Memories of a past long ago...

So I've got a weird story that I'm going to share today that I know I've told some of you before, but this is just a reminder of what a small, small world we live in.

A few months back a co-worker of mine (Mary Ellen) mentioned that she and her fiance (Tom)were driving to Iowa for the weekend to visit his mother and family. Out of curiosity (being that I am from Iowa) I asked her where they were going. When she says Waverly, I think no way! That is where my mom is from, she grew up there and we still have a ton of family that lives there. As we keep talking we somehow come to realize that Tom's aunt (Dot) was my grandma's best friend. And he knew my grandma very well. He spent a lot of time growing up at his aunt's house and my grandma was over there a lot. Both my grandma and Dot have since passed away, my grandma over 17 years ago. But this brought up such old memories of my grandma. It makes me miss her like crazy and feel like it was just yesterday that I was cramming all of her chocolate chip cookies into my mouth that I could fit! (It's really amazing I'm not fat, I was blessed w/ a high metabolism, phew!)

A few days later Tom searches through some old photos he has and scans and sends them to Mary Ellen to share with me. These are what he sent:


Immediately when I see these photos my eyes tear up and I get chills up and down my body. This is truly amazing for him to have these pictures of my grandma having a good time w/ her best friend. What a blessing he has given me by bringing these memories of mine to the front of my mind. Holidays with the family at grandma's house were something so long ago, yet so great and can never be duplicated. I am so thankful for the short amount of time I had to share with her on this earth. She showed me (and all her grandchilden) an endless amount of love.

Lord do I miss her.

Road (A)Head

Too funny not to share this pic. :)

This weekend was a very busy and good one. Kara made it up here Thursday night for the Bret Michael's concert on Friday. I ended up taking off Friday to help Wade a bit with the deck and spend w/ Kara . Helped Wade first by shoveling what appeared to be a small amount of rock, but what felt like a very large amount of rock. My back is KILLING me now. After sweating profusely, I showered up and did some damage shopping with Kara at Southdale. We finished up just in time to get home and get ready to head out to catch the bus to Jackpot Junction for the concert. Met Pam and Paula, mixed up our bus drinks up and hopped aboard. We got to Jackpot with plenty of time to get great seats in the Gen Admin area and we were set. Sebastian Bach opened for Bret and I must say he was really good. Brings me back to junior high mixers dancing with my first boyfriend. Too funny. When Bret came on stage the crowd went crazy. This concert sold out in a week and was the fastest sell out ever at Jackpot. And I don't care what anyone says but Bret is hot. Rockstars just have something extremely attractive about them, and he is no exception. I thought the same thing when I saw Kid Rock in concert. Wouldn't give him the time of day if he were just some random at the bar, but seeing him work his shit on stage, there is something very sexy about it. Can't help it, won't deny it, leave it be. :)

Saturday was a pretty uneventful day since we didn't get home until 3 am from the concert. Kara and I slept in while Wade got working on the deck some more. When we finally got out of bed we saw this:

The post holes were dug and concrete was in and set. Wade was ready to start framing. After a quick run to Home Depot for some more screws and to DQ to get Wade and Bob a cold treat (total time approx. 30 min) we came home to this:

I think Wade and Bob were trying for a record in the fastest deck building time ever. They sure weren't fuckin around! By the time the rain started and they called it a day they had gotten most of the framing up and we could visualize just how big the deck was going to be. I can't wait!
Bob working hard for the money (or DQ) :)
Bob and Wade discuss what to do next
The side of the house
Most of the outer frame is up!

After cleaning up we headed to Eagan to help Amanda and Tony celebrate their upcoming 30th birthdays. Had some drinks, played some games and enjoyed the company and the much calmer night with friends. A welcome night in comparison to the concert the night before. We headed home around 1am to play a little Mario Kart and then crashed.

Today Kara and I decided we'd go back to Southdale real quick to take a look in one store we didn't make it to on Friday. Did a little more damage this time and then headed to Figlio's for their happy hour. As I've said before, they have a GREAT happy hour. We treated ourselves to the gorgonzola cheese fries, a sausage pizza for me and a pepperoni pizza for Kara and a beer each. Our total bill = $13. How awesome is that!?! When we headed home from happy hour we saw this:

Wade never ceases to amaze me. We were gone for only about 3 hours and he's got all of the middle boards in! It's crazy how handy he is.

Kara got packed up and said goodbye and headed home and Wade put me to work helping him with the deck. We purchased the handiest little tool ever made for nailing. The palm nailer.
Totally worth the $75. It saved us an unimaginable amount of time with this deck. Wade handed me the palm nailer and set me to work. I nailed like I've never nailed before. I felt like She-ra, the Princess of Power. I was totally kicking this decks ass. And suddenly I was done. And we had the framing complete.
Ta-da!

Now we have to wait to get it inspected before we can put the boards on. I can't believe how fast this deck is coming together. Wade is the best deck builder ever. And tons of thanks also to Bob, Keith and Mitch. They have lent a helping hand a time or two. :)

Now it is time for me to jump in the shower. I feel like I'm covered in dried boob sweat. Nasty.

Smell ya later.

Wind in my Hair, Beer in my Mouth

This last 4 day long weekend was wonderful. We started it off with a bang by hosting the 2nd annual 4th of July kegger. As predicted it was much calmer than last year, but still a good time was had with good company. We had a first time keg attendee, Livia, who seemed to enjoy herself quite a bit!
Travis gets fitted w/ all the proper safety gear to ensure no legal bills :)
After beer pong, bags and unicycling we ended up with only a little of the keg left. Thank goodness (and thanks to Tony & Steve who helped out a lot!).
And Birch (he really liked the keg)
Too funny to leave out... :)

Thursday Wade and I trekked to Home Depot and made a large purchase of decking material and new basement windows. Wade promptly discovered that with old houses remodeling never quite goes as easily as hoped and ended up having to grind down concrete in the basement to get the 1st window in! Luckily he’s gotten the 2 in that we needed to in order to move forward with the deck. The other 3 can wait for a bit.
The side of our house currently looks like a shit hole.
Kobe's keeping an eye on Wade to make sure he builds this deck to code. :)

Thursday night we spent out at Richfield’s Street Dance. Some good cover music played by Jonah & the Whales and we played some always fun “fair” games. I won a stuffed pink dog that I happily handed over to Jessica to give to her pooch, Stella. Stella has a weakness for fair animals. Haha… Then we headed home where we met Lance and Wendy, played some more bags and polished off the remainder of the keg. I crashed at 3 am, but Wade and Lance stayed up until the sun was coming up playing Mario Kart!

Two goofy guys

The 4th was a fairly uneventful day (since we didn’t go to bed until the wee hours). We slept in, got some late lunch and got ready to hit the 4 pm happy hour at Figlio’s. Their happy hour NEVER disappoints! $2 pints and $2 appetizers from 4-7 pm! And we’re talking AWESOME appetizers: Gorgonzola cheese fries, mini burgers, mini pizzas, mini sloppy joes, meatballs, etc. After the happy hour was over and Brad & Erika met us out we headed across the street to Drink. We thought their rooftop patio would be a good place to be able to catch at least a few fireworks. (That didn’t work out as planned) Not too many could be seen very well, but we still had a good time and then headed home for some more drinks, a bonfire and bags. The ride home was interesting and windy (and a lot of fun)!
Wendy & I enjoy the nice weather on our ride home (out the windows!)
Lance gets in on the fun too out the top of the sunroof


Saturday afternoon was spent doing my favorite hobby: shopping. We headed up to Bob’s Cycle Supply to look at motorcycle stuff. Wade got a new Troy Lee Designs hat and Lance and Wendy picked up some stuff as well. Then we headed to the Mall of America for Wendy and Lance’s first trip there. It was a successful shopping trip with everyone getting a few new items of clothing (and as always, I had a blast). I LOVE MOA! After all that we headed out to meet Bob and Amy at Uptown Bar for some dinner on their patio and then onto Champp’s to catch the UFC Championship fight. The fights were extremely bloody, but the main event was great! Forrest won! Yay, Forrest!

Sunday was a hot mutha out. Extremely humid and muggy. It was miserable really. So what do we do? We work on the deck and landscaping out in the heat. Ick. I spent my time taking back a hydrangea that didn’t make it through the winter (and was guaranteed for 1 year luckily) and exchanging it for another boxwood. Very exciting. Wade installed basement window #2 and got another piece of the decking wood up on the back of the house. Our neighbor, "Muscles" aka Mitch, came over to help Wade out for a bit (lucky for me since I was already dripping w/ boob sweat = gross). And we called it a day. Spent the evening watching “Ocean’s Twelve” and relaxing w/ my 2 main men.
There's my newest bush (on the right) Isn't it beautiful? :)
This is what our house looked like when we bought it!
A drastic improvement!
Wade and "Muscles" putting the 2nd board on the house
It's on!
One of the 2 new basement windows that is in
What a GREAT long weekend. Is it Friday yet? Haha…

Did you say KEG???

Tonight is our 2nd annual Wessels' 4th of July kegger. Wade has been in California all this week so I've gotten the house ready and he just has to pick up the keg and ice and we'll be set. This year probably won't be as out of control as last year (unfortunately). Being on a Wednesday, a lot of people have to work tomorrow and a lot of our friends now have babies or are preggo, so I'm guessing it won't last until 4 am again! But our volleyball team will be in attendance and we are hopeful that we will have a good turn out and drink the keg dry. Luckily Wade and I both have tomorrow off work to recuperate, clean up and get working on the deck again. And then off to the Richfield Street Dance Thursday night to celebrate the upcoming holiday with Paula and John. I've been promised that it is a good time.

We are expecting Wade's friend from high school, Lance, and his girlfriend, Wendy, to visit us this long weekend and are excited to have some out of town company. We'll have plenty to do to stay busy and the weather is promising to be nothing short of spectacular.

I'll get some pics posted of the keg, deck building and our long weekend sometime next week. Until then, stay safe and have a HAPPY 4th of JULY!!!

Phew!

Okay, I can handle this. After being so infuriated with the whole blog template issues, I finally figured it out. I think this is much better. Nothing to write home about, but at least it doesn't look like I puked pink up all over the page. Sorry for those of you who had to witness such a horrid template issue. I'm back in the swing of things now and I think this new background is quite pleasing to the eyes. No more bleeding. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Damn computer crap

So I thought I was fairly computer saavy. That was until I decided I wanted my profile to be unique and not one of the 15 different layouts that Blogger lets you choose from. I Google searched "blog templates" and found tons of different sites w/ tons of cool templates to choose from. I found one I liked and pasted the HTML code into my template area thinking it would be that easy, and it was! Until I noticed it had erased all my favorite links. So then I end up spending the next hour trying to find my favorite links so that I can add them in, only I know NOTHING about HTML coding so I have absolutely no idea where to put the codes in for it to work on my new profile. Damn it. So I revert back to my old profile's template only to discover that my links are now missing from it as well and now the tab I used to have to enter them onto my site (easily and painlessly) is GONE! WTF?!?! Where did it go? Why isn't it there anymore???? So... that leads me up to this new and exciting (actually new and very boring and very pink) template. I found the area to enter my links into the HTML code on it and copied and pasted each one of them back. This has taken up over an hour of my time. All to end up with a blog page I dislike even more than the one I had before. Damn fuckin computers.

If anyone knows ANYTHING about HTML that can help me out with it, please let me know! It's very ugly and is making my eyes bleed. :)

Say wha???

People magazine has released it's Most Eligible Bachelors list and guess who is on it!?!? That is right, Bret Michaels. Guess it has to do w/ his rocker hair! :) We'll be seeing him in person in exactly 1 month at Jackpot Junction. Can't wait. Kara is hoping to get backstage and I'm going to do all that I can to make sure she gets there. Hopefully the weather then is as perfect as it is here now in MN. Awesome. So glad it is almost the weekend!

On another note, I went to see Sex and the City last week w/ some of my girlfriends and I will verify for you all... It is a very good movie. Although it is long (2 1/2 hours). But it is very entertaining. You have sex, poop, big closets w/ awesome clothing and SHOES, girlfriends, depression, elation, and a nice side view of a dick all crammed in. Good stuff guaranteed. :)

Victory is Mine!

2008 Team Donaldson

I made it. The 150 miles are done, finished, finito, complete! Thank goodness! The weather was about as near to perfect as it could be to bike 150 miles in. Saturday had a slight head wind, but nothing compared to last year and Sunday was overcast w/ a mist of sprinkles for about 10 minutes but other than that we stayed dry! I'm so grateful... Thank you God! It was so much easier to complete than last year. I ended up raising $1,260 and Wade is at $420. Donaldson's team is up to around $80,500 last time I checked, but they are still counting checks that came in and actually accept donations through the end of the month. So hopefully we'll meet our team goal. We'll see. Regardless it was a successful ride and we raised a lot of money for a good cause: to find the cure for MS.

Now it is recuperation time. My rear has to be rested and my muscles need massaged. Wonder if I can talk Wade into giving me one if I give him one in return... It would feel SO nice. :) I'll try to get a pic of Wade and I at the finish and post it on here. I'm sure I look VERY relieved to be done. :)

Thank you all who donated to us! It means SO much to us to have your support! No more riding for me for the time being!

Peace, love and a world free of MS!

Sore Bum

Rode 22 miles last night in preparation for this weekend's 150 mile long ride. My ass hurts. Do you think I'm gonna make it? I'm having some doubts... Especially if it rains!

Eating, Drinking, Racing, Riding (Dang, we’re busy)

The b-day party at the Cab was a blast. We closed the place down (did anyone doubt?) and ran out of free beer around midnight we are guessing. What a good time. It was great to get to see everyone who made it out. I really miss everyone since I've moved. Thanks for coming! Linds, Kara, Sarah & Me

Me & D... Shocker!

Love my Valley girls!

And it was great to get to finally see Lindsay and Mariya (her little baby girl) the following afternoon for some “hangover” pizza. She is absolutely adorable and full of smiles! I miss you Linds, thanks for stopping by to see us!

Seriously, how cute is she??

We got to go out and enjoy some great sushi for my b-day dinner with Brad & Erika last Tuesday. And we even got to sit in a “boat” table. Thanks so much you guys! I’ve officially entered my final year of my 20’s. Of course I will say the same thing next year. I’ll NEVER be 30! Haha! Well, emotionally anyway… :)

In the birthday boat table!

Our caterpillar roll (so cute!)

This last weekend consisted of 3 races for Wade to enjoy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin (aka: Podunk, WI). He had a blast. It was a long weekend but luckily we had great weather and I came home with a nice tan (well, it will turn into a nice tan in a day or 2). I’ve never wanted a shower quite as badly as I did when we got home Sunday night. Being covered in fine dirt being kicked into the air by hundreds of motorcycles is only fun for so long. (Although it did kind of look like a tan before I got a real one) :) Haha… Anyway, Wade had a good time racing and is gearing up for some upcoming races this month. Too bad w/ gas being $4/gal I told him to keep the racing closer to home. We can’t afford for him to be driving down to IL every weekend which is what he would like to do. But seriously, $4/gal!?!?! That is ridiculousness!

In between all this we’ve been trying to work on our house. Pretty unsuccessfully though. However we did get a little landscaping done. Wade dug me 3 holes and I planted stuff in them. Pretty nice. :) But after this weekend our grass was so long that when I went home for lunch we had 3 little rabbits nesting in our yard and Kobe didn’t notice a single one of them! Then Wade tried to mow and the mower broke down 1 strip into the cutting! Luckily he got it working, but this just shows you how bad our yard actually was... Is this long enough for you??? I'm sure our neighbors were hating us! :)

Our house with the new landscaping out front

A close up of my new additions
I just had to put this one in... Kobe is so precious and I didn't even put him there, he got in the pic all by himself. You can see our new ceiling fan that Wade put up for our guests.

This coming weekend is the MS150 bike ride. I’ve been dreading it and it is finally upon us. I am praying to God that it isn’t as bad as last year. And I’ve already started checking the weather hourly for updates. It looks like it will be nice temperature wise (around 77) but cloudy with a 40% chance of rain. Please, please, please…. Don’t rain on me!!! Biking in the rain sounds dangerous and I am accident prone. Heck, I fell once last year and it was bright and sunny out! If it rains on me I may just have to take up residence in the “sag wagon”… Anyway, I’ve gotten some great responses with my fund raising efforts and have easily cleared the $1,000 mark. This means I can eat all the oreos I want at the rest stops! Yay! Here is a link to my page if you want to check out my progress or if you want to donate… Either way. :)
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/MNMBikeEvents?pg=personal&fr_id=7100&fr_id=7100&px=4521285
And THANK YOU so, so much to those who have contributed to me already. It means a lot to me and to those fighting MS. So far Team Donaldson has over 175 riders and raised over $55,000.00. How awesome is that? I will also give pre-ride props and a huge thank you to my wonderful and supporting hubby. Wade, I couldn’t do this ride without you helping me and blocking the wind for “your wifey”. I luv you!

Ride on!