Weekend Recap: Date Night & Adam's Trip to California

We had a quiet Friday evening at home watching the season finale of Gold Rush. Oh yes, we watch that show. It's a bit over dramatic at times, but we like it. I really like Parker and his Grandpa, so I was hoping they'd have a better season. I love to hate Dakota Fred, and I for real don't like Todd and his crew. Ugh. They seem like such idiots.

For dinner, I tried a new recipe which actually turned out quite well. Shrimp & Feta stew - Recipe here

 It was a good thing it turned out because the new recipe I tried the day before in the crockpot was disgusting. It was supposed to be a taco dish but tasted and looked like ground meat sludge with bloated tortilla strips. Ick.

Saturday was a lounging day. Adam ran a few errands including dropping off our old modem at Comcast. So glad to be done with them! We watched a movie, Fly Fishing in the Yeomen, which was a more of a love story than a fishing story. That evening was date night! We went out for Mexican which was delicious, and then to a movie, Django Unchained. It was a typical Quentin Tarantino movie in that it was extra violent, funny and mildly offensive. We enjoyed it though!

On Sunday, we enjoyed sleeping in and then it was time to take Adam to the airport at 1 for his flight to California for vacation work. Chester was a little stressed and didn't know what was going on. Adam even got to use his new luggage (in back). His (aka my) old Samsonite carry-on wouldn't fit in the overheads without having to be turned sideways, which was a constant irritation and discussion with the flight attendants. "Turn the wheels out please, sir"
It doesn't fit that way...
(flight attendant tries it)
"Oh, it doesn't fit that way. Okay that's fine..."
So I'm sure he's glad to have something that fits straight in.

"Take me with you, Dad!"

Excuse my lounge-wear, the only time I went out all day was to take Adam to the airport & Chester for a walk

He's been there all week now, so it's been pretty quiet at home. Luckily, Chester and I have kept pretty busy, and Chester has enjoyed lots of snuggling and being allowed to sleep in bed!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a lovely Valentine's Day at home last week. We made a delicious meal that Adam grilled out in the cold and snow. We had steak, shrimp, garlic bread and asparagus with champagne. Yum!

BTW - That candle was our couples candle from the marriage retreat. The Christmas-y yarn around it was something we weaved together. The colors symbolized something, but I don't remember now... 

 My boys got me some BEAUTIFUL flowers that reminded me of my wedding bouquet. Roses and tulips are some of my favorites, especially lavender roses and cream tulips. I'm still enjoying them this week!

I got Adam some special beer and a 10-year port.

Chester got a few toys from us, including a CUZ,

and Martha Stewart fleece ball that he is obsessed with. 

We also got some nice Valentine's from our parents and siblings. And of course Chester got some too! Here he is with all his Valentine's Day loot. Spoiled little guy.

That night we all snuggled on the couch as a fam and watched our show, Grey's Anatomy. It was perfect!

Our New (Old) Chair

Last week my dad sent me a photo of an antique side table at Boyer's Furniture to see if I was interested in it.

It wasn't my style, but the chair next to it looked intriguing...

I asked my dad if he could send photos of the chair, and he came through.

This chair now belongs to us! Now I have to start the search for fabric to reupholster it. I love projects like this!

Weekend Recap: 2-4-1 Still Hibernating + Errands

I have a few weekend recaps to catch up on. Luckily (for blogging purposes), we haven't been up to a whole lot so there's not much to recap.

On Friday, we went to the MOA after work so I could try on shoes for Laura's wedding. They had my size, so I bought them. They are pink and surprisingly pretty comfortable. I also found some comfynew work shoes, so it was quite a successful little trip.

Saturday morning we had a yummy breakfast of steak hash and Bloody Mary's. Adam makes the best hash!

 Twins tickets went on sale at noon. Since our Internet wasn't working well, I logged on and waited in virtual line on both the PC and my iphone. I ended up doing the whole process on my phone, which was kind of a pain. But we did get pretty good tickets for the April game with the fishing lure promo. Demand must have been way down because it didn't take long to get in to the ticket purchase.

That afternoon, Adam went ice fishing with his dad. Sounds like they had a fun time! Chester and I hung out at home.

Sunday was our errand day. We went to JoAnn to look at a few things, OfficeMax to get a poster board for my work, RadioShack for telephone line for DSL (can you believe there were no phone jacks in our house?), Bruegger's for a bagel for me, and lastly Target for a few things. At Target, Adam let me get the furry fluffly pillow I've been wanting. He says there's a reason it's been on clearance for the past few weeks and still there. But I love it!

Back at home, I took Chester for an afternoon walk because it was just so beautiful out. The sunshine felt great.

Then I worked on a few projects for the gallery wall I hope to have up someday.

First, a shadowbox of our travels featuring different coins from Canada, the UK, France and Ireland. I layed it out with a couple different paper colors before deciding on black. I cut the scrapbook paper down to fit in the frame, and then arranged the coins a few different ways. Once I found an arrangement I liked, I fired up the hot glue gun.

 Here's the final version. I think it turned out really well!

My second project was a shadowbox of our wedding, similar to one I did as an anniversary gift for my parents (with their wedding mementos). I went through my wedding box and found some items I wanted to include. Then I cut down some of the fabric that was on our head table and hot glued it to cardboard as the background.

I played around with it until I liked the layout and hot-glued it all in place. I included our invitation, program, napkins, feather from a centerpiece, tulle from my veil, and the brooch I wore in my hair.

I love how they both turned out!

While I was working on these projects, Adam was watching the Gopher Hockey game at Soldier Field with Chester.

 That night, we watched "The Walking Dead." I'm so glad it's back on! Chester likes watching TV, but watch out if a dog or horse or cat or zombie or weird cartoon thing or jingling noise comes on because he will leap down and start pawing at the tv while barking like a maniac. It's real pleasant.

I also enjoyed my Valentine's Day flowers all weekend. They're so pretty!

Now here's the 2-4-1 part!
The prior weekend, we didn't do a whole lot either.
On Friday after work I ran to Target and ended up buying a bunch of picture frames and pillows that were on sale. The frames will be for the gallery wall downstairs and in the new guest room. The pillows will also be for the new guest room.

Saturday was our errand day. And we did a lot. We started out with lunch at Five Guys. It's a fast casual burger place. It was quite good. I especially appreciated that they had malt vinegar for the fries. Then it was on to Fleet Farm to look at steel-toed boots for Adam's upcoming California work trip and ice fishing stuff since we were there. I had fun picking out some sparkly feathery jigs for fishing this summer. Next up was the jewelry store for the twice annual inspection and cleaning of my rings, and then it was on to the mall. There we found a new down comforter for the guest room, sunglasses for Adam, leggings for me, and a wet vac that Adam's been wanting. Now that the basement is all organized, Adam wants to keep it clean as well! Hooray!

That evening we watched "Ted" which I was quite disappointed in. It had its funny moments, but I mostly just found it boring. Bummer.

On Sunday, Adam was feeling lazy and I was feeling motivated, so I got a lot of housework done while he relaxed with Chester. And then I made some beer braised shredded pork and we had nachos for dinner. Yum.

The only photo I managed to take all that weekend was of Chester (of course). He wasn't out in the living room by us, which usually means he's up to no good. This time I found him in the kitchen. Just sitting amongst the boots and shoes. It was pretty cute.

Back Up and Blogging

You've probably been wondering why there haven't been any blog updates for a few weeks. You may have even wondered, "Is it because they're not up to anything interesting?" While this may be somewhat true, the real reason was because of Internet issues at home that made blogging more annoying than fun. Our Internet would work sporadically, and usually resulted in having to refresh a page 5x or so in order to get it to load. Quite frustrating and not worth the effort.

We've been having issues with our Comcast for a while now, and have DirecTV so we finally made the switch to CenturyLink for Internet. Adam had to do some phone line installation over the weekend, and it went live last night!

As always, Chester was extra helpful with the whole process!

"What?"

I should have lots of updates this week on what we've been up to for the past few weeks. It's nothing too thrilling, but I promise there will at least be photos of Chester!

Weekend Recap: House Projects & Super Bowl

We had a lot of house projects we wanted to get done over the weekend. After work on Friday we went to Home Depot and picked up a bunch of salt for our ice driveway and sidewalk, along with peg board for Adam and grey paint chips for me.
Right away that night I spent a few hours upstairs going through paperwork and stuff in my "office." I have big plans of switching this space with the guest room across the hall. So the current second guest room (with the futon) will be my office, and my current office will be the second guest room with the futon. Mainly this is because of paint colors. I can't wait to repaint the gross pink that is in my office and put up some of our sports memorabilia for the new second guest room.

But before I can do all that, I need to clean the disaster. Sorry, I have no photos as I'm a bit embarrassed about how bad it is. But I'm working on it!

On Saturday, I worked upstairs for a few more hours in the morning and then came down to hang out with Chester so Adam could work in the basement. While he was down there, I surfed the web and found some stencil and fabrics I liked for upstairs. In the basement, Adam assembled the work bench his dad made, put up the peg board, and then started to get organized.

Before the work bench, all his stuff was scattered all over the basement floor, so this is a huge improvement and gives him a nice work space!

That afternoon, we ran some errands (Home Depot, Jo-Ann, the liquor store and Target). When we got home, I took Chester out and promptly fell on the ice in our driveway. Ugh. It's been painful this whole week. Adam's been a trooper and has been taking Chester on all his walks.

We watched a movie and relaxed in the evening.

Sunday morning, Adam did some more organizing in the basement. We also worked on a puzzle that was surprisingly difficult for only 500 pieces! We think it was because it was an artist's painting so all the pieces looked really similar. It's of Split Rock Lighthouse.

Then Adam made some guac and we headed over to his Curt & Robin's to watch the Super Bowl. There we had delicious nachos and enjoyed the game. It was a little boring at first, but the 49ers sure made it interesting in the second half. After the half hour epic light fail of course. How bizarre!

Chester enjoyed running around on the carpet and then had a nice long snuggle session with me in his hammock.

Yes, he was suspended in the blanket between my legs (nothing underneath him but the blanket and air).

It was goofy!

I really wanted the 49ers to win for the sake of my guy Randy Moss, but alas, it was not meant to be.

Twins Fest: Expanded Edition

This is my expanded Twins Fest post, also known as lots-of-photos-of-players-you've-probably-never-heard-of-signing-baseball-stuff.

So we picked up Kelly a little late, closer to 10:30 than 10, and then headed to the dome. We ended up parking in the underground ramp right across the street. It was $10, but the short walk in the cold was totally worth it.

When we got there, we put our coats in some random seats, and headed down to the floor. There we were shocked to find out that the Down on the Farm line for Sano was already ridiculously long. He didn't start signing until 11, and the line was already wrapped around the little kids home run field. Volunteers came by and told everyone by us that getting Sano was "unlikely." But we waited. We figured that at least we'd have a head start on Gibson and Hicks.

 As we got closer, I panicked and realized we didn't have anything for them to sign but our baseballs, so I raced to the Sports Authority booth and grabbed 3 pennants. By the time I got back, Christine and Kelly were far up in the line. Thankfully they had told the volunteers to look out for me, and the let me in.
We got really lucky and the line went relatively fast considering how long it was. We made it to the front by 12:20 (they signed 11-12:30).

So we got
Miguel Sano

Alex Meyer,

Caleb Thielbar and Chris Hermann.

 We did wait in line a lot, but it was fun to visit and we saw a lot of players walk by. Like d-bag Cole DeVries in gold hipster pants,

Joe Mauer,

Trevor Plouffe,

and former Twin Rod Carew.

We even saw Terry Ryan.

And I snuck off to see Plouffe in his signing session. He pretended to sign a baby's head. It was amusing.

After getting those autographs, we went immediately to the end of the line to wait for Gibson and Hicks. They signed from 12:45-2:15. We waited in line for them from 12:30-1:40.

We got Kyle Gibson and

Aaron Hicks.

 I knew that Bert Blyleven was over at the photo booth from 1:15-1:45. I thought we'd have plenty of time, but after the Hicks/Gibson line took forever, I feared we had missed out. We made it over there at 1:43. The line was pretty short, but the volunteers taking the money said Bert was done. Sadface. Then one said she would check, but then came back and said he was done. Christine and Kelly started walking away, but I lingered. Then another volunteer actually asked him, and he said he would stay another 10 minutes. Hooray! I gladly forked over $5.

Bert was very personable and asked each of us our names as he shook our hands. After the photo, he asked where we were from and told some story about visiting the Boys & Girls Club in LaC. As we were getting our stuff back, I checked the photo and noticed my eyes were shut! Disaster! Luckily, when I told the guy that took the photo, he said they would just do it again. Bert was super nice about it as well. I'm so glad it worked out.
Here's the lovely eyes closed photo -

 Next, we grabbed some lunch at the Ballpark Cafe. We took our food up into the stand and listened to some of the radio interview with Willingham, Pelfrey, Moreanu and Perkins.

We also saw my fav, Skeeta come by with Bullseye.

 After lunch, we wandered around and looked at the Baseball Hall of Fame display from Canton, vendor booths, and some of the other players giving autographs like Drew Butera with Alex Burnett and Jared Burton,

and Vance Worley with Tyler Robertson.

By then, the Down on the Farm line was going down, so we waited for about 15 minutes and got Trevor May,

B.J. Hermsen,

and Pedro Hernandez.

On our way out, we listened to Anthony Swarzak's interview at the Celebrate Diversity Corner from 3:30-3:40.

It was a really good time!