Blimey Wee Leprechauns

This year for St. Patrick’s Day we were finally able to join in on the Finnegan’s Pub Crawl. The good thing about Finnegan’s is that ALL of their proceeds go towards charitable causes; the bad thing is I don’t really like it. It’s not a light beer, which is what I like, it’s darker and seems heavier to me. I know I’m very picky. But regardless, I downed my fair share of it over the course of the pub crawl. After all, free beer is good beer, right? (Well, if by free I mean free after you paid $40 to get a t-shirt and go on the pub crawl anyway)… Regardless, a great time was had by all. I think you’ll be able to tell by the pictures. Good times with good people. And then the following day I came down with the WORST sickness. I think it was a flu/cold combo. Totally knocked me on my ass for 5 days. I still have a stuffy nose, but at least I’m back up and going. (Unfortunately it now seems like Wade is coming down with it… oops).

Happy late St. Patrick’s day little leprechauns! (I love green people!) Cheerio!

I don't think I could have anything more green on me! I'm such a tool.

Yes, Wade has 4 popped collars. That is b/c he is "4-popped collars cool".

On the bus doing our pub crawl

The cutest little coasters, mine are horney leprechauns, Kara's is virginal. :)

Travis hanging by the bus hand rails brings down drunk Amanda! Too funny! :)

Josh is having such a good time he didn't even stop partying to use the bathroom. :)
Kara's turn to look like a tool.

God help me...

I did it. I registered for the 2008 MS 150 bike ride.

Now please, God, be gentle with me and help me instead of giving me 25+mph head winds and 90+ degree heat like last year... Please...

And for those of you who want to support me and join the fight against MS here is my donations page (I'll be sending out a "fun" mass email later):
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/MNMBikeEvents?pg=personal&fr_id=7100&fr_id=7100&px=4521285

For those of you who do not know, I rode this for the first time ever last year. It is actually over 150 miles, approximately from Duluth to Blaine. I wrote previously about it in an earlier post, so read that if you're interested in details. It was NOT a fun ride for me. But I guess determination and the want to feel like I was contributing to my friends battle won out in the end... Dang it.

Ahhh... Mexico

What more can be said about Mexico other than in the dead of winter it is the greatest place to escape to. We just returned from a 6-day trip to Riviera Maya, Mexico for Brad & Erika’s wedding. One word sums it up: Perfection. Perfect weather, perfect wedding, perfect friends, and all that tallied up to a PERFECT time! Erika was a stunning bride and Brad was a handsome groom. Wade was the best man and I must say he was muy guapo. There is my extent of Spanish for ya’ll.

We mostly relaxed by the ocean, drank lots of tropical slushy drinks, played some water volleyball and enjoyed ourselves.

My new favorite drink is the Miami Vice which is ½ pina colada and ½ strawberry daiquiri. Absolutely delicious! Too bad they are too much of a pain in the ass to make for me to bother w/ now that we are home.
Who bought tickets to the gun show? :)Wade and Brad enjoy their big gay swing time. :)

Kristin I have no clue as to what is going on in this picture, but that is what makes it funny. :)

We also had the opportunity to take an excursion and visited the Mayan ruins of Tulum and went to Xel-Ha which is an ocean inlet that has been turned into a tourist attraction.

Gretchen and I are about to be a snack for that hungry iguana!

We snorkeled, tubed, cliff jumped and just marveled at the beautiful nature. And E ran into a tree. Too funny not to share, although at the time she had a nasty headache. Poor E, those dang trees always jump out at you.

So now the question comes, when can we go back!?!?! (And more importantly, when is spring going to get here? I’m freezing my ass off!)

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!