and a yoga mat so that I could do some ab work and light weight lifting with the 5# weights I already own. Hubby was even nice enough to set up a TV and run a cable line to it so that I can watch TV down there while I work out. It's great! All we wanted was a little bit of flooring to give the hard, concrete floor a little more cushion and warmth.

We found a great deal on those gym floor tiles, that go together like a puzzle. They are 1'x1'. The pack we bought included 24 tiles. So in my mind, this meant it would cover 24'x24'. See where I'm going here? I blame hubby for having a total brain fart on this one, because I told him my rationalization that we would only need one package and he agreed. If you're not mathematically inclined I will help you out with what I've learned so far: our room is 8'x16'= 128 square feet. The package contained 24 1'x1' tiles = 24 square feet. Doh!
So, umm, yes. Now I have a little padded corner of the room to do crunches on. In reality we need about 5 1/2 packages of this stuff to cover the whole room. Right. You can laugh now.

Moving on to wins!

My sister in law was nominated for homecoming! Since she's a junior, she couldn't actually be voted as queen, but she looked pretty darn cute anyway!You can't see much of her dress here, but it was very pretty - and short! That's the style this year though, all of the girls dresses were super short. Her escort thought he was pretty cool, yea?

Travis has decided to make and sell balsam wreathes this year for Christmas. Today was Day 1 of his work "schedule". So far he's right on track with 3 wreathes done!
And lastly: I got into grad school! Woo Hoo! My last reference sent in her recommendation letter about two weeks ago, and I was just notified on Friday that I've been accepted! I'll be attending the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee's Master of Library Science online program, starting Summer of 2011. Which is good, because that gives me some time to figure out how to pay for it! I was accepted by Minnesota's reciprocity program, so I at least only have to pay in-state tuition. That's still a lot of money though! But I'm not thinking about all of that right now, I just want to revel in being accepted for a little while longer!

Uh oh...

2010-09-26T18:15:00.001-07:00

Two weeks and no posts? Don't give up on me faithful followers! I have not abandoned you! I've just failed my responsibilities for a short time, but I'm back. Let's forgive and forget, shall we? Moving on...

A few weeks ago I started having a little bit of car trouble. The engine light came on. I've had this happen before, and all it signaled was my gas cap not being tight enough. Been there, done that. I tighten up the gas cap and wait for my engine light to go off. And I wait. And I wait. Finally a few days later, it does!

Then a few days later, my engine starts making a funny sound. Uh oh is right. I drive it to Wal-mart and back to listen to it. The knocking only happens when I accelerate. Okay. I bring it home to my handy husband and say "husband, please go fix my car, it's making a funny noise." I'll give him credit - he did go out and putter with it for awhile, but couldn't figure it out.

Now it's time to take it to a shop and have someone (who really knows what they're doing) take a look at it. Mr. Mechanic had it for a week, and finally tells us on Friday "well I think you need a new engine. I don't want to mess with it since you have a warranty, so I'd suggest you have it towed to the dealership in Duluth." Of course we don't have a Kia dealership in Hibbing. Or anywhere on the Range for that matter. It's Ford, Dodge, and Chevy, all day long. Thank goodness for AAA (love you Dad!)

A few hours later, Mr. Tow-truck-driver picks up my car and heads off to Duluth with my car. Now we're starting to sweat a little, because I've kept up with the maintenance up until we moved here. With the nearest Kia dealership being 2 hours away, it's not exactly "convenient" for us to jog down there all the time. Travis has been doing my oil changes. So we had to round up all my records that Monday (which, for the record, were all in my glove box but the the mechanic swore he couldn't find them) from the two dealerships I'd taken my car to, and fax them to Duluth Kia. They receive them, and we wait. And wait, and wait.

Fast forward to Friday when we finally get an update.
Mr. Kia Mechanic: "yep, looks like you're going to need a new engine."
Me: "......."
Mr. Kia Mechanic: "do you want us to do that for you ma'am?"
Me:"uh. how much is that gonna run me?" *at this point I'm having chest pains*
Mr. Kia Mechanic: "Oh yea. Nothing! Kia is going to cover that for you."
Me: "REALLY?!?! Oh Mr. Kia Mechanic, I could kiss you right now! You just made my day!"
Mr. Kia Mechanic: "err, great. so should I get started on it?"

It finally took another week to get my car back, brand new engine tested and running good. My bill for the whole process? $16.80, only because I asked them to rotate the tires too. Hooray!

So here are the lessons I've learned: Always take your car in for regular maintenance. It's a pain in the butt, but will pay off in the end.

Be nice, you catch more flies with honey. I wanted to get upset with how long the process was taking, and how they better pay for my engine since I'd been doing regular oil changes. And how the heck does an engine go after only 4 years anyway? But I didn't. I was patient and nice. I'm pretty sure that rotating tires costs more than $16, but I didn't question it. (Ok, that's not entirely true. I did have a minor freakout when the cashier said "that'll be sixteen eighty" and I thought she meant $1,680. But that was a small oversight.)

Kia may not be Mercedes, Toyota, or Ford for that matter, but if the car keeps on running and the company is willing to fix it's mistakes and take care of it's customers then I'm sold. This may not be our last Kia.

And there you are.

Have to add this one

2010-09-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

We found some hay bales! I will slowly be adding to my pumpkin collection :o)

The Playhouse is Gone!

2010-09-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

Hoooooray!! The playhouse has finally left our yard to reside somewhere else, we've been paid for it, and it is gone! This project was a lot more than I was anticipating, I'll tell you that. Once Travis posted it on Craigslist, we had tons of interest in it but there was always one problem - no one could figure out how to get it home. The playhouse is 8x12x8, so we needed a big trailer. No one seemed to have a trailer big enough to haul it away. Finally Travis talked to his dad, who had a snowmobile trailer big enough to handle it. Ah-ha! So Travis relisted the sucker with a "delivery" fee, and *poof*! Gone!

I am so in love with our back yard now. It feels like we have a lot more space.
The playhouse used to block the right side of the garage from this view. Even pre-clean up it looks so much better.
Here you can see the square shaped patch of dirt where it was. We plan on planting grass there next spring. But you can also now see all the way to the tiny tree wayyyyy in the corner of our yard. Nice!

Everything looks pretty green in those pictures, but I'll let you in on a secret: leaves are starting to change! There is only a few patches here and there, but it's true - hints of red and orange are starting to blaze all over the place. This only goes to show that I am right on time with my fall decorating! I'll spare you the brunt of it, but here are a few pictures.
I love this cute candy corn berry garland I found at Country House. The little "Give Thanks" hanging pillow was only $2 on sale at Joann's.
Some leaves adorning our bookshelves in the family room. The pumpkin has little mini pumpkins surrounding it. I should have taken a closer picture.

And yes, I'm sure you noticed the giant TV next to the bookshelves. We finally broke down and upgraded from our 23" box TV. Wal-mart had this 42" flatscreen beauty on sale for $540-ish, and they threw in a $100 gift card which essentially paid for our groceries for 2 weeks. Not a bad deal. And it's paid for thanks to the sale of our playhouse :o) I have to admit, as I sit here watching Sunday football, I don't know how on earth we watched TV on something so small before. I can actually see the players! I can read the score! It's like a football-season miracle!

This week I'll be on a mission to find bales of straw to decorate our front porch. Stay tuned!

Labor Day

2010-09-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ah Labor Day. The weekend that closes Summer and ushers in Fall. You can tell Fall is coming by the crisp air, and the way the light starts to change. It's like someone has turned a switch, and all of a sudden the days are shorter, the evenings a bit cooler.

Many people mourn the end of summer. Certainly the kids do. Here on the Iron Range, kids don't go back to school until after Labor Day. I, on the other hand, love this weekend. I always say "Fall is my favorite". I love everything about it! I love the leaves changing, bringing out the sweaters, football, and pumpkins all over the place! My house is no exception. I love decorating for fall.

So I trudged downstairs to riffle through our decoration room to see what all I had. I came back upstairs with an arm-full of stuff. After putting out my fake leaves and hanging up few wreaths, I decided that we were seriously lacking in the fall decoration department. We live in a much bigger house than I've ever had to decorate! I needed more stuff. More Stuff.

Off to Joann's we went (why yes I said "we". I also needed extra hands to hold whatever bounty I found). Joann's just so happened to be having a big Labor Day sale, 40% off on all fall decor! Hooray! I did keep myself in check though, and managed to spend less than $50 thanks to the sale. The grocery store also started selling pumpkins in the produce section. So all I need now is a bale of hay for the front porch and we'll be set! Pictures to come eventually!

Cousins and curtains

2010-08-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

When you live in a small town, chances are that you're related to someone. Or the whole town - one way or another. Travis has a multitude of cousins and second cousins, enough to make up a small town. We always joke that he had to come all the way to Florida to find a wife because he was related to everyone up here.

This weekend we went to a second cousin's wedding, and sure enough we knew most of the people there one way or another, and there were probably 200 guests altogether! I asked Travis "do you think that when people get together up here, they have to find out if they're related first?" I was joking, but his answer was "yeah, probably".

So the Anderson clan and family took over Fortune Bay Casino for the night, and probably consumed all the beer in the place! You know Northern Minnesotan's, they can really put away the alcohol. We danced the night away and managed to get home at the decent hour of 2:30am. Here we are early on in the night:
I was laughing at something Trav's mom was saying about the picture she took of us right before this. We had to redo a few times :o)

It's a good thing that my husband really loves me, because we take the saying "Happy wife, happy life" pretty seriously. Well, I do at least. Travis is kind enough to humor me and go along with it. So today, after only a few hours of sleep, I asked him to help me hang some curtains. Luckily for Travis, he also knows that a happy mother-in-law means a happy life too. My mom is determined to dress every window in our house, slowly but surely. She sent us these lovely curtains for our bedroom just this week, so of course, we had to put them up today in order to get pictures to send to her.
They are from The Country House magazine/website. Not to be confused with the Country House store in St. Charles, MO. Also one of our favorite places to shop. These curtains are great because they are lined to keep the sun and cold out. As you know, we get our fair share of cold here in MN. But what you may not know is that from May to August, the sun also likes to rise at some ungodly hour like 4am. No joking. It's like we live in Alaska or something. So these should help us sleep in a little, or at least until the alarm clock goes off.

So that's what we've been up to. Being party animals and home bodies, all in one weekend!

Bear River Fair 2010

2010-08-22T13:05:00.001-07:00

It's that time again - time for the fair! Since I no longer write for the Cook News Herald, I was able to relax and enjoy the fair this year. Last year I was on patrol for a good story to write! This year we only spent a few hours there, but somehow managed to still take part in a lot! I volunteered to help out with the concession stand for a few hours, and Travis ended up on a softball team with his cousins at the last minute. They ended up winning, so he had to go back this morning for an 8 am game. Talk about early! I opted out of that trip and stayed home to sleep in :o)

As always, we had a good time with friends and family. Our cousins usually camp there over the weekend since they're on the softball team, so we hung out with them afterward and it turned into a bit of a party. That's how we roll in Bear River! All 3 "B's" were present - bonfire, bean bags and, of course, beer!

I have pictures of the softball game, but unfortunately nothing really after that. So enjoy!

Travis played catcher. He was doing great up until this pop up, and he managed to fall flat on his butt!

Can't take him anywhere! He was appropriately nicknamed "Poopy Pants" for the rest of the night.

Here's the team after the game. They played for Zup's grocery store, but only 1/2 or so had the team shirts on. And they're pretty much all related too - cousins everywhere!

The 8 am game didn't go quite as well as yesterday. From what I heard there was a lot of falling and missing balls. Oh well, you win some - you lose some!

Swiss Family Robinson

2010-08-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

They lived in a tree house. Most of our week has revolved around our tree house. It's a very loose tie, but there is a connection! We have an ugly (UGLY) tree house in our back yard. Well, let's say we used to have an ugly tree house in our back yard. Now we have an ugly shack:
This beauty used to be the second story of our tree house, underneath was a little garden shed. There was a wooden ladder so you could climb up and the porch had railings all the way around. This 8th World Wonder is insulated, has electricity and even a window. The roof on it is newer than the roof on our house!

From day one I have said "that sucker is coming down!" We have no need for the Taj Mahal of tree houses in our back yard, so Travis got his brain working on this little project. By some engineering feat, he managed to knock down the bottom half with the top remaining in one piece. How he did this, I have no clue. Houdini doesn't reveal his secrets.

Now you're thinking, why wouldn't you just knock all of it down? Well my friends, my dear husband wants to sell it. Like as a playhouse. This is conceivable, no? It would make a very cute little girl's dreams of playing house or school come true. And she could even play in it during the winter! Obviously though, not in it's current conditions. The little bit of sun bleached pink (which used to be Pepto Pink) is probably not enough to convince a naive little 8 year old that this is her own barbie dream house. So off to Lowe's we went to take a gander at their "oops" paint.

We found lots of gray, and lots of wood varnish, but nothing that we really could use to cover this bad boy up. Then we wandered over to the builder grade paint section - you know, cheap but does the trick? Right next to that is a whole "Barn Paint" section. Perfect! The only setback here is our limited color choice: Red, Green, or White. I guess barns don't really come in a whole lot of colors unless you're going the Morton route. Lowe's only had red and white in an acrylic based paint that does not require a primer - so guess what we picked?

Our progress so far:
Just a little more trim painting with the white, put the railings back up, and we'll be all done! Then all we have to do is sell it! Good thing Travis is on a little vacation so he can devote all his time to this project. I sure hope it's worth it!

Blah, blah, blah

2010-08-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

This is how I feel about life right now. Just blah. I failed to update the blog yesterday because, frankly, I have nothing super exciting to write about.

Travis lost his job this past week, so there's that. The district manager decided to close all the one man shops around here. Now they're sitting on 4 offices that they have to pay rent and utilities for, but with no one in them making money. Brilliant business decision, I must say. So now Travis is home all day with me, searching for jobs and keeping up with the very demanding requirements of unemployment. Submit this, fill out that. Unemployment is a job all by itself! Pray that something comes through for him.

I had a job interview with my company for the representative position (which I did for a month) last Friday. But alas, first thing that morning I got a phone call from my boss that my interview was being canceled because they offered the position to a candidate they had interviewed the day before. I still have my job working from home though, thank goodness.

The only shiny spot I have going right now is that I'm still riding and helping out with barn chores. I finally admitted to myself that my saddle is too small for me though, and have listed it on ebay. Talk about stressful! I've already had to re-list it once since it didn't sell the first time around. I currently have no offers on it as we speak. I wish someone would just buy the darn thing! In the meantime, I've been stalking a few other saddles to replace my ill fitting one. However, after bidding and losing on a total of 3, I've given up all hope on winning something via ebay. So I bit the bullet and ordered a new saddle from Dover that I can test ride in for a few days first. If it doesn't fit then I can return it. Hooray! This is the saddle I'm getting. It's a little more than I would normally spend, but I happen to know that they are very well made, good quality saddles that resell very close to their original purchase price. Also, I have it on good authority that many people in the AQHA world use these. Since I seem to be living in the land of Quarter Horses, I figured this will be a safe bet for a future horse of my own.

Speaking of, I found a rescue group in southern Minnesota: Minnesota Hooved Animal Rescue Foundation. If you don't know my horsey history, then you don't know that I learned to ride on rescued horses and my first horse was an off the track Thoroughbred (OTTB) rescue. Rescues hold a special place in my heart for all the good they do. So when the time is right, I hope to maybe find a horse through this organization. There is one cutie, named Sterling, that I would love to take home with me today. If only! They're hosting an auction next weekend for 13 of the horses that were in the Trainer's Challenge (read more about it on the website), and Sterling is one of those. I am trying to convince Travis that we should go watch but given my latest ebay experience, he was quick to point out that I am no good at auctions. Hardee-har-har. It's probably for the best - I need a horse like I need a hole in my head right now!

So that's what we've been up to. I hope to have more exciting news for you next week!

Riding, riding, riding

2010-08-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Lately that's all I've been doing. Really though, that's ok with me! Poor Travis may be missing me a little, but he knows I'm happy and that's a big plus. In addition to my weekly lessons on Monday, I've also started feeding and cleaning stalls on Wednesday and Friday nights. My trainer and I have worked out a deal to exchange chores for rides, so I'm also riding on Thursday night and Saturday morning. My life is full of horses again! And it's wonderful!

Travis came along on Saturday to meet the ponies and see where I'm spending so much time. He also took pictures and a video. Here's me riding Noah:

Noah was being a little lazy so my equitation isn't as good as it should be. I was working really hard on just keeping him going! I can tell my legs are sorely out of shape. So please ignore our transitions. :o)

My trainer also has a horse that she's trying to "give" away. Apparently she rode and showed him quite extensively at one point, but he came up lame. After having a vet look at him, they discovered that the issue was in his back and not his legs, so he's "body sore". The vet said that it would just take time to heal, and now it's been a few years. So she's trying to get me interested in him. It's something to consider, but not until we have a vet look him over to see if he still has issues. We shall see!

Blueberry Festival

2010-07-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went to the annual Ely Blueberry Festival. As promised, we went and I plan to tell you about it. Unfortunately we don't have very many pictures. It just wasn't a picture taking sort of event!

Actually, I was a little underwhelmed with the "blueberry" part of the festival. I had envisioned tent after tent of all things blueberry. Blueberry pie, blueberry jam, blueberry tarts, blueberry craziness all day long! That wasn't the case though. There was a pavilion where you could buy a slice of blueberry pie. You could also get some blueberry-flavored soda. There was one tent (one and only one) that had some blueberry scones, blueberry sugar, and I think some blueberry pancake mix. But that was it!

Afterward we did go to eat at the Boathouse Brewery & Pub, which was featuring a Blueberry Blonde Ale. I had that with lunch and it was yummy! There were even little blueberries hanging out at the bottom of my glass.

Even though the festival wasn't exploding with blueberry-ness, I still managed to have a good time. I wouldn't want you to think otherwise! I'm not sure if Travis had a "good time" or not, but he was a trooper. We did the whole festival, a nearby craft show, and walked around downtown for awhile. Ely is a really neat city and I love going there. They have a great downtown area with lots of shops and restaurants. You can definitely spend a whole day there!

I feel bad for not having super photos of the festival, so I'll share the ones I do have :o)
Travis walking from the festival to the craft show. His shirt has blue pinstripes and I wore a blue shirt as well. Figured it would be fitting. And we're cheesy like that.
This cute little framed leaf painting was on a "clearance" rack in one of the booths. I got it for a whopping $6 - not to shabby!

This is a really neat old window that a vendor cleaned up and painted with pretty flowers and such. I thought it would look nice in our guest bedroom. Whadya know - it does! Zak approves.

So that was our exciting trip to the Blueberry Festival. Today was spent around the house. Can't have a weekend of all fun and no work! We finally finished painting over the basement wall crack (and the rest of the wall) with Drylock today. That cement/concrete stuff takes ages to dry! Doesn't help that it's in the humid basement I suppose.

This afternoon we went grocery shopping. I don't particularly like grocery shopping, but I see it as sort of a game. Like, let's see how much stuff I can get for the least amount of money! So usually I scout the sale flyer online, make my list and meal plan based on what's on sale for about two weeks out. Even though we live in town now, I still find that this helps us save money. I print my coupons at home since we don't get the flyer in the mail. I hate trying to sift through it to find the coupons in the store. Then you have to rip them out and it looks all jagged. I have thought about bringing a small pair of scissors with me though, that's always an option.

This week I happened to hit the grocery store jackpot. They had a full page of "Buy One Get One Free" items. Wahoo! So how did I fair? I managed to walk out of the store with approximately $175 worth of food for two weeks for $114. :o) My receipt said I saved $63 total. I think that earns me a gold star, don't you?

Now I've earned myself a little relaxing time. And a nap. I definitely think a nap is in order.

Weekend Warriors

2010-07-18T15:38:00.001-07:00

Sometimes we like to wear this hat. Sometimes we don't. This weekend was a warrior weekend - mainly out of necessity. If you remember a few posts ago that we made a rain barrel due to a poor gutter location and a crack in our basement wall. Well the rain gutter has been working quite well, but it can only do so much, you know? So this was "patch the crack in the basement wall weekend".

Travis did his due diligence by researching online what we needed and just exactly how he needed to get the job done. Then off to Lowe's we went with our list in hand. Thankfully we got out of there under $100. Also, we only needed to go back once to get more putty/plug stuff for the outside too.

Once we got home, construction commenced and I made myself scarce. This was a one man job anyway, so I let Trav have at it. Now, I don't remember if I have ever mentioned our half wall insulation in the basement, so I'm going to tell you about it now. We have a crazy layer of insulation around the entire perimeter of our basement, from waist level to the ceiling. Why the previous owners thought this was helpful is beyond me. The insulation faces the wall, and the outside is a shiny aluminum foil-like material. We had to take a lot of this down to get to the heart of the crack. Wonder of wonders, there was even more crack than we thought. And of course this lovely insulation was holding on to some of the moisture coming in from the outside. Luckily there was no mold and it all came down nicely.

So after a lot of chiseling and mixing and troweling, our basement crack is filled. Most of it was done yesterday, the last bit outside was finished today. Now all that's left is to paint over the wall with Drylock and we should be done! Hopefully this will keep the water outside where it belongs!

Last night was the 3rd Avenue Block Party, which is a lot like the Hibbing Street Dance, but just one band and two bars. Big plus - it's 21 and over, so there are no teeny-boppers or crazy people with their kids and strollers and beer. Not a good combo. Yesterday was also Trav's sister's birthday, so we had dinner and cake at the in-laws house and then made it for the last hour of the block party. It's a funny thing being the only sober people around a ton of not so sober people - but it was fun! Among the crowd were toga wearers, some hula-dancers and a raucous bachelorette party. So we danced and sang along with Shamrock'd and made it home at a decent hour. It's always an adventure!

Next week - Ely Blueberry Festival!

More curtains!?!

2010-07-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

My mom is a sewing fool!

It's ok, you can be jealous of our beautiful curtains.

Moms rock

2010-07-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

My mom made this valance for our mudroom just for me, so I'm posting these pictures just for her.

Love you mom!

I love a parade!

2010-07-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

I really do! There's nothing like a little community bonding over local businesses, fire trucks and cheesy floats. And the benefit of going to parades around here? They give out candy. By the bucket full. Oh yes. Surprisingly we've had very warm weather, so there were even some some freeze pops being passed out. Of course I took some photo evidence for your viewing pleasure!

91 degrees! See! I told you it was warm! Travis has decided that he wants to join the Shriners so that he can drive these little mini-cars in parades. They did look like a lot of fun!

One of the big huge engines from the community college's CDL program. And Paul Jacobson, our neighbor, is running for State Representative!

Greyhound and Great Danes! The Greyhound bus line was founded right here in Hibbing, MN. We also have a Great Dane rescue that spans over the state into Iowa and Wisconsin.

After the parade was the annual Hibbing Street Dance. Our favorite band, Shamrock'd was headlining the main stage, so of course that's where we were! Trav's brother, Zach, and our good friend, Dan, are in the band. It was pretty hot until the sun went down, so it was a good thing the beer was a-flowin'! Apparently no one else got the message that it was a street "dance" as we were the only ones dancing, but hey - we had a good time and that's all that counts.

Here is the band on stage, wearing their super cool light up bunny ears. Nice.

Not only do they play on stage....

but IN the street as well. Just playing up the crowd I guess!

Lori, Susie and I after a short rain shower. We don't let rain stop us!

Today we recovered by going to my new favorite beach, McCarthy Beach. It's a lake beach, not an ocean beach - don't get confused. Since it's a state park, we had to buy a pass and decided to go for the yearly one, which would benefit us after 5 visits. I'm trying to get my use out of this pass! It's good for a year, but we only get so much summer, you know?

Today we took Maya with us. Normally we leave her at home, but I started to feel bad that we go off every weekend to have fun and leave her at home. I think she would have rather stayed at home! She was deathly afraid of the water and would not go near it. We stayed farther away from the busy area because she tends to get wound up around strangers. So she was a little antzy about the people down the beach anyway. Then whenever Travis went in the water, she whined her head off. I'm pretty sure she was thinking "Not in the dog eating water, Daddy! It's not safe!" But we were able to leave her off the leash and she didn't stray from our towels. I figure that's a win. Plus, she is currently passed out next to me after her big adventure. Tired dogs are good dogs :o)
Maya the Super Dog. Protector of her humans and never going in the water. Don't mess with her!
That's Big Sturgeon lake and a little bit of McCarthy Beach! Ignore my blinding white legs. Just call me Powder.

Happy 4th!

2010-07-06T15:43:00.000-07:00

Or 6th. Whatever, you know what I mean. So I'm a little late!

We had a great holiday weekend, and I was surprised by having Monday off too! It was a much needed day of recuperation and rest.

This weekend we were blessed with temperatures hovering at 90 degrees, so it truly felt like the 4th of July. Travis and I spent the day in Side Lake watching the parade and pic-nic-ing with the family. Afterward we went to a friend's house for a little 4th party. There was food, beer, and music. Which, of course, is always followed by dancing. But not always good dancing. Here is photographic evidence to prove it:

Why yes, that is the chicken dance. Good call! I assure you that there was much more normal, even good, music going on before and after this. We just so happened to only take pictures while chicken dancing.

Having musical friends also means we are serenaded with live music from time to time as well. Actually, more often that not, we get live music! Here's Dan and Trav being the "band".

Somehow we missed the fireworks at McCarthy beach, but we did get to see quite a few around the neighborhood. They're illegal up here, but a quick trip to Wisconsin will produce a multitude of fireworks fruit. So we still had a show!

Monday evening I had a riding lesson, so it was a good thing I was able to sleep in and lounge around all day. Oh yea! I forgot to mention! I'm riding again! I found a small barn with a trainer my age through one of Trav's new clients. She rides mostly Western, but does a little English and she had phenomenal horses. She's put me on her "show horse" Noah. He's a 16.3hh Quarter Horse - which is huge for a QH. He's only 5, but has a great mind and has been very kind to me and my out of shape body thus far. This has been such a missing piece of my life, I'm not so sure how I went nearly 3 years without riding. I am paying for it now though. Yesterday was my second lesson, and I walked away tired, sore and happy.

I hope you all had a great Independence Day! Happy Summer!

Little of this, little of that....

2010-06-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

I have no major news to report to you this week, as was the case last week also. But I can't keep my dutiful readers in the dark so I figured I'd better post something. So here's a little catch up.

I finally have a picture of our rain barrel. It's been seeing a lot of good use lately!
For $30, it's not too shabby. One of our neighbors even remarked how clever we are and wants Travis to make one for her too. Although she has a garden, which makes even more sense for a rain barrel. You know, instead of a crack in your foundation....but I digress.

We went out on the town Thursday night for Hibbing's 18th Annual Gallery Hop. What fun! Basically a lot of merchants on our main street downtown open their stores to an artist or two who set up mini "galleries" of their artwork. People stroll around going from store to store to view the galleries, and of course you can buy if you feel so inclined. I often am inclined because I love to support local artists. This particular time we only bought a small Christmas ornament made out of wood that has woods-y scenes engraved on each side. One with a moose - how very Minnesota.

While in Duluth with my parents a few weeks ago we picked up a print from a local artist named Kristina Nelson who does all her artwork in crayon. Her work is really amazing, you would never know it was crayon. How she creates such detail boggles the mind. We had it framed and just got it back last week.This picture does not do her work justice. In real life you can see the striations on each onion, and a little bit of fuzz coming off the tops. It's pretty cool. So now our onions hang in the kitchen. Very fitting since I do not care for onions in my food at all. But we always have some in the house!

As you may have noticed, loyal reader, the landscape of things changed a bit a few weeks ago. I should have taken my choice of library stacks as a premonition, but I never put 2 and 2 together. After many months of questioning my future career, not being able to find the right job, and some overall soul searching (how cliche, I know) I've come to a decision. I have to go back to school.

A part of me loathes this decision. When I graduated from UF, I didn't look back and was 100% ready to move on with my life. But a larger part of me realizes that there isn't a lot I can do with my degree, and I need to do something about it. So I've started the application process to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has a 100% online Master's in Library and Information Science program.

Why Library Science? Because this is where I should have been all along. Since my Dad bribed me by paying me $5 per book I read when I was young - which quickly turned into a profitable exchange for me, I've always loved reading. And I love books. I know there are such fancy contraptions as the Kindle and such, but nothing beats a book. The weight in your hands, the sound of pages turning, and the smell of a book - all creature comforts to me. I also have this thing about organization and management - maybe a little bit of OCD some might say - that makes me think working in a library would come naturally.

The next question: why UWM? There are several reasons. A) there are only so many MLIS degree programs that are accredited by the American Library Association. B) there are even fewer that offer their program 100% online. C) none of these schools are in Minnesota D) the nearest school is UWM and finally E) WI and MN schools have reciprocity, meaning that I can go to a WI school for the same instate tuition price as a MN school.

So after all that, I officially submitted my application yesterday. Now I have to apply to the MLIS program itself, get 2 letters of recommendations, have my UF transcripts sent to UWM, and probably take the GRE. Probably because UWM waves this part if your undergrad GPA was a 3.0 or higher based on their standards. I know I graduated with higher than a 3.0 GPA, but I'm not really sure how UWM will compute that so I'm not out of the woods yet. After all is said and done, we're looking at a start date of Summer 2011. A year from now. That's the worse part! Also, I'm kind of doubting myself after sending in my application with the "reason statement" required. No where on anything that I read specified a word limit, just what should be in the statement in general. So mine was short and sweet, which now I'm regretting. Oh well, if it's meant to happen, it'll happen, right? I can always reapply. Fingers crossed!

Ok, so maybe we do have some major stuff going on. I just didn't want you to get hyped up about it!

Got Ark?

2010-06-13T20:04:00.000-07:00

As in, Noah's Ark? I'm thinking we may need one pretty soon. No one told me that Minnesota gets a monsoon season. Honestly, I do not think we've seen the sun in over a week. We're going to start sending Maya outside in a dinghy to go to the bathroom.

If you have a basement, you probably know that tons of rain and basements don't really mix. Knock on wood, we've stayed pretty dry save one small corner. As with most things in our house, we have quickly realize that when the previous owners added on our family room and made an addition in the basement, they didn't do it quite right. I live in Tim "the Tool-man" Taylor's house. They didn't seam the new basement wall well enough with the old foundation, so we had a slight leak. This was only realized when a gutter malfunctioned and was basically pouring water right into this crack.

So what did we do about this? We built a rain barrel! "Built a rain barrel?" you ask? Why yes, ye of little faith. My husband and I are quite creative. If you shop around you can find pretty, fancy barrels for big $$$. Well I just wasn't having that. Off to Lowe's we went where we bought a 32 gallon garage can, a spigot, a coupling (yea, Travis provided the word here), and some kind of a big hose thing. Drill hole in side of garbage can near the bottom, put spigot and coupling together, cut out hole in lid and attach hose to lid and bottom of gutter. Tada! Rain barrel! Our grand total? $31. Time spent? About an hour. Boo yah baby.

We also had a leaky sink this week. Again. Seeing a trend here? Luckily that was an easy fix. Travis bought the right kind of drain and replaced it in no time. It really makes me think "what the heck did the previous owners think they were doing here?" Obviously they had ZERO talent when it comes to plumbing. Or anything house related for that matter...but I digress. I'm starting to feel a bit water logged.

Trav's cousin also graduated from high school this year, and we were lucky to be able to go to his grad party down in St. Cloud on Saturday. Of course it rained the entire day so the party had to be moved inside and into the garage. We had planned on driving down ourselves, but Trav's parents were going and coming back the same day so we decided to go with them too. There just so happens to be a winery (yay wine!) on the way down, and of course I planned on stopping. Luckily I didn't have to work to hard to convince the in laws we should stop. They're closet wino's, I'm sure of it.

This winery uses honey and berries for most of their wines, and I was quite impressed! Check out Minnestalgia Winery to see their selection. We liked the Honeywine and Great Grey the best. If you like sweeter wines, try one of the fruit wines like Raspberry or Blueberry.

The party was fun, despite the rain. Clearly the winery was the highlight of the trip in my eyes, but it was great seeing the family as always.

That's all for now folks, have a great week!

Hey BooBoo!

2010-06-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

I know I'm a little late on this post, but I had to wait until we could get a good picture of our new addition to the family. He required some work and good weather. He also likes hunting with his best friend for pic-a-nic baskets in Yellowstone Park. I give you:

BooBoo the welcome bear. Here he is also seen with our fabulous new wine bottle house numbers and mail box. Our front porch is finally starting to have some pizazz!

Last week my parents came to visit the cold tundra that is Northern Minnesota. Of course in June you would think we'd have some nice weather that involved shorts and t-shirts. Think again, my dears, think again. I don't think it ever topped 70 degrees. So my parents wore jeans, sweaters, and jackets the entire trip. But we had a good time!

We stopped at the visitor center in Two Harbors and met this guy. Driving north along Highway 61 (any Bob Dylan fans in the house?) you'll find lots of little road side gift shops and stores. This is also where we found BooBoo, at the home of his maker. He does really awesome work, all handmade, and most are twice the size of our little bear.

Then we moved along to Gooseberry Falls, north of Two Harbors. What fantastic scenery! Who knew we had waterfalls in Minnesota? I sure didn't! There were lots of stairs and climbing involved, but luckily there were no casualties on this day. Sometimes my family and I are not always the most graceful of people.

Afterward we went to the infamous Betty's Pies. Holy cow was this place good! Fabulous food, and of course - the pies are awesome. I had the bumbleberry - so yummy that I wanted to swim in a bath of bumbleberry goodness. Order one online! The best money you'll ever spend.

I was so glad to have my parents come here to visit, and it's so hard to see them go! I always cry like a baby because I hate the distance between us. I just have to work harder to convince them that they should move to Minnesota too!

And God made light!

2010-05-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

He also made light fixtures. And not all of these are equal. I can attest to this from the truly hideous fans in our house. One of the check list items. So here's what we've been up to this weekend:
New fan in the family room to replace the old one. We had originally bought two of these to go in the bedrooms, but discovered that the ceilings are just too low in our rooms to accommodate fans. So we took one back and put this one up instead.
Here is the new light fixture we put up in the dining room. Previously there had been an ugly, spray-painted white fan with yellow light globes. Gross. This looks so much better! And I added a touch of charm with the ceiling medallion as well. I'm very pleased!
Here's how it looks up and put together. We also turned the table around to change things up a bit. I'm not sure how I like it that way yet, we'll just have to wait and see.

This weekend also happens to be graduation weekend for Trav's sister, Stefanie. She is the third youngest, with Danica following two years behind her. So we went to cheer her on at the ceremony. And we lucked out with beautiful weather! Here we are with the proud graduate:

Go Stef! National Honor Society and everything!

Tomorrow my parents come to visit for a week. I'm so excited! There will definitely be pictures following. Happy Memorial Day!

Spring!....er...Summer!

2010-05-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

Our "spring" has been very short lived. We had a lovely week of 70-ish weather and sunny skies. Then came the heat. Oh boy.

Now, I've lived in some HOT places. South Florida, where your car heats up so much you could brand yourself with your seat belt. Gainesville, Florida - the humidity is so thick you feel like you're walking into a brick wall just going outside. St. Louis, MO often sees 2 weeks or so of 100+ degree heat in the summer.

But you see, in all these cases, you can go inside and lounge in a luxury called Air Conditioning. One of man's best accomplishments. Right up there with sliced bread I tell ya.

Sadly, this invention has not made it up to northern Minnesota just quite yet. Honestly though, you wouldn't think you'd need it up here. But I'm here to say that yes, I do need A/C. We've had unseasonably warm weather (today's high was 87) accompanied by gross, sticky humidity. 64% says my weather channel watching husband. So we've opened all the windows, have all the fans running, grilling outside rather than use the oven, and pine for when the sun goes down, welcoming the cool evening air. And they say Global Warming is just a theory...

But I don't want to complain too much. Everything is in bloom and we don't have any snow on the ground. That's a good thing! So I leave you with pictures of some of our flowers, and what's been popping up around the house:

Lilies of the Valley (I think?) They're all over the place, and these are popping up in a perfect little row. They're like little soldiers.

Some sort of interesting white flowers. A hibiscus maybe?

Columbine

One of two of our pretty Crab Apple trees. The other one is blooming white flowers tinged in pink. Very pretty!

Chives! We have 5 chive bushes. We clipped some to eat, and they're so good! Someone said you can't eat the ones with flowers on the end, but I don't know why? I plucked one off and took a bite out of the green part - still tasted chivey to me (and I'm still alive).

Our pretty Begonias and the funky cat planter we got. He's ugly, but cute!

And the pretty planter that was a house warming gift. We actually have 2 of them flanking our deck. There's a mix of Diascia, Sunsatia, Suntera ("Snowstorm"), and Dracaena spikes. Ignore the dandelions, we're taking care of them.

Enjoy!

Partay!

2010-05-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

This weekend we hosted the first annual Birthday Bash (and housewarming party) at our house. I thinking it might be the last annual party as well. It was a lot of work! We had a good amount of people over, somewhere between 20-30 at any given time. So we fired up the new grill!
Here's Travis and his cousin Eric eating and grilling all at once. We set up this handy build-your-burger-or-hotdog station next to the grill. That way there was no traveling with hot food involved here. Smart, I know.
We also had this handy station set up with all the sides, chips, ect. Ignore the Canada chair in the corner. Yes, we're close to Canada. No, we do not live there despite our weather.
Not only was it Trav's birthday, but our good friend Lori's as well. Here they are wearing their birthday crowns.
No party is complete without a little music. Luckily for us, we have quite the group of musical friends. And Grandma Fran just can't help getting down when she gets the chance!
We also have a big fire pit in the backyard. So eventually the party moved out that way. This is why I told people to bring their camping chairs!
Not only was it Trav and Lori's birthday, but also our friend Eric's as well. May 16th is a popular birthday apparently!

Thankfully we have great neighbors and no one complained about us being loud. Maybe we weren't as loud as I thought though. Although there was a debacle with cake on a stick, some excessive use of Apple Pie, and lots of dancing. Fun was had by all, and I managed to get to bed before 3 am. I'm glad their birthdays only come around once a year!

What a crazy week.

2010-05-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

Really. Ups and downs like a roller coaster. But I made it through without losing my cookies, so that's a plus!

I was high on life at the end of my last post, and life just couldn't let that happen I suppose. Murphy's Law, Karma, call it whatever you like. Long story short, I found out last Monday that I have a new job title. I am now a "hearing brief writer". Basically I'll be reviewing medical records, writing up notes pertinent to the client's case and then writing a brief for the rep to take to hearings with them. Not exactly what I signed up for, but hey - I still have a job and I get to work from home. That's ok in my book.

Then, just as we were getting used to nice weather, we get this:

Snow!

That's right! Snow! In May! Because that's not crazy at all!!! It literally snowed all day long, and we got a good two inches. Thankfully it all melted the next day. I nearly had a breakdown just seeing it, who knows what would have happened had it stuck around.

Sunday we actually had beautiful weather. We went up to the in-law's house for a Mother's Day BBQ, complete with golfing in the backyard, Just Dance on the Wii, and jumping on the trampoline. Fun was had by all!

Today was a work from home day for me, and thank goodness because we had lots of goodies being delivered. Trav's birthday is next weekend, but I wanted to give him his gift early. I bought him a new grill (well, we went to Lowe's together and he picked it out). Now who would have thought that those things don't come in small boxes? Needless to say, we had to get it delivered. Luckily a manager was helping us and managed to get it here today instead of next Monday which would have been two days after our big birthday/housewarming shindig. Of course we had to test it out tonight!
What a pro! MO family - we're making pork steaks: Yum Yum! Notice he's grilling in a sweatshirt. Still not quite t-shirt and shorts weather yet.

We also had our new bed delivered today. It's like Christmas!
I can't wait to go to bed tonight! So now we have two beds, one is officially for company. So come on over!

I've dribbled into this week a little bit, but hopefully it goes better than last week. With a big party here on Saturday, it's sure to be interesting!

Remember those New Year's Resolutions?

2010-05-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

No? Maybe? Well I do. For real.

While we do eat a little better, the getting fit part hasn't been going so well. Once we moved into the new house, all exercising stopped. I'm not really sure why, and I am thinking of a way to remedy this issue. Getting outside is an option now that the weather is warming up. Although we've had a few days of rain lately, so that's no fun. We need it though, the forest fighters have had a very busy season!

Getting financially fit was our other goal. I have to admit, this is the hardest for me. With the new job comes a nice paycheck. And I am a spender. There are no two ways about it, I like to shop. I like to needlessly spend money just because. The first step is admitting I have a problem, right?

Really, the number in our bank account just got to my head for a little bit. After so many months (ok, like a year) of only having $100 or less (usually much less) after the bills, it's nice to have some breathing room. I've been doing a little crazy spending. Not dangerous, get us in trouble spending, just more than I'm used to. We need a spare bed for when company comes over, so off we went to the clearance furniture store. They were having a sale, 25% off non-sale items. At least I learned one thing in my thrifty days: never pay full price for anything. We found a very comfy pillow-top mattress for about $550 after the sales price. Not to exciting, but I could deal with that.

Now, did I mention that I like to shop? Travis should have blindfolded me and led me in and out of the bedding section without having to drool over all the other furniture. Dear hubby and I had just been talking about getting a sectional sofa for the family room. We looked online to get a feel of what we liked, but all the sofas we liked were "backwards" for the way we wanted the couch to set up. And Travis wanted a chaise end - he's a big fan of laying down.

So as we wandered around the showroom, all of a sudden, there it was: the perfect shaped sectional sofa. It was like a beam of light came down and the angels sang! Even better? It was on sale! $999 for the perfect microfiber sectional sofa with a chaise? How could we resist!? You would have thought Travis would have at least given me the "oh honey, we don't have to get it right now" routine. But he put up no resistance. The couch had sucked him in too.

After spending a butt ton of money, we decided to sit down and re-evaluate our budget. We already had one in place that was working quite well for us, but with the new paychecks I wasn't ever sure how much we actually had left over. Or if we even had anything left over given my spending. So some rough math skills and an hour later, we had it all figured out. And we do have money left over at the end of the month! And we can pay off Trav's student loan!

It feels good to get it all out there and be honest about money. It feels even better to be making strides with one of my goals. One month at a time.

High on Life

2010-04-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

Look what we got:
Basement windows!!! Aren't they just beautiful? Ignore the ugly dirt and stained walls. Focus on the windows. Beautiful!

I've been patiently waiting about a month for these windows to be installed. First we had to have them measured, then wait for the bid, then remeasured, then ordered, then waiting for them to come in. Who knew I couldn't just call them up and say "hey, come put in a couple basement windows for me, ok?" But in true northern Minnesotan fashion, it had to take ages for this to get done. Well, that's not entirely true.

The actual installation only took one day. I got a call from our friend at the construction company basically saying "your windows are in, we can put them in today!". Oh really? Luckily Travis works close to home and was able to let them in and go back to work. Lucky for him our friend is the one that did the installation, or we would be having a whole different conversation about leaving strangers in the house alone. I was also able to work from home that afternoon so they weren't completely unsupervised. But in the end, we have three new, efficient, beautiful basement windows!Speaking of work, things are going great. All the other reps are off to Chicago for some continuing education seminars (read: a few hours of class followed by partying on the company dime) so I was supposed to be stuck in the office while they are all having fun. Luckily the laptop DSI ordered for me came in and I was able to get it on Friday. So I mentioned that it made more "sense" for me to work from home since we have space issues in the office. Ah, a star is born! So Mon-Wed I'll be working in my jeans and a sweatshirt from my home office. Hooray!

Since I'm back in the professional world, I've had to pull out my work wardrobe. Sadly, not a lot of it is fitting. I think they all shrunk in the move. Anyway, I took that as a sign to revamp things and go shopping. Who wouldn't, right? So I decided to go to the "big city" of Duluth (an hour and 1/2 drive) since they have a real live mall there. I just knew that my two favorite stores, Express and the Limited, would be there and I could shop to my little heart's content.

Imagine my dismay after walking the entire mall and finding neither store. Ok, I was a little more than dismayed. I was down right pissed. I drove all that way! For nothing!

Well, life and lemons and all that jazz. So I looked around in some other stores. I found a cute top at Dress Barn that isn't work appropriate. I found a nice pair of khakis at Old Navy that I can maybe wear on Fridays. Finally I ended up back in JCPenny's. Of course. We have a Penny's at home that I easily could have gone to, you know. Whatever.

But I didn't go to college for nothing. I came home, hopped on my computer, and successfully spent way to much online at the Limited website. Take that stupid Duluth mall! However, my mama raised me right: I saved a ton of money too. They had a deal for $25 off your second pair of pants: perfect since I needed a few! They also had a great BOGO deal on essential shirts: awesome as well, just what I was looking for! Did I mention that it's clearance time too? Score! Then I took my happy internet butt to this fantastic website to find some online shopping codes. This is a must anytime you're buying online. Look there first before you checkout. And whadya know? I found a coupon code for 25% off my entire order! And they had free shipping! *Insert high pitched girly scream here*

I died and went to shopper heaven :o) I'll be innocently stalking the postal carrier until he delivers my goodies. Now hopefully it all fits and I don't have to send anything back.

Sweet Spring

2010-04-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

Oh how I love the sights, sounds, and smells of Spring. I'm sitting in our house with the windows wide open, someone is running a lawn mower, and everything just smells fresh. Hooray Spring!

I know I can't get to excited yet. Every Minnesotan worth his salt has reminded me that we should still have snow on the ground (in April!?! yea right!) and that it's much warmer than normal. I know, I know. Just let me be excited!

Since we finally had a beautiful weekend, guess what we did with it? That's right, outside chores! The past few weekends have been a little to chilly and super windy to be up and down on ladders. So this weekend we took full advantage of the lovely weather and put up gutters!
Tada! By some stroke of luck, the house color is the exact same color as the gutters. I don't think that was planned since "gutter brown" isn't really that high in demand. But it made this process that much better! And see all those redish colored rocks behind the garage? They came from here:Along the house, there is a "drainage field" that had all those rocks in it. And that's where two of the three windows we want to replace are. No wonder they're leaky! Anyway, I digress....this picture also includes the other gutter project we finished. Originally the gutter stopped at the top of the 2nd story deck, so water would just shoot out of there and drench the ground underneath. We added the downspout, and we'll be putting in some kind of white rock along the length of the deck for added water absorption. No rotting decks in our house!

Last week I posted about the great consignment store finds that I made Travis buy. Here is our new table and one of the lamps:

So you can see what I mean about the ugly brown color. It's ok, but not that pretty. So we'll be refinishing it soon. The lampshades were purchased at Wal-mart and I think they're just perfect - and that's all that matters!

In other news, we've started going to a new church. We're both pretty excited about it because the church is much more contemporary than our past experiences. It's an Assembly of God church, and we love that the entire service is full of music, praise and worship! The head pastor is only 30 or so as well, so it's a breath of fresh air to be in a younger crowd. We haven't talked about officially joining the church yet though. I'd like to take it slow and make sure it's the right place for us. But so far, so good!

I'm exhausted from "supervising" the gutter installation, so I'm off. Have a great week!

Alison the traveling career gal

2010-04-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

My career with Disability Specialists is just one week young and already I'm on the road. They've sent me to Brainerd, MN to train with one of our reps here for 3 days. If you're not familiar with Minnesota geography (imagine my surprise!), Brainerd is smack dab in the middle of the state. Four hours south of Canada, two hours south of home.

So I'm currently sitting in my hotel room, enjoying free wi-fi and a free root beer. Hooray for being a priority club member! The root beer should be a real beer at the hotel restaurant, but I arrived too late. Only in Minnesota do they give away free beer as a member perk. But hey - I'll take it!

I haven't seen much of Brainerd, as I'm actually staying in Baxter, which is right over the Mississippi River. Funny thing is that I crossed the might Mississippi three times on the way here, so I really have no clue where the heck I am. As long as Tom Tom can get me home then I'm not worried.

Last week I was able to go out to see clients with the senior rep. That is the best part of this job! We met a bunch of clients, so I saw how that whole side of things goes. It's really interesting to hear their issues, even if I have to go home and research like a mad woman. But I'm learning a lot!

While I'm gone, Travis will be working like the Tazmanian devil back at home. He's got a seminar on Wednesday, so lots to prepare for! He's getting to know the neighbors in his new building quite well already. He's right next door to a consignment store, so of course I sent him over to check some things out!

I found an end table and two matching lamp bases that I wanted him to take a look at. We got all three for $45! Score! The lamps have a bronze finish that I originally wanted to redo, but I think we'll keep them as they are for a bit. At least until my Mom and Dad come in June - Mom always has great ideas and she'll tell me if they're ugly or not! The table we're definitely going to refinish. It has a lighter brown finish that is a bit outdated, so we'll sand it down and refinish it. But I'm also saving that for the parents. They'll need something to do when they're up here anyway!

Well, tomorrow starts early so I'm off to bed. Have a great week!

Life has swallowed me...

2010-04-05T17:20:00.000-07:00

whole. It's still deciding whether to spit me out or just deal with me. In any case, I'm staying on my toes!

I started my new position officially today, however, it's a lot of the same old same old. I learned a little bit of new stuff. Honestly, I can't wait to get out there and meet some clients on my own! I want to just do the meetings and fill the paperwork out myself, but without someone watching over my shoulder. All in due time, right?

Easter weekend went by in a whirl. Trav's Aunt Robin and cousin Katie came to visit. They're always fun! We went out for dinner and then a little bit of karaoke on Saturday night. Katie loves to sing, despite what anyone says! We had a great time, but probably stayed out a little to late since we had to go to church the next morning!

Easter dinner was delicious, as only could be expected. It was a great, relaxing day filled with movies, playing outside, good company, and good food!

But now I have dishes to do - some jobs are never done! Until next week!

Welcome to home ownership!

2010-03-28T15:13:00.001-07:00

As with any house, ours is far from perfect and there are tons of things that I would like to change/decorate/renovate. Shocker, right? Travis and I (me mostly) decided that the best plan of attack is to write everything down. That way we can prioritize, check things off, and basically get them out of our (my) heads. I'm proud to say that we kept it all on one sheet of notebook paper, but there are definitely about 25 things on the list. Ranging anywhere between gravel for the driveway, new windows, to a hot tub for the backyard (guess who put that one on the list?).

If you know me in real life, you know that I am a planner. I make lists. I like to check things off. I like to get things taken care of. I'm kind of anal about it. So this list, which is hung up on our refrigerator so it won't be forgotten, is mocking me. I know that we can't do everything all at once, but I'll be damned if we can't spend every weekend doing projects!

The first items on the to do list are as follows: replace basement windows, put up gutters on east side of garage, replace rotting fascia in southwest corner of family room. So we had some people come out to give us quotes on these three things, since I wasn't sure if we could do any of this stuff. Heck, I can't even pronounce fascia - I say it like fascist. Well, when the first quote came back at $1200, including almost $400 for the fascia, I said "heck with that! Let's go to Lowe's!"

Fast forward to tonight:

Tada! Fascia replaced and repainted! You can barely tell too. The new part is from that screw thingy sticking out on the left side, to the corner, and down about a foot or two on the right side. Travis is up there with some kind of roof sealant. (Umm yea, this is where my girl genes kick in). Then we'll put up a new gutter along the right side. Good practice for the one we're planning on putting up on the garage. Total costs for this project: ~$80 or so. Take that Mr. Contractor!

Luckily we did have some handy help by way of one of Trav's friends, and his brother. Although his brother mostly just pointed out what they were doing wrong, bought a new hammer for us, had lunch and then left. Ah well, at least we got a hammer out of that, right? Oh, and ignore the big ugly smoke stack sticking out of the roof behind Travis. We think there used to be a wood burning stove in the family room, because we have a big hole thing (filled in of course) on the ceiling in there. We're thinking that if we take down the smoke stack, there will be a big hole there, so we'll take care of that when we redo the flat roof next summer.

So that's one thing I can check off the list! We're still going to have someone do the windows though - that seems like more mess than I want to deal with. But I'm pretty proud of my husband's handiwork and our ingenuity.

Besides our projects around the house, things are going swimmingly. Travis has had a lot of business lately, so that's keeping him busy during the week. I think the home show really helped get him some exposure! I've been doing a little more training at Disability Specialists (DSI) for my new job, even though I still have a week until I start. I'm glad about the training though, because I wasn't sure if I would get any. Just doing data entry doesn't really teach you anything! So that's been good. One of the highlights of my day this past week was coming home to these cuties:

Wine bottle house numbers! Courtesy of my fabulous brother and sister in law in Missouri. Love them! I'm very excited to put them up, we're just not sure how we want to do it yet. They have sticky strips on the back, so technically we could just stick them to the house. But with our extreme cold temperatures, I'm not sure if they would stick all winter. So we're thinking of getting a board to mount them to, then mounting that on the house. That's an upcoming project too!

Our weather is warming up quite nicely. We've reached 50 a few times already! That means it'll be landscaping projects soon. This is a completely new area to me, and it's a little intimidating. Mostly because I have no idea what to do here. But we'll start small - like grass seed for some of our dirt patches in the backyard. We just need to see 60's a few times before we get to it!

Until next time!

Teasers

2010-03-21T13:01:00.000-07:00

Funny thing when you have no furniture - your house looks really empty. And boxes tend to stay right where they are. Well, not all of them, just a few. We've gotten mostly everything unpacked, hung up, put away, etc. But I only have a few pictures to show you. Let's call them "progress pictures", shall we?

These are the curtains that took me forever to find and decide on. We originally bought two different sets before these, but I think they look pretty nice. We're going for more of a casual look in the family room. Our one and only couch looks kind of small in here, hopefully we'll be able to find some more furniture soon. Right now all of Trav's office supplies and files are piled up in boxes here. I know, I know.

Here is our kitchen complete with our new stainless steel stove, and of course Maya the modeling dog. I know that the microwave does not match, but it's brand new so I didn't see the sense in replacing it just yet.

And our beautiful refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom. Score! When we were measuring for this bad boy, I just measured along the wall for depth, and not how far it would come into the room. So you'll notice that there is only about a foot in between the edge of the counter top and the fridge. Travis and I are never allowed to get fatter than that, or we can't get to the back of the house. Good plan!

Our lovely bathroom. All of the colors in this house are great, we didn't have to change a thing. Most of them are what I would have picked myself anyway. And yes, that is a Jacuzzi tub! Don't be too jealous ;o)

Our latest project - blinds! None of the windows in the entire house had any sort of covering, so that's been a big project for us. We've put mini blinds in all the bedrooms (6 windows) and the plantation style blinds in the living room/dining room area (5 normal sized and one 60" sucker). But I'm so glad they're up! Now I can dance around the living room at night with the lights on and my neighbors can't see me!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: today was yard day. The old owners didn't pay too much attention to the outside areas of the house it seems because our .75 acre lot is covered with leaves. We have no less than 10 trees, so there are tons and tons of leaves littering the yard. Who rakes leaves in the spring? We do. I'm expecting that Jacuzzi tub will get some good use tonight!

Did you know that yesterday was the first day of spring? We're ushering it it with balmy 5o degree temperatures today, although two days ago we had snow flurries. Hopefully the weather is beautiful where ever you are!

Pictures?

2010-03-14T19:19:00.000-07:00

Not yet. I know what you're thinking though. "Geez, they've been in this new house for a few days now. They could at least show some pictures!" Well, here's the funny thing. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Just a teeny, tiny bit. And we've been busy doing all things un-house related. So naturally, I don't have anything unpacked and I have not taken pictures of our new house. Don't believe me? Well here's our schedule for the past few days:
Wednesday: Move, in the mud and freezing rain. Oh boy!
Thursday: Ali goes to work, Travis unpacks the vitals like the computer and the guitars
Friday: Set up for the Perrella Home Show. Later, Travis and Ali try to buy curtains at Walmart. Giant fail.
Saturday: Home show from 8-5. Return to Walmart with ugly curtains, buy new curtains. 2nd giant fail.
Sunday: Go to old house to clean and get the remaining items we left behind.

I know you're thinking that there had to be time in between there for general unpacking and picture taking, but I promise you there was not. I have literally fallen into bed every night, asleep before my head hits the pillows.

Luckily I don't have to do anything tomorrow but unpack and get the house organized. The plus side is that we do have all our new appliances and they all seem to be in working order. (*Knocks on wood*) However, we have already identified 5 "projects" that need to be taken care of ASAP. We have some leaking in the basement due to runoff/window problems, two pipes that need to be refitted due to one leaking issue and one "sellers were idiots, what the hell were they thinking?" issues, and one fascia issue that basically runs along the same lines. Lucky for us, a good friend works for a construction company that can take care of all these things. We'll be calling him tomorrow to come out for a quote. Hopefully we get the "friend" discount!

The home show was a great success, but a lot of work. My company puts it on, so we're the face of the entire operation. Which means lots of meet & greet, lots of checking on vendors, and just general goodwill all day long. Being nice for that long is tiring. Travis had a booth though, and he got a lot of interest and some good contacts (thanks to our greenhouse gift certificate and two lawn chairs raffle), so it was a good day!

As you can see, we've been busy beavers lately. I promise pictures will be here eventually. I need to find the camera anyway, so just sit tight - I know it's hard but you can do it!

Closing!

2010-03-08T08:04:00.001-08:00

Well, today is the big day! We're closing! I am amazed how fast this process was, usually it takes at least 4 weeks to get everything to come together. But here we are!

Travis and I also had our 1st anniversary this weekend. To celebrate we went appliance shopping. How romantic! You may not think so, but it was fun to me. We went to a local store to check prices, but ended up buying from Lowe's. They were less expensive, had a better selection, and still offer free delivery and set up, as well as hauling away the old appliances for free. Not that there's anything to haul away, but still - nice to know!

We were going for black appliances because stainless wasn't quite in our budget. So we thought! We ended up getting a pretty, stainless stove with a glass cook top for $499. It was actually the cheapest one they had! Well, besides the little apartment set ups. So then we cruised over to the refrigerator section. I really wanted one with the bottom freezer style, because they are pretty and a side by side would be to big for the spot in our house. We ended up getting a sweet deal on a "silver" fridge (you know, the "fake" stainless but still looks like stainless). The last one they had in stock was the floor model, which had a scratch or two way on the bottom, so they knocked off $60 on top of a 10% discount for being energy star. So we got both for under $1500! I have to admit though - I didn't like spending that much money and walking out of the store empty handed. That's rough!

Also, my brother's will be relieved to know, we're getting a new dryer! Mom and Dad are springing for a new one, since ours looks like it came over on the Mayflower. This has been a running joke for a while now because my brother's helped us move in and out of our apartment in Missouri. They have been worried since day one over my dryer (and the potential for it to set our house on fire), although I still don't see the big deal. But it will be nice to have a new, more energy efficient one.

So closing today, and move in on Wednesday!!!! The U-haul is booked, we have slave labor coming over, and we're almost all packed! We ran out of boxes, so we have to go grab some more from the grocery store. Or, heaven forbid, buy some at Lowe's. I'm thinking I should buy stock in Lowe's now, so at least I'm making a little bit of my money back!

In other big news: I have a new job! Well, I officially start April 5th with the company I've been working for part time, Disability Specialists. I had "orientation" with the owner of the company last Monday, which was 3 hours long and he gave me tons of information about the representative position. It kind of threw me because I didn't think I needed to know how much they got paid and how their pay structure works. Then at the very end he said "I'd like you to consider becoming a rep for us" and completely floored me! He told me to take some time to think about it, which I did and then accepted!

In a nutshell, I will be helping clients with their disability and social security claims. Going to meet with them, helping with paperwork, even representing them at the hearing level if need be. I'll be training under the local rep here for a year, and then next June I have to take and pass the Social Security Exam. If I pass, I get a generous 36% raise from my already very generous salary. Yippy! I'm hoping that I love this job and it really works out, since it plopped in my lap just when I needed it. Fingers crossed!

Work has been under way on Trav's office for about two weeks now. They have the windows all boarded up so you can't see inside. Pretty exciting though! They should be done at the beginning of April, finally!

So that is what's been going on in our lives lately. A roller coaster for sure!

Big News!

2010-02-27T17:08:00.002-08:00

I purposely did not post last weekend. We've had some big news, but I wanted to wait until everything was final so I didn't "jinx" things. So....

WE'RE BUYING A HOUSE!!!!!

Yayayayayay! I'm so excited! We've looked at a few, even put in an offer on one that didn't work out. Then I found the listing for this house. It has only been on the market for about a month, so I thought there would have been much more interest in the house. I was envisioning bidding wars and a final sales price well above the listing price. But that isn't the case! We were their first offer! Of course we low balled them just to see what would happen, but they were willing to haggle a bit so we ended up getting a good deal!

The owners bought the house super cheap and "flipped" it, so basically everything in the house is new. It has a huge backyard - almost an acre in town. Basically unheard of! There are also two decks on the back of the house, one on the 2nd level, and a big deck on the front of the house. And there is a treehouse! Trav and I have joked that that's where I'll send him when he's in trouble. Hey, it has electricity - just no heat!

The inspection went well, so we're moving forward full steam. There were a few things that did pop up though. The house has a new 200 amp breaker box in the basement, but there is still a functioning 30 amp fuse box for a couple of plugs upstairs. They have 4 30 amp fuses in there when there is only supposed to be 15 amp fuses. So like the good first time homebuyers that we will be, we took a trip to Lowe's to check out how much fuses are. $6 for a set of two heavy duty 15 amp fuses. That I can handle. There is also a junction box in the basement near the water heater that needs a cover, so that's less than a $1 to fix.

Of course there are other things, just nothing to urgent. We will eventually replace most of the windows in the house. There is a set of 3 floor to ceiling windows in the family room that I'd like to trade out for french doors or a sliding glass door. And we have to buy curtains or shades for every single room. Oh, and appliances. So we spent an hour in Lowe's checking out prices for nearly everything. Eventually it will be the "home of our dreams", but for now it's pretty good too!

Oh, and did I mention that it has 2 bathrooms? Yippy!!! This is so ridiculous, but having 2 bathrooms was a must have for me. I wouldn't even look at homes with only one, or a basement bathroom, or just a half bath. I figure this: we have lots of out of town family. I want to be able to put people up and have them be comfortable. Some people up here think that's crazy, but apparently Northern Minnesota is the only place on earth that hasn't decided that two bathrooms is normal. It's been slim pickings!

That is really all that's been going on in our lives right now. Or at least, it's been the major theme. I will be so grateful to be in town and closer to everything. I can't handle living in the country, not like I thought I could. It's not the worst, but definitely not my preference. And they've started working on Trav's office (hooray!), which should be done at the beginning of April. So talk about saving money on gas!!! I'm still enjoying my part time job. It's just data entry, so it's a little taxing by the end of the day, but I just do my job and no one bugs me and I get paid! It's like a little mental vacation every few days.

So, yea! That's it! Wish us good luck in the next few weeks as we scramble to pack and move!

Well, look at that....

2010-02-14T20:06:00.001-08:00

I'm a real, live real estate agent! That's right folks! Here I am with my very first paycheck from my very first sale! Of course I'm dorky and had to have our office manager take a picture of me - whatever. It's been a long time coming!

This closing was probably the easiest one I'll ever have. Both the seller and the buyer live out of town, so it was a "by mail" closing. I literally walked into the title company and was handed a check. They told me that's all they needed from me! I ended up hanging around for a little while to have coffee with the seller's agent and the title agent. Hey - it's good to make friendships in this business! So hooray me!

Saturday I had a wine tasting event in Bemidji. For those of you not familiar with Iron Range geography, Bemidji is about 2 hours away from us. I had originally booked this event back in December when I was desperate for clients and would have driven to the moon if need be. Being the wonderful person that I am, I grudgingly went through with this one and gave up most of my Saturday to go sell some wine. And I made Travis go with me. I'm not driving to some strange city 2 hours away by myself!

Bemidji happens to be quite the large city, and it is very near the beginning of the Mississippi River. It's so small though that I could walk across it, and it freezes up in the winter. Pretty cool! What else is in Bemidji you might ask? Why Babe the Blue Ox of course!

Don't forget about Paul Bunyan!

I'm not too familiar with the Paul Bunyan story, but apparently where there are woods and logging you'll find a giant Bunyan statue with his trusty ox.

After seeing the "sights" of Bemidji we went out for dinner to the Green Mill. You may remember this restaurant from my Grease post. I was hoping for the free bottle of wine again, but alas, they saw me coming and discontinued the special right before I stepped in the door. We still had a nice dinner though (even if I had to pay for my glass of wine!).

I started my new part time job this week on Thursday. It isn't too taxing, although there is a lot of unfamiliar terminology that I have to learn. They company assists people with their disability claims, so there is a lot of medical and legal knowledge floating around. I received my first paycheck on Friday though, so I'm liking this place!

We also got our tax refund on Friday, so we now have a fully funded emergency fund (a la Dave Ramsey's teachings), have paid off our credit cards (hoooooooray!) and paid our heat bill (propane, not like we were months behind on the utilities). Let me tell you - it's been a breath of fresh air. And our resolutions are still going strong!

So Happy Valentine's Day to you all. Take some time to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you!

Hey der!

2010-02-08T15:50:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'll just start blogging on Monday's....it seems easier. Although now that football is over, I have my Sundays back.

Speaking of, who did you root for this year? We decided to root for the Saints, Geaux Saints! Gotta love an underdog! Although they beat our Vikings out of the Super Bowl, I could appreciate their story. But let's face it: Super Bowl parties are fun no matter who's playing! I typically get excited about the food more than anything (deep down inside me there is a fat girl screaming to get out).

This year we planned on staying at home, but ended up at the in law's house for a mini party. We had chips, beer, nothing too special. If you know my family though, you know that Super Bowl Sunday = Chili! When I was little I hated this and typically only ate the cheese and a little bit of meat out of my chili bowl. And lots of bread. As I grew older and my taste buds matured though, this became an exciting and essential party of SBS. As per my resolutions, we're trying to eat less meat to save money so I found a recipe for meatless chili. Trust me though - it's good! Everyone really liked it, so I was pleased. The recipe is from Kraft :

Cheater's Chili
(modified a little for my taste)
1 can chili beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 jar salsa
1 can corn
1 tbsp garlic

Drain anything from a can, mix in a big pot. Heat through then simmer for 30 minutes. Top with shredded cheddar cheese and a dollop of sour cream.

Yum! This is tasty, colorful, and easy. The original recipe calls for 1 can chick peas instead of chili beans, and 1 can of mushrooms. But chili just doesn't seem like chili without chili beans, now does it? And I am not a fan of mushrooms at all, so I omit them from any and every recipe that I come across.

Good news on the job front: my first sale is closing! We have set our closing date for this Friday. Everything seems to be going forward smoothly. Although earlier today I wouldn't have said the same thing! I got a call from my buyer because his HUD form said that he was paying closing costs, when in fact the sellers were supposed to pay all of that. So phone calls went out to the bank, the title company, back and forth for most of the morning. We eventually got it all settled and shouldn't be delayed any further. Fingers crossed!

AND....
I got the part time job! Yay! It's so flexible, and pays better than when I was even working at the bank. Plus, they asked me if I would ever consider coming on full time. I don't think I would ever go full time there, but it's nice to know that it's a possibility. Hooray for a little extra money!

So things are looking up for our little family. Hopefully the good luck train stays on the track!

Ok, lemme have it...

2010-02-02T14:13:00.001-08:00

I know, I know, but what are you going to do? People get busy you know! Just don't torture me for too long.

I have some good news regarding my resolutions that I set at the beginning of the year. Hooray for good news!

1. I've lost 6 lbs, confirmed by the scale at my Dr's office just last week. Since then there has only been minimal celebratory cookie eating.
2. We've managed to have several veggie meals including Pasta Fagioli, Veggie Pizza, and Veggie Mac. Well, ok so that one technically doesn't count. Travis mixed in left over taco meat. But we had good intentions!
3. We did our taxes!

If you read back to my resolution posts, one of my goals is to become more financially fit. Extremely difficult right now living off one income, but hey - we're all allowed our little pipe dreams. So doing our taxes was a scary but necessary activity. And it's really paying off! We should be getting back around $2600. Yep, that's right - 4 digits! We're able to claim two home offices since both Trav and I primarily work from home, and we had a bunch of employment related expenses this year.

The good little citizens that we are, we're going to blow it all. Unfortunately not on retail merchandise like our government wants us to, but on our debt. We'll be able to catch up a car loan, pay off our credit card debt and possibly pay off a student loan. That's exciting! Oh, and for those of you giving us the side eye at the car loan - let me explain.

Once upon a time, our loan was with Sovereign Bank. Travis was in between jobs one month and called to see if he could work something out with his payment instead of just not paying it. They allowed him to move the payment to the end of the loan term by paying $50 that month. Which is what we did. Except there is no record of this ever happening. Then Sovereign sold his loan to Santander (i.e. The Devil), they assumed we were a payment late even though we now pay on time or early every month. So we get to rehash this with some "lovely" Devil employee every month, and we pay ~$14 in late fees, every month. Had Travis asked me at the time, I would not have suggested going down this road, but.... ce la vie.

No news on either of my real estate deals, still. We're patiently waiting, still. Fingers crossed for those too!

I do have an interview this Thursday for a "floating" part time position at the company my mother in law works for. It pays decent, and it sounds like the schedule is really flexible. Basically I'd be coming in whenever someone is out, or when they have excess work that needs to be done. That would work extremely well with my schedule! So fingers crossed for that too. Oh heck, I'm just going to cross all crossables and call it good!

FYI: Valentine's Day is coming up. Why not try a new wine to make the evening special? Try the Tanglerose Sonoma County Backyard Red from The Traveling Vineyard

Have a great week!

RIP

2010-01-24T21:27:00.000-08:00

2009 Vikings Football Season. You had a good show, and you will be missed. The northland is mourning the sad remains of our football team. Surely we know that Favre won't be back for another season next year. He'll "retire" and move on. Maybe to another loser team like the Rams.

So now we have to pick a favorite for the Super Bowl in two weeks. Will it be Payton Manning and the Indy Colts or Drew Brees and the Saints? I have to admit, I like rooting for an under dog. Seeing how it will be the Saints first time at the Super Bowl, I'm going to put my cards on them.

Besides football, we've had an eventful weekend. I had a wine tasting hosted by my mother in law's coworker. Follow that? Now, you'd never guess by looking at her, but coworker is a biker chic. A badass biker chic at that. So where did she choose to host her wine tasting? The biker club of course! And who were her guests? All of her biker friends! Needless to say, I made Travis come with me. Not that I'm afraid of bikers, you just never know.

We arrived about a half hour early to set up and meet some guests as they arrived. Originally the guest list had about 60 people on it. 60 - yes, you read that correctly. Normally I tell my hosts to invite around 25-30 people. Not everyone will show up and you want to ensure that you have a good number. So for weeks I've been anticipating this huge party and wondering how I was going to manage a crowd that big.

In the end I didn't have to. Only about 10 people showed up. We've been inundated with rain, sleet, and snow for the past two days. Apparently bikers are afraid of weather, even in their regular cars. Most of the guests were already there when we arrived, so we got a warm hello as soon as we walked in the door. Although I have a feeling that they were more excited about the alcohol than me.

It turned out to be a fun evening, even though I felt a little out of place. I did make a friend though! A 50ish biker gentleman who was very intoxicated insisted that we "get drunk" with them once we were done with "all the business stuff". He informed me that he'd been there since 11 that morning to get the fire going. And what better way to keep warm yourself than to drink some beer? I suspect he was drinking something much stronger - there were rumors of Canadian whiskey floating around. Good times!

Resolution update: I've been slacking on the exercise front, but we've been eating a lot healthier! The other night we made Pasta Fagioli, which only has 196 calories per serving. I also managed to walk out of the grocery store only having spent $77.37 for ~ two weeks worth of food. We'll have to restock on milk and bread in between, but I'm quite proud of myself!

Resolutions?

2010-01-18T11:24:00.000-08:00

As the new year rolls around, we are all reminded to set our resolutions and to start the year right. Then Jan 2nd comes around and all the resolutions are out the window! Don't lie, I know this is you too.

I normally don't even try to make resolutions because of this. I tell myself that it's not about Jan 1st, that I'm supposed to be living healthier/budget wise/smoke free/whatever all year long. I don't need no stinking New Year to tell me how to live right! But let's be honest here: we really do. If it were that easy then resolutions wouldn't even be a real thing. Like fairy dust.

So my resolutions this year:
1. Lose my winter weight and be in better shape altogether
2. Get financially fit
3. Eat healthier (will help with #1)

Now, I decided not to put a time limit or get really specific with these goals because that would just stress me out and everything would blow out the window. But I have to say, so far I'm doing ok. Yes, it may only be January 18th, but we gotta take baby steps here people!

Here's my progress:
1. Lose my winter weight and be in better shape altogether - I started the Special K challenge on Jan 1st. You know, where you eat cereal twice a day, snack on fruits and granola bars, then eat a regular meal. This has been slightly difficult for me because a) I hate eating breakfast at breakfast time and b) I like having something warm for lunch. Cold cereal just doesn't do it for me. But I'm trudging through and have extended my two weeks even longer. I realized that by eating the cereal that I'm setting myself up for making better choices in general. I snack on fruit cups and granola bars instead of chips or cookies. I'm also tracking my progress on www.livestrong.com, where I can enter my food on "my plate" and keep track of the food I eat. A very useful tool for holding myself accountable. You really start to feel guilty when you see the fat portion of the pie chart take up most of your daily allowance. I don't want that pie chart glaring at me for days.

3. Eat healthier (will help with #1) - no I'm not skipping #2, we'll get there in a second. Besides changing my snacking habits, I'm changing what we eat as a family. This will be tough. Travis is a meat and potatoes guy. He likes to have meat for dinner. I realize this, but do you know how much we spend on meat at the grocery store? Chicken, ground beef, pork chops, roast, meatballs - it gets to be a little excessive. So I've declared that we're eating at least two vegetarian meals a week to help us get healthy and reduce our grocery budget. I've printed off some recipes from Kraft as well as some fellow blogger's pages. I know you're probably thinking "oh goodness" but it's good food. Spinach stuffed shells, veggie pizza, vegetarian chili. This will be good for us!

2. Get financially fit - This will be the toughest for us. Maybe it should have gone first because in the long run I think it's the most important. But it all ties together. If we're in better health, we'll spend less money, if we lower our grocery budget, we'll spend less money. Travis and I have lived off a budget for the past year or so, but let's be honest - it was pretty loose. Even on tight months, we still weren't holding each other accountable for some things. Now, we're not hugely in debt or anything. We have the cars, a student loan, minimal credit card debt. But it would be so great to be debt free. So we're building a plan. I've been reading Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover" , and I'm excited. It also scares the crap out of me to be honest. But I'm trying to think of it as a "scared straight" situation. With only one income and no commissions coming in, we need to stop wandering around in financial blindness. It won't be quick or painless, but I'm up for the challenge!

So that's the resolutions for this year. Hopefully I can say this time next year that I succeeded in my goals. Wish me luck!

The Adventures of Maya

2010-01-10T15:56:00.000-08:00

Since the weather hasn't gotten any warmer, we've been relegated to the house for a number of days. Of course we could be sadists and go play outside, but let's get real here: Ali does not do negative temperatures. So in the house we've stayed!

Obviously this cannot be an every day thing, as I have had to go to work here and there for some things. I have a couple new leads for some buyers, and the deal I wrote about last week was accepted with no counters. Now we're doing the closing dance, praying that things go through! He didn't ask for an inspection, so all we need is the appraisal to come in high enough and we're golden!

Since we've been spending so much time at home with Maya, we've really started to bond with her. And we take a lot of pictures of her.

Here she is saying "Guys, it is cold. Leave me alone."

Thankfully we haven't had too much snow so she doesn't have to wade through it. Travis was nice enough to clear out a little path for us around the house. It sort of looks like a racetrack mixed with a moat. She likes to zoom around the house on it 2 times and then she's ready to go in! We try to keep her away from the actual house when she's doing this because of our huge icicles. Those icicles have been known to kill people you know!

Here are some of the offending icicles. Yes, the picture is from inside. Don't hate.

Now, we all know, Maya is a dog. And dogs start to stink after awhile. So they need baths. This is such foreign territory for me since Travis and I have only owned cats since we've been together. So we filled the tub up with a little bit of water and some shampoo (it smells like green apples!) Then we put Maya in and started to get her wet. Maya was not feeling this at all. She would alternate from "if I stand her like a statue, maybe they'll forget I'm here" to "alright, I'm out of here!" as she scrambles all over the side of the tub. We managed to get her successfully bathed, although we had an audience. The cats thought her bath was the most interesting torture we could think of for the stinky dog, so of course they had to watch!

Oh yes, fun was had by all!

Maya is staying pretty warm these days, despite the freezing cold temperatures. She's lucky she has a loving pair of Floridian Grandparents that feel her pain! Mom and Dad sent her some sweaters to stay warm!

She now has a variety of clothing options. She can be sporty and wear the pink sweatshirt that says "Rock Star" or dress up a bit more and wear the black sweater with the fur collar (faux of course). The collar comes off if she's not feeling upper-crusty that day. You can tell she likes the clothing though, she's walking with a new strut!

I wrote earlier about our wine cabinet that we got for Christmas. We have since managed to get it up, although we've decided to fill it with empty bottles because we're not to sure how well it will hold with 3 full bottles in there. Here's a shot:

Very nice! We put our toasting flutes from the wedding on the top shelf. Love it!

That's all for now folks!

Negative

2010-01-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

What's that you ask? A number, the way I feel about onions, walkie-talkie for "no"? Well, my friends, negative would be the temperature I've been living in for the past few days. A constant state of negative. How am I surviving? Lots of clothing, blankets, hot cocoa, and staying indoors. No matter what. I told Travis that I'm not leaving unless someone is bleeding. He thinks I'm kidding! Nope, not kidding. Emergency only.

The negatives have been hanging around since about New Year's Eve. So instead of going out and getting our crunk on, we decided to spend the holiday quietly with Trav's family. His grandparents invited us over for dinner, and his parents came to party as well. It was a pretty tame evening (which isn't always a bad thing), but we felt like the newscasters were having more of a party than we were! There were a few weathermen that seemed to have opened the bubbly before they gave us the nasty news of the negatives.

So we watched the east coast ring in the new year, and prepared for our own time zone's big tada. Well, we're still waiting. It was like New Year's didn't even exist for us! None of the news stations or any other channel had anything special for our midnight. So, at 11:59, we all stood, raised our glasses, and at 12:00 we said "Happy New Year!" and drank our champagne. Like I said, quiet night.

Since I haven't been going anywhere this week due to the extreme dip in temperatures (they say not to spend longer than 15 minutes outside to avoid frostbite), this week has been pretty quiet for me. The deal I was working on for my client in Colorado fell through, so we spent some time looking for other options. We ended up finding 2 that appealed to him, so yesterday I had to drive even deeper into nowhere to take a look. Both are vacant, and neither had been plowed or shoveled in awhile. Travis was kind enough to accompany me on the trip, so he managed to not get stuck in the deep snow at the first house. It was a close one though, let me tell ya! The second house was in a neighborhood (read: plowed streets) but the driveway and walks still hadn't been cleared. So I had to forage through the snow to get into the house. All my work paid off though, because we wrote up another offer this morning. Hooray! Fingers crossed that this one goes through ok!

Before you ask me, I have to admit: I do ask myself all the time "what the heck am I doing here?!?" Well, when the rest of the world is sweating themselves to death during the summer, we'll have much nicer temps! That, and we plan on going to Florida in April, so that's what is keeping me going!

In pet news: Maya is adjusting quite nicely. She and the cats are still not so sure about each other, but everyone is coping. Honestly, it's like she's always been our dog. She listens, she is used to our schedule, and I'm pretty sure that she loves us!

So that's it from the Northlands, we hope your January is treating you much warmer than our own!

Merry Christmas to all!

2009-12-27T18:46:00.000-08:00

*Disclaimer* I know it's not very PC, so if you choose to celebrate something different, please insert that holiday's name in place of Christmas.

Well, another holiday season has come and gone. I have to admit, I'm not too sad to see it go! With money being pretty tight this year, it just added a lot more stress to the holiday season. But Travis and I are both blessed with incredibly wonderful families, a roof over our heads, food on the table, health and one another. What else could one ask for?

This is our first Christmas spent actually living in Minnesota, so it was a little different for me. I campaigned pretty hard to drive down to Missouri for a day to spend it with my side of the family, but common sense won out. It turned out to be the right decision though - we've been slammed with snow since Christmas Eve! The roads haven't been great so it's probably a good thing that we didn't chance the drive.

Christmas Eve we walked over to the church for the candlelight service. As I mentioned before, Travis volunteered us to light the advent candles. I was a little nervous, and it didn't help that as soon as we got there the Pastor said "ok well we're going to do that first, so are you ready? I'm starting now." Umm, ok! I read a little too fast, and Travis lit the candles a little too slow, but in the end we did our job and no one complained. After church we went to Trav's parents for dinner. We had a great time socializing, eating, and playing the Wii. I'm still sore! I guess I got a little intense with my bowling.

Christmas morning we woke up (kind of early for us) to open presents and spend some quality time with each other. Now, I'm going to share some pictures, but I have to warn you: first thing in the AM is not the prettiest picture of me. Bare with us here.

See? I told you! Unfortunately you can't see the mounds of snow coming down outside. Trust me - it was buckets full.

OF COURSE we watched "A Christmas Story"! Unfortunately I seem to be the only one up here with such an affinity for the movie. We didn't get to enjoy the day long extravaganza of "F-ra-gi-le" and "soap poisoning!", but I made sure we watched it twice just for good measure.

Even Maya got in on the present action. She has decided that the couch is her permanent new home. If you sit there, you must pay attention to her, tell her she's pretty, and give her lots of pets. Or else.

We love our new waffle maker! We're trying it out tomorrow, so excited! It makes 2 at once!

After presents we went outside to play in the snow! Travis thought it would be a good idea to make a snowman, so he used all the snow off our sidewalk to make the base. We have since invested in a snow shovel so he doesn't have to make a snowman every time the walk needs to be cleared. Not to brag or anything, but I made his head and got his arms from a tree!

We eventually mosied on over to Dave and Leslie's house to give and get gifts. They got me this really cool wine cabinet! The front is actually an old window out of the basement of the house we live in. A couple from church make these, and I had asked them a few months back to let me know how much they cost so I could buy one. I never heard from them because apparently the in-laws called them up to buy it for me! So cool!

They also got us a Wii! The whole game system, not just the controller. Travis has been playing it a lot, but I've been a super wimp about being sore from the first night playing on Christmas Eve. And it looks like I'm the only one that was opening gifts but Travis decided to play sole camera man for the day.

Traditionally Trav's grandparents host a big shindig at their house a couple of days after Christmas. Well with Ray's poor health and Christmas falling on a Friday, I think everyone thought it was a good idea to just hold the party on the actual holiday. So we went over there for dinner and visiting with all the long lost family. Grandma and Grandpa Scofield live on a pretty limited income, so typically they give homemade jams and canned foods. This year, they said no gifts because a lot of their money has been going to medical bills. Well the kids couldn't accept that, so what did they get for their parents? A new toilet of course! What every person needs! Actually there is some use to it: the one they have is very short and it's harder for Ray with his limited mobility, so he needed a bigger, taller one. Well:

Tada! Here's proud Grandma Scofield with her brand new toilet! Of course it's in the requested color of almond because that's the color of the other one in their downstairs bathroom. Your toilets have to match you know!

Well, that's Christmas for us this year! Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

Late Breaking News!

2009-12-23T09:48:00.000-08:00

I finally broke Travis down - we got a dog!!! Her name is Maya, she's a 3 year old rat terrier. My, what big ears you have!!

I saw a posting on Craigslist for her, and the owner basically said that if she couldn't find a new home then she was going to the pound. A well behaved, potty trained, adult dog? That's craziness! So I emailed the owner and haggled with her about the "rehoming fee" that she wanted to charge.

Eventually she emailed me saying that a family with 4 kids had adopted her. One of the daughters was crying for a dog for Christmas, so she thought it would be a perfect fit. Yea, I'm sure a family of 6 has plenty of time to spend with a dog.

So we took that to mean that we weren't meant to have a dog. It is kind of a crazy idea anyway - not sure I'm using my best judgment in the situation.

Then Monday evening I received an email from the owner again, she had the dog back because the little girl wasn't "bonding" with her. Go figure. Would I still like her? Heck yea! So after some last minute planning, we are the pround new owners of Maya! Formerly Nya, but we didn't care for the name.

Here she is in the coat we bought for her. It's cold outside! Luckily the pet store was having a big sale, so we got this snazzy little number for $10! She came with a crate, 2 beds, leashes, collars, toys, and food. So the transition hasn't been to difficult for her.

She seems to be very well behaved. She "tells" Travis when she needs to go out, she listens to our commands, and she's pretty much just a big cuddle bug. I think she's decided that she likes us already and is settling in nicely.

The only issue we're having so far is everyone adjusting to each other. So far there are a lot of standoffs like this. Chloe just stays in our bedroom, but Zak is interested in coming out and sniffing around. Just as long as Maya doesn't notice him! There's been a lot of hissing and whining, but nothing serious. One of the good things is that Maya sleeps in her crate at night, so the cats can roam around freely then. And torture her by sniffing at her cage. They'll just take some time to get used to one another!

But as you can see, she's already become a part of the family! What a great Christmas present!

4 more days!

2009-12-21T06:03:00.000-08:00

The countdown has begun! It's officially "Christmas week" and the festivities are on. This weekend we attended the kid's Christmas program at church. Travis landed a solo playing "We Three Kings"! Who knew he was a kid, eh? Anyway, he did awesome! I have a feeling that they're going to try to make him play a lot more now. After the Christmas program I was notified that he volunteered us to light the advent candles on Christmas Eve. Good thing there's a script! All we have to do is read from it and light the candles in the correct order. Doesn't sound too hard - so here's to not messing up!

We've also decided that since we're having our first Christmas in Minnesota, that we need to mix in a little of my traditions too. So the plan is to go for a Chinese lunch before the Christmas Eve service. I know it's weird but that's what I do!

Since funds are tight this year, I decided to make Christmas gifts instead of buying them. Here's what I came up with:

Cookies in a Jar! All the dry ingredients are in there for you to make chocolate chip cookies, all you have to do is add an egg, butter, and some milk I think. There are 12 of these bad boys and let me tell you - it was tedious work! But they came out pretty good in the end. I hope people enjoy them!

Oh yea, some chocolatey goodness! So that's all we've been up to this week. Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas Chaos!

2009-12-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

This is what my life has boiled down to. Complete chaos! And they said that this stay at home wife stuff would be easy!

Saturday night was the holiday party for Trav's company down at the Black Bear Casino. The casino is about 2 hours south of us, so we decided to stay the night and make a weekend of it. Fun right? Oh yea....

Now normally I am the best packer on the planet. I never bring to much, but I think of everything and I rarely forget anything. I guess I am never allowed to say this ever, ever again. We left around 2 pm so that we'd get there around 4 and have time to relax and get ready before cocktails at 5:30. So we get everything loaded in the car and get on our way right on time. No problem! Until we were about 20 minutes away when I realized that I had absolutely none of my jewelery. Not even my wedding rings! It took us 10 minutes of going back and forth on whether we should turn around before Travis finally did and we went back for my jewelery.

I get everything, we get back on the road and we think "ok, now we're good." Again, 1/2 hour away and I think "oh shoot! We forgot the camera!" But I told Travis to just keep going, we'll just have to do without (hence why there are no pictures in this post!). We continue on our way, making good time, until we're about 1/2 hour from the casino. I look at Travis and ask "where did you put my dress? It was on a hanger." He turns to me, eyes wide in horror, and says "I didn't touch your dress. It was hanging with my dress shirt. I thought you had them!"

So now we have no dress clothes. Wonderful! Luckily Travis had packed his dress pants, shoes, and a nicer sweater in our overnight bag. But all I had were jeans, a sweatshirt, sweater, pajamas and shiny silver shoes. Now those shoes can make just about any outfit look good, but pajamas are a far stretch! Ok, new game plan, we can handle this! I tell Travis to just go to the Wal-Mart in Duluth, which is only about 20 minutes out of our way. I'll go in and grab something quick. Well, of course, since I'm a girl, this can't really be as easy as I think it is. After 20 minutes I find a shirt that will work with my jeans and shiny shoes and we finally get out of there.

We actually managed to be only 15 minutes late, and no one really noticed at all. Phew! So after some meet and greet and cocktails, we finally sit down to dinner. At a table with only one other couple. Who, we find out much later, are only dating and are something of a new item. Awkward! Luckily we were able to push through with some small talk about old jobs and whatnot. Now it's time to gamble!

Trav's boss was very generous and gave everyone $15 to spend in the casino, or however you wanted to spend it. I spent mine on booze and slots. I can still feel the burning sensation of it being ripped out of my hands so quickly. Travis, ever the cautious gambler, spent his a little slower but lost his in an equally brilliant blaze of glory. We decided we'd have much better luck on the dance floor, so off we went to boogey down in the casino lounge.

What we didn't know was that it was AARP night in the lounge. So we danced along with a bunch of blue haired 70 something's, trying not to knock anyone over and cause a broken hip. We managed pretty well, but I was starting to get pretty warm so I thought a walk around the casino would make me feel better. Boy was I wrong! It was pretty much all downhill from here. I started feeling horrible and ended up passed out in bed, leaving Travis to his own devises for the rest of the night. He went back down to the casino until 4:30 in the morning, but surprisingly didn't spend or lose any money. Alright hubby!

So the next morning we decided to skip breakfast and just head home. This process was complicated by the fact that I kept getting sick on regular 1/2 hour intervals. Now I know what you're thinking: "oh you wimp, you can handle a hangover!" This was no hang over. I don't know who poisoned my food, but something I ate had me sick all day long. The only thing different that Travis and I ate was the cooked pineapple in the ham plate, so we've decided that it was the pineapple. After my third rousing round of toilet hugging, we decided to make a break for it. We got safely down to the lobby and out to the car. We're doing great! We get on the highway, stop to buy a bottle of water, and get back on the highway - no problems. I'm feeling much better! Until all of a sudden - oh boy, pull over! Lucky us, Travis brought the plastic baggy from the hotel ice bucket. Win!

We managed to get home safely with only having to pull over one more time, and I holed up for the rest of the day at home in bed. Monday morning I woke up feeling fine, almost all better even. What have we learned from our weekend? Always make a list and follow it closely, double check said list 50 times, and don't eat the cooked pineapple if you don't know how long it's been sitting there. So you can commence your berating now, I hope you get stitches from laughing so hard at me.

Monday was spent buying all the necessary ingredients and supplies for making cookies. Today was cookie day. I sit here, on the couch, barely able to move, as the cookies have declared me their evil nemesis and they have definitely won. I'm glad that baking only happens once a year in this house!

Happy Holidays kids! Only 9 more days until the chaos is over!

Deck the Halls part II

2009-12-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

Well it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in the Northwoods! It's been snowing for about 4 days now, and we have a good 5 inches stuck on the ground. Perfect Christmas weather! We're finished decorating finally, inside and out. Out took a little longer than in since we weren't really sure what to do out there. This is the first time we've gotten to decorate a house instead of just a little apartment balcony! I promised pictures last week, so that's what this post is going to be all about!

Here's our little house with the Christmas lights up! We don't have a ladder tall enough to reach the top roof line, but trust me - if we did, there would be lights up there! Notice there isn't any snow on the ground here.

And here we have our beautiful wreath that Travis made. Now look at all that snow!

We even have icicles! The sun came out for a few hours yesterday afternoon, so I ran outside to snap these. They're still there however as it hasn't gone above 15 degrees in the past two days. Brrr!

Here's our lovely Christmas tree! Complete with presents under it and all! It looks really pretty from the road when you drive by :o)

The Christmas Angel shelf. With a few extra odds and ends

The new kitchen cabinet is a great place for decorations too!

And our cute, cuddly cats getting in on the snuggling. They know it's Christmas too!

Besides decorating, our lives haven't been too exciting lately. We're both just plugging along, doing our jobs and trying to stay warm up here! Next weekend is the Country Financial Christmas party at the Black Bear Casino. Should be a fun time! It's about two hours from us, so we're planning on staying over in the resort's hotel. Pictures shall follow!

I hope you all are staying warm and getting in the Christmas spirit!

Deck the halls!

2009-11-29T07:30:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time of year again! There's a light dusting of snow on the ground, we've got our tree up and all I need is a good dose of "A Christmas Story" to really get in the spirit of the season!

We survived Thanksgiving well enough, even after eating my own stuffing. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I offered to make stuffing, but it sounded like a good idea at the time. Except, oh shoot, I've never made stuffing! Sure sure, I've made Stove Top but really - does that even count?

Being the good little planner that I am, I went to allrecipes.com and found a basic, easy stuffing recipe. Chicken broth, onion, celery, pepper, Peppridge Farms stuffing mix. How can you mess that up? So off to the grocery store I went to stock up on supplies. I decided that I'd make a green bean casserole as well, mainly to save face against my stuffing should it turn disasterous. I've made that tons of times, so we're good!

Things were going okay until I decided that I needed about 20 servings of stuffing and casserole. So there I sit, in the middle of the stuffing aisle with my Dad on the phone, trying to figure out cups vs. servings ratios and if I needed one bag or two. Saftey won out and I bought two bags of stuffing and about 14 cans of green beans. Yea....

Thanksgiving Day roles around and we were told that we weren't eating until 4 that afternoon. So we had a lazy day, watched the parade and the dog show. Then at 2 o'clock my sister in law calls to say that the turkey is done and we can come over any time. WHAT!?!?! I guess I better start on that stuffing! The green bean casserole came out fine like it always does, despite me trying to overload the green beans. The stuffing on the other hand.... I think that Pepperidge Farms ought to put a disclaimer on the bag saying something to the effect of "Warning! There is about 2 cups of pure crumbs in this bag! Move on to the next one!"

Of course I thought we could get the job done with one bag of stuffing. And we did. It was just mainly crumbs and therefore pretty mushy. Trav also did a great job as my sous chef for the day, but the onions and celery he cut up were in rather large chunks. So we had onions and celery with a bit of stuffing thrown in for good measure. In the end, it didn't taste bad. Actually it was rather good. And Trav's Grandma, Memaw, actually complimented it and said we did a good job. So I guess if it gets the "Grandma Seal of Approval" then it was alright!

We also had lots of wine with our dinner (and I do mean "lots"!). What's Thanksgiving dinner without a little wine? We brought a bottle of Rhubarb wine and it was probably the biggest hit of the night. Everyone had a glass! Check out Minnesota's own http://www.winehaven.com for more info. Of course when there is wine, there's always some carnage as well. A wine glass met it's demise by my elbow after dinner. But most of the wine landed on Travis so no harm, no foul! We also had pictures from some of our festivities, but unfortunately they were after all the wine and should be considered blackmail rather than fun, family photos. Ahhh, Thanksgiving!

Now the T. Scofield household has moved on to my favorite holiday, Christmas. All the decorations are up, and our house has taken on a warm and cozy glow. Our task today: Christmas lights on the house. We're going to double team it, so hopefully we both survive! More to come next week!

Grease is the word

2009-11-23T11:12:00.000-08:00

have you heard? It's Grease Lightning! Why am I singing Grease songs you ask? Because last night we saw the Broadway version of Grease, starring our very own Dane Scofield!

Dane and his parents, Cherie and Alan, live in St. Cloud which is about 3 1/2 hours south of us. Pretty close to the cities. Dane played the lead, Danny, and was awesome! The whole cast is a bunch of really talented kids, we were pretty amazed. Here's Dane with his co-star Jennifer as Sandy and their proud moms:

Trav could have gotten a little closer, but he wanted the sign in there. And the whole family with Mr. Cool:
Good times! After dinner we went out to eat at the Green Mill in downtown St. Cloud. If you ever have a chance to go, go! It was pretty good. They had a pasta special with a free bottle of wine, so of course I convinced Travis that we needed to order pasta! We ended up drinking the entire bottle at dinner - and no one wanted to share with us even though we asked. So the drive home was pretty entertaining! All in all, we had a great time!

In other news, I have my first real estate client! I got extremely lucky and happened to get a phone call on my very first day doing floor. A gentleman from Colorado was interested in a house, and he wanted me to show it to his friend who would then relay the information back to him. His friend must have gushed about it because he ended up putting an offer in! So we're in the middle of that. Fingers crossed that we can work something out!

Thankgiving is a short 3 days away and thankfully we're not hosting! I'd be very overwhelmed at this point. I did offer to bring stuffing though. Why I did this, I have no clue! Leslie and Dave will be hosting, and she said she wasn't planning on making stuffing so of course I piped up and offered. Did I mention that I've only ever made Stove Top before? Yikes! So I printed off a recipe and it doesn't sound that hard. Just have to get the supplies! Fingers crossed for this too. Soon I'll be crossing toes and limbs! I think I'll bring a green bean casserole too, but only because I know how to make this, and make it well. Hooray Thanksgiving! It's making me hungry just thinking about it.

So that's it for now, off to make my shopping list!

Got Orange?

2009-11-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

That's the en vogue color right now: bright, neon orange. It's hunting season! This weekend marked the official start of deer season and let me tell you - it's a little crazy. I'm thinking that Minnesota should just declare the month of November a holiday to let all these crazy men (and a few women) get it out of their system.

Now I'm not to sure on the rules and such as I'm not an avid hunter myself but I think I have the gist of how it goes. You buy a permit to hunt, and depending on what type of permit you get, you can shoot either one buck or doe, or you can try to shoot two deer in any combo ( two bucks, two does, one of each, whatever). The law states that you can only have one permit per person. So how do ensure that you can go willy nilly and get as many as you want? You get permits in other people's names! Travis has been asked twice now if someone can get a permit with his name. Then there are all these "gentleman" rules about hunting together and who gets to shoot what and when. That's beyond me so I won't even go there.

Needless to say, living way out here in the country, I'm a little afraid to leave my house this weekend. Travis and I went on a walk yesterday and saw multiple dogs with bright orange collars on so that they wouldn't get shot. Scary! I don't have any pictures either because I'm not sure where I stand on deer hunting yet so I don't want to promote it.

In other news, I'm finally done with my real estate classes! Hoooorrrraaayyy! I've applied for my license, which takes 3-5 weeks to process and come back so now it's just a waiting game. Until then I can go to the office meetings, do open houses, and hang out at the office but that's about it. The only downside is that we were planning on Trav's bonus from Country to pay for some of the fees to get me started, but they took so much out in taxes that I'm not sure how we'll pay for me to get started. We'll figure it out: where there's a will, there's a way!

Thanksgiving is on it's way, and right now I'm thankful for heat! It's a balmy 46 degrees outside but it's also a little rainy and damp. Brr!! So I hope this finds you all warm and toasty, have a great week!

Happy Halloween!

2009-11-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

Or All Saints Day since I'm a day late. But whatever, this post is dedicated to Halloween! We had a great time last night at Bimbo's Octagon Bar where Shamrock'd played for the Fireman's Ball. There were some great costumes for sure! Since Travis and I are on a limited budget we put some things together and borrowed some things and voila!

Gypsies! Trav looks a little more like a pirate, but all the pictures we could find online of a male gypsy were of shirtless men smoking cigars with a donkey in the background. It's a little cold to go that far! Of course, no Minnesota Halloween would be complete without snow on the ground. We only have an inch, but I think it's an inch too much!

As I said earlier, Shamrock'd was the entertainment for the evening. We had heard rumors of their costumes but no one had pinned them down yet. Here they are as:

The Village People! Classic I tell you. Dan is the cop, Ian the cowboy, Zach the sailor and Eric is the construction worker. But what Village People costume would be complete without....

The YMCA Dance! We seem to have lost a cowboy here but it still works.

They say that Halloween is a time for ghouls and ghosts, that you never know what you might see on this magical night. I guess whoever "they" are were right because we really did see a ghost!

Michael Jackson is alive! It's amazing!

I'll save you from some of the racier pictures. Some of the "law enforcement" were taking their costumes a little to literal and started arresting people. All in good fun!

I hope everyone had a very Happy Halloween!

One big pat on the back

2009-10-26T16:58:00.000-07:00

for myself. Here's why:

I made this! All by myself! Ok well, technically someone in Taiwan "made" it and then put a million pieces into a box and shipped it to my house. But I put it all together! And I have to admit that I'm pretty proud of myself. It only took 3 hours and a huge fight with some cam locks but it came out nicely!

Speaking of, did you know that a cam lock and a cam lock bolt are two different things? They work well with each other once you get it figured out, but yea, two different things. And I used a hammer to get some of the pieces in, but whatever. It's up, together, and won't fall down in the middle of the night!

Travis finally made it home from his two week training camp in Bloomington, Illinois. He was supposed to come home on Friday, but his first plane was delayed causing him to miss his connection in Detroit. Luckily Northwest/Delta was kind enough to put him up in a fabulous Best Western (insert tons of sarcasm here) and he made it home the following afternoon. I came home to find him investigating the outside of our house. Forgot that we gave his house key to his mom to feed the cats while we were both gone. Whoops! He was only outside for 10 or 15 minutes though, Trav is a tough guy!

One thing I'm learning about living in northern Minnesota is the kindness and generosity that the people have here. It is very common to see a flyer for some kind of benefit dinner a couple times a month at random restaurants/bars/community centers. We happened to have one at our community center this past weekend for a gentleman that lives near us who is suffering from cancer. It was a chili dinner, and they had prizes to raffle off. Let me tell you - I was amazed at the amount of people there and the amount of donated prizes. And not just like dish towels and baked goods - there was some good stuff! Travis and I bought tickets for Wild Tickets, a wine rack/shadow box thing that came with 4 bottles of wine and 4 hand painted wine glasses, and a free night at one of the casinos that included a dinner at the restaurant. Of course we didn't win anything, but it's the spirit that counts! I don't know the exact number that was raised but I know that it was a lot. Makes me pretty proud to live in this community!

The next big thing is a Halloween party at Bimbo's Bar next weekend. Travis and I will be going as a gypsy couple. Pictures are sure to follow!

Vacation Recap

2009-10-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

Here I am, back in the northwoods of Minnesota. And the weather isn't so frightful today, although it's been pretty hairy for a week now. Last weekend Travis and I both left to go to Illinois for him and St. Louis for me. I had such a good time visiting with my family! Sunday we went out on Keith's boat and then went down to visit with Scott, Karen and the kids. Then Monday we had a winery day, hooray! Of course, I only have pictures from winery day - priorities, eh?

Here we are at Montelle, one of our favorites. The wine is great, the views are great, what more could you ask for? And of course I came home with a bottle. Only one though, shocking!

I told you, the views are spectacular!

And here we are enjoying our wine. And those potato chips - they're so good! I can't think of the name right now, but oh boy are they yummy!

Here I am with my mom at Balducci's, and Keith's butt. That pretty much sums it up ;o)

On Tuesday Mom, Dad, and I piled into the car for the 13 hour drive back to my house. It was a loooong drive. Luckily Dad let me drive a little bit, like you know, maybe 45 minutes. He's such a trooper! Of course I'm telling them that the weather won't be so bad and it's not as horrible as everyone thinks. And then it snows Thursday. Just kidding guys! I did move to the North Pole!

While they were here we visited the Minnesota Discovery Center which is basically a museum dedicated to the Iron Range, and they also have different exhibits. This month was one called "Iron Dogs" all about the history of snowmobiling. It was pretty cool! They had antique snowmobiles from every stage of development.

Thursday we drove up to Ely, Minnesota which is the gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area - basically right across from Canada. But they have some neat stuff there! We went to the North American Bear Center and got to see some black bears. They're pretty cute little devils!

This one could see my flash going off, so she kept posing for us. She'd walk one way, stop and look at us, turn around and walk the other way, stop and look at us. Although she quickly became bored with us once she realized we had no food (nor could be eaten behind the windows) and walked off into the forest.

This guy is sitting on the scale they have built especially for the bears. They put food up on the little ledge and the bears come up on the scale, eat, and get weighed. The researchers at the bear center are very diligent about tracking the bears growth and health. They try to weigh the bears at least two times per day. I don't know how that works once they start hibernating - I don't think that they're very friendly waking up from that nap!

Ely is also home to the Steger Mukluk's store, where they handmake these shoes and boots out of moose skin. You can buy them online, but if you want to experience them first hand then you have to go to Ely as they have the only Mukluk store in the nation. Check them out! www.mukluks.com

On the way home from Ely (not pronounced Eli, although my parents are gunning hard to change the name of the town to Eli) we stopped at a lake along the side of the road that my parents thought was particularly pretty.

Here's my Dad being a tourist. He's pretty good at it!

My good lookin' parents! Right after this my Dad found a big piece of slate to take home for his garden. Hopefully this wasn't some kind of national park - if it was, you never heard about this. The lake didn't have a name marker, so we've named it Eli Lake.

They packed up and left me Friday morning, and as always it was pretty tough to say goodbye. I'm not so sure about this living on opposite ends of the country thing. We'll just have to get good at traveling.

Last night was my first wine tasting, at my own house. It went really well! We had a great turn out of 12 people, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I personally enjoyed the Pedretti Pinot Grigio and the Paseo Cabernet Sauvignon, both of which can be found at www.myttv.com/Alison14231 . Go check them out! Oh and my merlot drinkers especially liked the La Vigna Mobile Toscano - I even let them take home the rest of the bottle (for a small fee (o: )

So that's the news from the Iron Range. Travis comes home on Friday, and I'm really ready for him! Hope everyone has a great week!

Well, the weather outside is frightful....

2009-10-10T15:58:00.001-07:00

Or should I be singing "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow"? Yep, that's right folks - guess what I woke up to this morning!

SNOW!!!

What's that you say? It's not even Halloween yet, you say? Bah humbug! The snow is here whether you like it or not!

Here's the cute scarecrow that I just bought, literally two days ago, to make our house look a little more fall like. Now he looks like some weird snow-franken-crow with his snow beard.

And our cute little pumpkins now have snow hats.

This one is a special request for my Dad:

Flamingos in the snow!

So there you have it folks, our very first northern Minnesota snow. In October. The beginning of October to be exact. Looks like I'm in for a long winter!

Earlier this week I left you with the cliffhanger of my impending real estate exam. Tuesday I spent about 5 hours in the library studying, and Wednesday I spent another good 4 hours studying. Before I went to class on Wednesday I took a practice exam on the testing website. I thought I was being a good little student and that I had no worries. Man was I in for a surprise! The practice exam was completely different that I imagined it would be, and sadly I only scored a 66%. So of course, I was freaked out beyond belief with only about 12 hours to go until I had to take the real exam. How do you even prepare for that? Well, I went to class, reviewed my practice exam and Minnesota laws one more time, and then I left it in the hands of God.

The testing center is in Duluth, and I was told to arrive at 9:30am. Duluth is a good 2 hours away, which meant that I was up at 6 and out of the house at 7:30. The entire way there I'm sweating bullets, freaking out that I'm going to fail, and I called Travis a couple of times to look some things up in my book back at home. Good ol' GPS got me to the testing center right on time, and I walked in on shaky legs to get it over with. The test is split into two portions, the National and the State exam with 80 and 40 questions each. It took me an hour and a half to get through all the questions, second guessing myself the entire way but....

I PASSED!!!!!

Hooray! I was so relieved that I nearly passed out. I walked out to the test proctor and double checked with him: " it said that I passed. So that means I really passed right? Like, I'm good? No jokes?" He looked at me a little funny but confirmed that I had indeed passed both portions. Yippy!

So since then I've been relaxing a little bit and getting ready for my trip to St. Louis. Travis and I both leave tomorrow out of Duluth at 8:15 am. We're on the same flight to Minneapolis and then we split there. It's going to be a long 2 weeks! But I'll make sure that I have lots of pictures for my next post!

Slacker

2009-10-05T15:05:00.001-07:00

In all areas of my life it seems! But I have good reason:

Behold - I give you exhibit A. My real estate study book, including but not limited to a calculator, pen, pencil and 250 flash cards (give or take a few).

Yep, that's a whole lotta note cards. Hand written too, not those pre-printed, garbage cards you can buy from independent exam review places. Just call me old school.

So this real estate exam has pretty much taken over my life. I take the exam on Thursday and then have 4 more weeks of classes. They recommend doing it this way because the stuff that is on the test is strictly from the first two weeks, the next four are all just for fun. Yay fun!

How am I managing all this studying you ask? I'm unemployed! Uh...self-employed. Friday was my last day at the bank (happy dance will commence shortly), so now I'm trying to get the word out about my Traveling Vineyard business and pass this exam. Go check out my website! www.myttv.com/Alison14231 . There you can shop around, purchase wines, book a tasting, learn more about wine, join the wine of the month club, and even sign up to be a wine consultant like me. My first tasting is scheduled for the 17th - but don't get to excited just yet. I'm hosting it at my house and inviting everyone I know. I figure that most people won't do it unless they see it first. Fingers crossed!

Travis is keeping himself busy with work. He has to do a lot of online training, and they've been narrowing down their office locations. But he's leaving me in a week, for two whole weeks! The good news is that I'm leaving too! Well, I'm flying down to St. Louis to visit our family there, and then will be driving back with my parents. They'll be staying here for 2 short days. Probably can't handle the cold for longer than that!

Speaking of, I think our high has only been around 45 for the past few days. Our heater is definitely on and working! I'm freezing already though - not a great outlook for January. I might be a popsicle by March!

Today I went to the DMV to apply for my new license and get my new plates. In Minnesota you have to retake the written portion of the exam in order to get a new license if you've never had a MN license before. While I totally understand this, I was a little freaked out about taking the test! So, like the good girl that I am, I got a review booklet and read it over last night. No need to worry - I passed with a 91%! Silly me thought that I could get my license and plates in the same office though. Ney ney, they are in two different locations, on opposite sides of town from each other. Lucky though, I was the only person at the plates office and one of two at the license office. Oh they joys of living in a small town! But now my car is officially Minnesotan, and I will be in about 5 weeks when my license comes. Yay!

To my faithful followers: next week I'll be in St. Louis, so I may not update for a couple of days. It will be tough, but I know you can make it through!