Back from the silence

My sister informed me that I need to update my blog because I am not in California anymore. She is correct...it is 3 stinkin' degrees outside which is definitely not characteristic of most of California. Matt and I went to the Creighton basketball game with Dan and Becky last night and then went to Barley's Tiptop for some drinks. After driving them back to their car (we left it at California Pizza Kitchen after dinner so we only had one car downtown) we arrived home at about midnight. The gauge on our car indicated it was a balmy 48 degrees outside. I remember not buttoning my jacket when we walked out of the Qwest.

I woke up this morning to the sound of wind howling so I turned on the tv to find out what the temperature was and discovered it was 10 degrees. I think that was our high for the day. Matt and I headed out to do some Christmas shopping and froze running in and out of buildings. But, we got some very important Christmas shopping done! Ma tt talked to his sister this afternoon and they went from 60 degrees to 20 degrees in about 30 minutes!

I also finished decorating our hearth tonight. I started working on it last week and bought the finishing touches today. I included a picture below just for fun.

In January, our household is growing! Pell and Bren have decided to move back to the midwest and Omaha was on their list of possible cities to move to. Matt and I let them know that they would be welcome to move in with us until Pell finds a job and they are able to sell their house in Oregon. They have taken us up on our offer so we are gaining three roommates (they are bringing their cat with them) around January 25th! We are excited to have them close by and thrilled that they will be able to live with us while they figure things out! We will be spending some time over our holiday breaks getting the house ready.

I am working a 4 day work week this week (I'm taking Friday off to finish some Christmas shopping and get some things done) and then I only work Monday and Tuesday the following week. I love working in Higher Ed - especially Creighton because we were supposed to be off until January 2nd, but the university imposed a mandatory vacation day so I don't have to go back until January 5th. Twelve straight days off! And I need it - especially since we have plans to go to Shelbina for a few days and then thought we would head to Saint Louis because Gregg is home for the holidays and there is a Jameson baby we haven't met yet!

I have decided to give candy making a try this year and will be starting with english toffee. I bought a candy thermometer the other day and plan to make a batch sometime in the next week. I need to figure out when the humidity will be the lowest - maybe next Sunday since the high is supposed to be 5!

DMB

I saw Dave Matthews Band live for the first time last night. The show was good - I was a little disappointed by his lack of enthusiasm for the crowd, but the music was very good. I was supremely impressed by the fact that Dave himself introduced the opening musician, Ingrid Michaelson. I've never been to a concert where the headliner walked onto the stage and introduced the opening act. I prefer and am more familiar with DMB's older stuff, and there were some newer songs he played that I had not heard before. I think I would like to see DMB again to see if the lack of interest I saw from the band was just a one-time occurrance.

Mackenzie and I did get the opportunity to people watch at the show. This included the couple right in front of us who made out and were all over each other throughout most of the show (and stood up for most of it!), the woman in the row behind us who appeared to be extremely stoned, and the guy a few rows in front of us who had zero rhythm and who bopped his head around like a duck throughout the entire show (he and the group he was with stood up the whole time also). Fun stuff.

I'm currently working on plans for Matt's birthday and for my mom's birthday. We will be celebrating Matt's birthday on Sunday night with pizza at Zio's and my mom's carrot cake at our house, and then we will be celebrating my mom's birthday next Friday night with dinner at the Witters. I'm taking next Friday off to help prepare. Matt and I are fairly certain his parents will be visiting next weekend as well. It will be mid-August before we know it.

I'm exhausted today so my post will likely not be too long. I had a terrible case of insomnia last night and definitely remember 1am coming and going before I finally fell asleep. Needless to say, the 6am alarm was not very welcoming.

I'm not sure what caused this as my weekend was pretty calm. Matt and I went out for Date Nite on Friday. We decided to eat a Granite City, one of our favorites when we lived in Lincoln, but we had not yet been to the one here. The menu is different and my favorite salad, the buffalo chicken one, is gone. I had to settle for a dinner salad and a cup of Cheddar and Ale soup. Matt really likes their Chicken Parmesan and must have been craving it because he didn't even look at the menu when we got there.

I went to work out on Saturday morning then met a friend for lunch, shopped for a baby gift, and went to the baby shower. It was incredibly hot out on Saturday - we defintely experienced a typical July day in the midwest.

Matt and went to see Hancock on Saturday night. I was aware of the basic plot of the movie, but was surprised by the direction it took. I won't give any more away, but I thought it was good. It is funny, serious, and a little dark at times.

We had family dinner at my parent's last night. Jim and Matt were both missing so we invited Grandma along. We enjoyed my favorite Cajun Shrimp and had pound cake, peaches and ice cream for dessert - the first good peaches I have had this year. We also pulled out old family pictures and had a great time looking through them.

Although tomorrow is Tuesday I will not be posting my new weight because Mackenzie and I will be at the Dave Matthews Band concert at the Qwest. I have never seen/heard DMB in person and I am really excited. However, I checked my weight tonight to see where I was at, and I am expecting a good number on Wednesday when I check in!

I'm headed to bed - let's hope that tonight is a better night than last night!

On the road again...

I tried to update this last night since it was Tuesday and I've been trying to update my blog regarding my healthy campaign on Tuesdays. However, we experienced a horrible storm (again) that caused our internet to go haywire and I couldn't post. So, here is the update.

Starting Weight: 175.9 lbs
Last Week: 172.5 lbs
New Weight: 170.5 lbs
Loss for the Week: 2.0 lbs
Total Loss: 5.4 lbs - YAY!

I'm excited to be on this path again. It actually seems easier this time becuase my viewpoint is much more holistic regarding a healthy lifestyle. I'm eating better, working out, and trying to drink more water daily.

Weekend Wrap-up

My mom and I attended the morning session of the swimming trials on Saturday. We watched 10 heats of the Men's 1500 meter. Just so you know, the world record for this event is 14min. 34 seconds - so we spent about 2.5 hours watching swimmers swim back and forth across the pool. Regardless, I loved it. My mom and I ate lunch downtown and then walked around the Old Market for awhile before meeting up with my dad and Matt for the evening session. We were able to see several great races including the finals for the Men's 50 meters. Very exciting.

I got to sleep in on Sunday because there were not morning swimming events which was great because I was up early both Friday and Saturday to get down to the Qwest. Matt and went to work out, watched a little bit of the Cards/Cubs game and then headed downtown for dinner at Jim's before we headed to the final night of the trials. We saw an exciting Women's 50 meter race in which Dara Torres won, set an American record and qualified for her 2nd event in her 5th Olympic games. Amazing! The Peking Acrobats performed after the show - which was incredible to see. It was actually the second time I have seen them as the performed at Truman when I was a student there.

Work has been busy the last couple of days. My email has been fairly out of control lately, I have an event I am planning next week that requires alot of details and a creating a 2 hour presentation from scratch, and I'm trying to prepare for travel this fall. I'm excited to travel again especially because I've already been through it once. It is alot easier to make plans (plane, hotel, car, etc) when I know what I'm getting into.

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!

Ruby Rae

A quick congratulations to my cousin Matt, his wife Jill, and big brother Beckett, on the birth of Ruby Rae today!

Hopefully, I'll have the priviledge of meeting Ruby Rae soon!

Updates....

Quite a bit has happened since my last update. First, I started a new job. I'm now working at Creighton University for the School of Pharmacy and Health Professions at an admission counselor and I LOVE IT! Next week, I begin my travel season which will last the entire month of October. I plan on updating this blog throughout my travel season (hopefully - I'm not so great with the updating) so that I can keep all of my readers updated on my whereabouts and adventures. I have included the list below of where I will be and when - let the adventures begin!

September 30th-October 4th - Urbana/Champaign, Chicago and Rock Island, IL
October 7th-October 11th - San Francisco
October 12th-October 19th - Lincoln, Kearney, Seward, and Omaha, NE
October 22nd-October 24th - San Diego
October 25th-October 26th - Honolulu
October 27th-November 1st - Los Angeles

It will be a crazy month, but I am very excited about traveling and talking to students about Creighton and Omaha.

Oh, and Matt and I are buying a house. We put an offer in on one this past weekend and it was accepted. We plan to close on November 9th, so Matt will have alot to do while I am gone to get us ready to move. Maybe it will keep him from missing me too much :)