Cleaning up after the storm...

I stopped by my parent's house tonight to drop something off with my mom. As I was leaving we were standing outside talked about the stripes of paint my parents have painted on the front of their house in an attempt to determine which color they are going to paint it - they currently have two stripes and will likely have more in the coming days. My parents have roofing supplies all over their front porch and on their roof because the crew is supposed to arrive in the next couple of days to start working. Their next door neighbor, Jim, who was also our realtor, was getting an estimate from the same company my parents are going with. As I was leaving, the estimator was walking over to talk to my parents. My dad called right after I got home to tell me that the estimator told them that they delivered the supplies for my parents house because it is only way they can guarantee the estimated cost because shingles have been going up on price. While he was there my parents mentioned that Matt and I were waiting for an estimate from their company. In the conversation, they mentioned that our insurance company had only allowed us insurance money for 1/2 of a roof because they claimed the back part of our roof (which faces east) did not get pelted by the hail like the front part did. He told my parents to have Matt and I call him tomorrow morning and he would come give us an estimate himself and would go to bat for us with the insurance company if necessary. Hopefully, we are on our way to getting everything settled after the storm.

My Cardinals won again tonight. They have been completely hot/cold since the All Star Break. They won four against the Padres, lost four to the Brewers, won, lost, and won against the Mets, and have now beaten the Atlanta Braves in three straight games. And they have scored a ton of runs in the last couple of innings in each game. Carpenter returned tonight, pitched four, and only gave up one run.

The start of the weekend...

We had Stephanie's office shower yesterday afternoon at the Twisted Fork. The decor was very eclectic - an industrial ceiling, chandeliers, and animal heads hanging on the walls. Dayo did not make it to the shower because he wasn't feeling well yesterday so Kim told him to stay home and not risk getting Stephanie sick in her final weeks of pregnancy.

We ordered drinks and appetizers to share. The menu is also very ecclectic - we shared fried dill pickel spears, a cheese plate (with goat, sheep and cow cheese, with apples, pepper jam and candied walnuts), and dippin shrimp - which were shrimp in buffalo sauce served with chunky blue cheese dressing. They were served in a martini glass - so much fun!

Kim and Mackenzie both ordered fun drinks. Mackenzie is a big fan of Bloody Marys and Kim got a passion fruit margarita.

Yes, Mackenzie's Bloody Mary was served with a dill pickle spear on top.

We gave Stephanie a Vera Bradley diaper bag. She mentioned at one time to me that she would really like one and I was fairly certain she would not spend the money to buy one for herself.

We had a small scare yesterday because Stephanie did not feel well all Thursday night, and sometimes that can be an early sign of labor. She has had some complications in her pregnancy and her labor will be complicated because she is taking blood thinners that she has to get out of her body before she goes into labor. So, if she is in labor, she needs to know ASAP. But, her sickness disappeared so hopefully it was just a bad reaction to something she ate. We are all excited to meet Alice, but I think Stephanie would like a few more weeks before she makes her appearance.

We shared dessert - a s'mores brownie - which was divine!

Matt and I enjoyed a quite night at home last night, except for a walk we took around our neighborhood once it started to cool off a little bit. We ended up heading to bed early, and I got to sleep in this morning. After heading to the gym for a bit, I took off to do some shopping for Matt's birthday. Sometimes I really struggle with knowing what to get him, and this birthday was defintely one of those times. I wandered around for awhile, managed to figure out a gift for him (a giftcard that I know he will use) and ended up finding a couple of items for our kitchen. We had received a giftcard to Pier One and I usually like to find something special to use a giftcard for and had not found anything spectacular at Pier One in awhile. However, I did today - found glass containers for my kitchen counter to hold flour, sugar, tea, etc. I plan to get them set up tomorrow and will definitely take a picture when I get them set up.

Matt and I watched the Cardinals game tonight - a 5 hour, 14 inning marathon. The Cardinals ended up on top, which is great because they had lost their last five games after sweeping the Padres starting the second half of the season. Hopefully this changes their path for awhile. Chris Carpenter is supposed to get a start this week!!!

A distraction from the destruction...

One of the reasons the damage to our house was a little stressful for Matt and I was the fact that we were scheduled to leave Saturday morning for a short trip to Kansas City to see our friends Andrew and Amy and to go the the Cardinals vs. Royals game on Saturday night. After determining that out house was not in any danger of further damage (no ceilings falling in, nothing hanging off the house, etc.) we decided to go ahead and make the trip. We did not get out of town as early as we had planned on Saturday and it took us a little longer to get out of town than we anticipated because there were many traffic lights that were still not working and traffic was backed up. Andrew and Amy were spending the weeknd with Andrew's parents, Charlie and Judy, at their house in Lathrop, MO. We arrived in time for a late lunch at El Guapo, a little, hole-in-the-wall, Mexican restaurant about 10 minutes from their house. We have eaten at El Guapo every time that I have visited Andrew's parents - which is fine with me because the food is really good. After lunch we hung around the house for awhile, Matt and I took a ride in the 1928 Model A Ford that Andrew's dad is restoring, and then headed to KC to the ballpark. We saw a great game - especially since the Cardinals were 0-4 in the series until Saturday night and actually won the game. There is nothing better than an ice cold beer, an order of nachos, a nice evening, and enjoying a great baseball game with good friends. Oh, and seeing Amy almost get into a fight with the really annoying girl who sat two rows in front of us was just the mustard on the hotdog for the evening :)

Here are the four of us enjoying the win!

The game was also a great win because the final score was 5-1 and the one run the Royals scored was scored during the 7th inning, which meant that we could take our ticket stubs to a Sheridan's Custard for a free sundae.

So, we stopped in Liberty on the way home for some hot fudge sundaes.

We spent most of the day Sunday at Andrew's parents house. We enjoyed a breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast (yum!), played MarioKart for about 2 hours, and spent some time sitting by the pool after we had lunch. We headed back to Omaha about 4 because we had agreed to help my parents move some furniture.

When we arrived at my parents house, my mom showed us what they had discovered the morning when my dad arrived home from his trip (he was in Kentucky for the weekend) that the rest of us had failed to notice:

This is a fairly major support beam on my parent's deck just barely resting on the concrete block on the ground. All of us, including my almost 88-year-old grandmother had walked around on this deck before my dad noticed this.

Wow!

Cardinals

Those of you who know me know that I am a huge baseball fan - especially the Saint Louis Cardinals. Matt and I recently discovered that we can order MLB Extra Innings through our cable. Earlier this spring we thought we were going to be able to order this package which would allow us to watch almost every MLB game this entire season, but then we found out that DirectTV got an exclusive so if you wanted MLB Extra Innings, we would have to get Direct TV - which we were not going to change to after just getting our cable, phone and wireless internet set up through Time Warner (not that I am 100% thrilled with that company, but that is a story for another day....) so we were just going to deal with not getting every Cardinals game this season :( Then about a week ago, we found out that TWC and some other cable companies fought the exclusive with Direct TV and now we can get it - so it is decision time because of course, it isn't cheap. However, Matt and I really enjoy watching Cardinals games together and sometimes I feel like Matt gave up alot to move to Nebraska with me and unfortunately we cannot get FSN Midwest here (at least not the version of FSN Midwest that carries Cards games) so if we can splurge a little bit and pay for MLB Extra Innings I feel that it is worth it. However, my previous post discussed saving money and here I am one day later talking about spending more. Decisions....decisions....

Today is also Jackie Robinson Day in MLB - the 60th Anniversary of the day Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and began his major league career. Both the Cardinals and the Brewers are all wearing the number 42 on their uniforms today in commemoration of the event. I find it really ironic that the same week that Don Imus is fired for making racist and sexist remarks on national radio and television - we are also recognizing the achievement of a young African-American baseball player who truly changed national sports in America.

How far have we really come in the last 60 years??