Oh the places we go...

So as promised I’m posting some pictures from the busy lives we’ve been living lately.

My trip to Ft. Myers with Milly, Gilly and Bud was wonderful. The weather was picture perfect (in the 80’s every day and sunny) and we kept ourselves busy sight seeing, shopping and going to the beaches. Perfection! We also had the pleasure of getting down to Everglades City and taking an air boat ride. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a boat w/ a big fan on the back of it which propels it and skims it over the water. Because of this the water does not have to be deep for the boat and it can even go over mud as long as it is wet. There were times we were in water that was just a few inches deep. This boat can fly! And we zoomed through the everglades and even got to do some 360’s! It was a blast. Unfortunately the only alligator we got to see was a little stuffed dead one (the season was dry and the water turned too salty so they swam out and away), but we did get to see a swamp raccoon. And yes, they look almost exactly like the Midwest raccoons. But it was still neat b/c our captain fed it right out of his hands and it grabbed the “People” crackers from him w/ her little paws. Very cute! Here are some of the highlights of the trip. I definitely think we should make this an annual vacation! :)
Bud, Milly and Gilly ready to watch the sunset

They have some great sunsets in Florida

Our air boat ride!

The captain manuevered us through these narrow passageways

The friendly little swamp raccoon we saw

I got to pretend to be captain! Aye matey!

Milly got to steer it for real!

They are everywhere! This was in a drainage on the side of the highway.

Gilly and Bo enjoy the Seafood Festival that we just happened to get to go to in Everglades City

Our next trip was up to Bessemer, MI (the U.P.) We had a group of 14 join us this year. Smaller than normal, but no less fun! This group wasn’t afraid of drinking hard, partying, UFC, unicycling (haha), handstands (haha, again), snow tossing and staying up late. Well, late as in 1:30 am. But when you start drinking before noon, that IS late! A lot of people skied and snowboarded and sledded. I did not. Do I regret that? Not in the least. I stayed warm, drank early and stayed out of the blizzard that the afternoon turned into! The 2nd night up there it turned freaking ridiculous on us and the wind-chill was around 20 below! Our walk home from the Booby Hatch (which is only 2 blocks!) was HORRID! My thighs froze by the time we walked back into the Abbey! I never knew my thighs could freeze, but yes, in fact, they can! There were so many good moments captured on film, I’ll try to get the best ones on here. Definitely good times! And I got to try my first pickled egg. Did I like it, you ask? Well, I'll let the pictures tell the story. :)
Travis was the pimp for the weekend (and he pretty much didn't change out of this the whole time!
The group playing tippy cup

I told you there were handstands... and they weren't very good!

I decided I would test out the "fire escape", I need to lift weights, I'm a wimp.
Thank God John helped me or I would have fallen on my ass! :)
Ahh... the Booby Hatch, what a GREAT place!
And I told you there was unicycling!
And UFC, I won. :)
I love Kara's face in this one. Priceless.
My 1st pickled egg... And my last pickled egg. Freakin nasty.
And now it's time for the "Toss Wade in the Snow" game... he wasn't being cooperative.
But we eventually got him, and bonus, we got Travis too! :)

And finally, E’s 2nd Bachelorette Bash! This one unfortunately didn’t turn out all that much better than the first. Although this time when she got sick it WAS due to the alcohol. We never made it out of Gretchen’s apartment, but we still managed to have a good time and take care of poor E. She knows how to drink them down, unfortunately couldn’t keep them down though! We’ll do a 3rd times the charm party for her in Mexico, which is in exactly one week! Yippeeeee!!!! I can’t wait! I’ve been a shopaholic lately finding all these cute tee’s and tanks for the trip. I’ve spent way over my budget for clothing this month. Oops. I guess I will just make it up next month and not buy anything. It’s so hard to say no though when you see something cute that is on sale and you just KNOW it will be perfect for Mexico! Si, me gusta mucho! Vamos a Mexico!

The first try, Jana filled in as our bride so we could still get in free everywhere even though we lost E. :(
Yay, E came back out!

Sisters, so happy together! :)

Seriously, minutes before we lost her the 2nd time!

We decided to continue the party anyway. E would have wanted us to... :)

So there is my full length update. I hope you are all happy now! This weekend we have friends coming to visit us! Bartels, Drew and maybe Tanya, assuming she is feeling better. I can’t wait. We never get people to visit us, we always have to visit them! So this will be great! We plan on skiing one day. We’ll see how that goes…

Until next time… Cheerio my peeps!

These are the days of our lives...

So much has been going on the past few weeks I haven’t found the time to post lately! We’ve had family visit, a bachelorette party, and travels. We’ve been to Bessemer, MI this last weekend (I will post more on that later along w/ a few pictures). And I was in Ft. Myers, FL the weekend before that soaking up the sun! This week will be a little calmer, with Valentine’s Day to look forward to, but the weekend will be another one filled w/ social events. Gotta love it! :)

Ahhh… Valentine’s Day. When I get the excuse to get Wade to treat me like a princess. Oh wait, he pretty much does that every day! I am SO lucky! :) We will be going to Atlas Grill in Minneapolis. We’ve never been there before, but the menu looks spectacular! Can’t wait to try it! Wade always makes us reservations somewhere nice that we’ve never been before and it is always something to look forward to. So I can’t wait for that.

Friday we are going to attempt a re-do on E’s bachelorette bash since she got sick at her last one. And no, it wasn’t due to too much alcohol, she had the flu! Poor E! (this pic was right before she left the party) So we will make another go at it and I can’t wait. While Saturday is Brad’s bachelor party that Wade has been looking forward to and help plan. I may just take it easy that night. We’ll see. It would be kind of nice to take an evening to myself and relax, but somehow I always find myself going out to do something!

Look forward to posting some good pics of FL and Bessemer on here this week. Stay tuned! :)

Lata my peeps!

Save Cy!

So I'm sure many of you Iowa Staters have heard and seen the new ISU helmets are no longer going to have a picture of Cy on them. Instead they are going to merely have "I-State" written on them as our new definitive logo. In having this change, it may lead people to question, which I-State are we talking about here? Illinois, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa? I don't get it! The first time I saw our new logo I said, that's great and all, but where is CY!?!? I, along with over 4,300 other people have already signed an online petition to keep Cy on our logo. Cy is our mascot, and a well known one at that. He was voted the most dominant mascot on earth on a CNN Sportsline.com poll, beating out 63 other mascots! Why in the world would the ISU athletic department want to remove him from our logo!?!? Now, this online petition very well may not do a damn thing to keep Cy on our logo, but at the very least it will get our voices heard. We love Cy and we want to keep him on our helmets and in our logo! So please, if you agree with me on this one, go to http://www.savecy.com/ and sign the online petition. It will only take you 1 minute, unless your name is really long and hard to type. :)

The "old" helmets featuring our mascot, Cy (top) and the new proposed helmets featuring the "I" (bottom).

Peace out homies!

Celebrate 2008!

It's 2008 and it's hard for me to believe that 2007 is already over. The year literally FLEW by for me! So far 2008 has not started out well. I've been sick since ringing in the new year! The bug that won't leave! Luckily it seems to be waning, finally. But in other news 2008 is looking to be a great year, filled with exciting trips and fun times! The first few months we are swamped already!

Already planned for January is a family visit and Erika's bachelorette party which promises to be a drunken fun time! And then February 1st I leave for a 4 day weekend in Ft. Myers, Florida with my mother in law (otherwise referred to as Milly). It will be a nice, relaxing weekend enjoying the sun and beach w/ my in-laws. I can't wait.

Jumping off the plane coming home the following weekend we have our annual trip to Bessemer, MI planned. If any of you have been there with us you KNOW it is bound to be a TON of fun! I can't wait. And please let me know if any of you want to join us! It's a relatively cheap weekend of drinking games, local bars and skiing/snowboarding (if you're not too hung over!) Maybe my local favorite bartender will be at the Booby Hatch again and will give me more free drinks... Cheers to that! :) And no, the Booby Hatch is not a strip club, it's just a dive bar, who woulda thunk it!

The last weekend of February Wade and I leave for a wedding in Riviera Maya, Mexico! Yes, that is right! Brad and Erika are finally tying the knot! After the worlds longest engagement I am so excited for them to finally take the step AND super excited that they are doing it in Mexico! Needless to say Wade and I are very pumped about this trip! And hopefully I'll have some sort of tan left over from Florida! The trip will definitely be our highlight trip of the year! (Unless by some chance we can actually pull off another trip to Key West in November like we'd like to do, but with all these other trips that is not looking promising.)

April thru September promises to be full of racing weekends for Wade, sometimes I join him, sometimes I don't. But we will hopefully be making it to Sturgis again for our 3rd time there. And this year Wade will hopefully be getting another tattoo, since Kara and I got one there last August. But you never know, maybe all 3 of us will leave Sturgis with new artwork. I mean, you DO get a free pitcher of beer w/ a tattoo at the place we found. Perfect!

In September when the Clones play against UNLV we will hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) be there cheering them on. I LOVE Vegas and can't wait to go again. It's almost like an addiction really. Once I leave I can't stop thinking about the next time I get to go. (Kind of like tattoos, as soon as I get one I start thinking of my next one, to my dad's dismay!)

So we have a lot of fun upcoming events in this new year. We sure will be busy, but we are so blessed that we are able to have all this in our lives! Happy 2008 to all of you! Please be sure not to be a stranger!

Luvs!

Holiday shmoliday

The holiday season has been kicked into high gear in our household. We've already attended 2 holiday parties and have 3 more to go! We have officially finished our Christmas gift shopping! Thank God! I think this is by far the earliest we have ever finished and I am so glad to not have to fight the holiday rush with the last minute shoppers. I usually am one of the people out at 10:00 pm the night before! It must be that as I get older the more I plan ahead. Sorry Wade! I know you like to take things as they come. That could cause us problems in the future if I continue on this trend! I'll try to remember to keep things spontaneous as well. :)

Looking back at the past year, as 2008 quickly approaches, I know that Wade and I have a TON to be thankful for. Here's to having as many blessings in 2008 as we have had in 2007. Our health, our families and friends, a roof over our heads, food to eat and plenty to drink (haha). We have truly been blessed. We'd like to wish you all a happy holiday season and a happy new year too!

Here's a look back at some of the many fun things we've done this past year.

CHEERS!

Ringing in 2007!

Good times at the Cabooze

Preggo Lindsey (such a cute Mama)

Girls Night Out

Fish Fry Night

Guster Concert

Lesli & Tim's wedding

Hawaii!

Starkey Hearing Foundation Cocktail Party

40 Hands at Buzzards & Beer

Chicago Trip

1997 Valley High 10-year Reunion

Liar's Club

Horsey Time

Sturgis Week

Family Reunion

Tailgating (GO CLONES!)

Halloween

What Wade & I have been doing for the past year...

So some of you know that Wade and I have been in the process of major upgrading on the house we bought just over a year ago. I thought I would show some of the things we've completed this past year in our attempt to get our home updated. When I look back at these pictures it really opens my eyes to all we've done. But our to-do list seems just as long as ever for some reason!

We just moved our bed upstairs about 2 weeks ago finally. The new carpet is in! (And Kobe graciously threw up all over it about a week after it was installed. A whole other story in itself. Thank you for breaking it in Kobe. Sense the sarcasm?) Anyway, the only things we need to do upstairs now are to install the trim, put in the closet rail/shelves and refinish the built in's. Then our upstairs master bedroom will be complete! To see just how far we've come with it here are the before and after pictures.

Wasn't it pretty before? I really dig the wood paneling and linoleum floors. :)

Brad helped out a lot! Thanks Brad!Paint is done but carpet isn't in yet.

Finally, carpet is in and the railing is up and painted. That thing was a pain in the ass to paint.

Our backyard was a complete mess when we moved in. Hardly any grass, a huge ugly dying tree, a long line of tree/shrub/bush things, and wood chips substituted for landscaping. Yes, very nice indeed. We completely tore apart the back yard. And this will show you why (and it doesn't even do it justice as to how bad it truly was)...

We'd already taken down the 4 1/2 foot high chain link fence. Ugly!

After the tree was removed and we'd yanked all the tree/shrub/bush things. Wade had a lot of fun w/ that Bobcat!
Grass! (And an outrageous water bill!) Yay!

The front wasn't in as bad of shape, but we pulled 3 crappy bushes and put in some new ones and we put some pavers for the border as well. Don't miss our Cyclone rock. Go Clones! :)

We also tackled putting in a new patio door. That made me really nervous when we had a giant hole in the side of our house. But as always, Wade impressed me and pulled through with a great job done. Our new door really makes the small kitchen feel more open. I don't really have any good before pictures, but you can see the process.

Wade pulled a Chuck Norris on the old door.

Wade cutting through the side of our house! No mistakes allowed!

It's in! Now I just have to figure out what color of paint I want to do in the kitchen and we can finish it up.

Well, those were some of the larger items we tackled throughout the year. Now you can see how we were always busy working on the house. This doesn't even count all the painting I've done (which was pretty much the entire house). Up next will be to insulate the garage, build a deck off our new patio door, add a 3/4 bath downstairs, upgrade our current bathroom and put in new carpet in the basement. After we get all that done then we'll probably move. Go figure. :)

Cheers everyone!